MacTutor
Mathematicians Of The Day
26th January
On this day in 1697, Isaac Newton received Johann Bernoulli's brachistochrone problem. According to Newton's biographer Conduitt, he solved the problem in an evening after returning home from the Royal Mint. Newton:
A (personally designed) stamp of one of today's mathematicians is at THIS LINK.
... in the midst of the hurry of the great recoinage, did not come home till four (in the afternoon) from the Tower very much tired, but did not sleep till he had solved it, which was by four in the morning.See THIS LINK.
A (personally designed) stamp of one of today's mathematicians is at THIS LINK.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1799: Émile Clapeyron Ⓟ
- 1861: Amy Rayson
- 1862: Eliakim Moore Ⓟ
- 1945: John Coates Ⓟ
- 1947: András Huhn Ⓟ
Died:
- 1630: Henry Briggs Ⓟ
- 1697: Georg Mohr
- 1895: Arthur Cayley Ⓟ
- 1921: Alexander Pell Ⓟ
- 1929: Constantin Le Paige Ⓟ
- 1937: Robert de Montessus Ⓟ
- 1942: Felix Hausdorff Ⓟ
- 1952: James Craig
- 1974: Thomas Graham Ⓟ
- 2007: Gregory Maxwell Kelly Ⓟ
- 2008: Anthony Spencer Ⓟ
- 2017: Vera Spinadel Ⓟ
- 2020: Louis Nirenberg Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From Eliakim Moore
A quotation by H E Slaught:
...Moore was presenting a paper on a highly technical topic to a large gathering of faculty and graduate students from all parts of the country. When half way through he discovered what seemed to be an error (though probably no one else in the room observed it). He stopped and re-examined the doubtful step for several minutes and then, convinced of the error, he abruptly dismissed the meeting -- to the astonishment of most of the audience. It was an evidence of intellectual courage as well as honesty and doubtless won for him the supreme admiration of every person in the group -- an admiration which was in no wise diminished, but rather increased, when at a later meeting he announced that after all he had been able to prove the step to be correct.
