Mathematicians Of The Day
31st March
On this day in 1952, Alan Turing was charged with homosexual acts, offering no defence other than that he saw nothing wrong in his actions. Found guilty, he was given the alternatives of prison or oestrogen injections for a year. He accepted the latter and returned to a wide range of academic pursuits.
See THIS LINK.
The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1937.
See THIS LINK.
The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1937.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1596: René Descartes Ⓟ
- 1730: Étienne Bézout Ⓟ
- 1795: Louis Richard
- 1800: Stephen de Gurbs
- 1803: Leopold Karl Schulz von Strassnitzki Ⓟ
- 1806: Thomas Kirkman Ⓟ
- 1848: Diederik Korteweg Ⓟ
- 1884: Nicolae Abramescu Ⓟ
- 1917: Beno Eckmann Ⓟ
- 1920: Frank Bonsall Ⓟ
- 1921: Martin Löb Ⓟ
Died:
- 1624: João Baptista Lavanha
- 1727: Isaac Newton Ⓟ
- 1877: Augustin Cournot Ⓟ
- 1919: Józef Puzyna Ⓟ
- 1920: Paul Bachmann Ⓟ
- 1941: Witold Wilkosz Ⓟ
- 1964: William Gentle Ⓟ
- 1971: William Youden Ⓟ
- 1991: Linards Reiziņš Ⓟ
- 1997: Lyman Spitzer Ⓟ
- 2001: Geoffrey Walker Ⓟ
- 2003: Donald Coxeter Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From Augustin Cournot
...those skilled in mathematical analysis know that its object is not simply to calculate numbers, but that it is also employed to find the relations between magnitudes which cannot be expressed in numbers and between functions whose law is not capable of algebraic expression.