Mathematicians Of The Day

17th February



On this day in 1600, after a trial lasting seven years, Giordano Bruno was burned alive at the Campo de' Fiori in Rome. He was gagged so that onlookers would not be seduced by any of his heretical statements.

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Quotation of the day

From Adolphe Quetelet
The more progress physical sciences make, the more they tend to enter the domain of mathematics, which is a kind of centre to which they all converge. We may even judge the degree of perfection to which a science has arrived by the facility with which it may be submitted to calculation.
Quoted in E Mailly, Eulogy on Quetelet 1874