Mathematicians Of The Day

3rd April



On this day in 1753, Leonard Euler wrote to Christian Goldbach to say that he had confirmed Goldbach's conjecture that every odd integer could be written as 2n2+p2n^2 + p with p a prime for the the first 2500 integers. A hundred years later, Moritz Stern found two counterexamples: 5777 and 5993.

The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1972.

Click on for a poster.


Quotation of the day

From Leone Battista Alberti
Beauty: the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole.