Mathematicians Of The Day

7th March



On this day in 1737, Leonard Euler presented his paper, De fractionibus continuis dissertatio (Essay on continued fractions), to the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences. With the exception of a few isolated results which appeared in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, most of the elementary theory of continued fractions was developed in this paper.

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Quotation of the day

From John Herschel
A mind which has once imbibed a taste for scientific inquiry, and has learnt the habit of applying its principles readily to the cases which occur, has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations.