Mathematicians Of The Day

30th March



On this day in 1796, the nineteen year old Gauss began his scientific diary with his construction of the regular 17-gon.
See THIS LINK.
A week later he would obtain his first proof of the quadratic reciprocity law.

Click on for a poster.


Quotation of the day

From John Synge
"The northern ocean is beautiful", said the Orc, "and beautiful the delicate intricacy of the snowflake before it melts and perishes, but such beauties are as nothing to him who delights in numbers, spurning alike the wild irrationality of life and the baffling complexities of nature's laws."
Kandelman's Krim (London 1957)