MacTutor
Mathematicians Of The Day
12th April
On this day in 1749, Euler wrote to Goldbach that he had succeeded in proving Fermat's theorem on sums of two squares. Fermat had stated in 1640 that an odd prime number p can be expressed as for integers x, y if and only if p is congruent to 1 (mod 4), but had given no proof.
The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1977.
The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1977.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1794: Germinal Dandelin Ⓟ
- 1847: Egor Ivanovich Zolotarev Ⓟ
- 1852: Ferdinand von Lindemann Ⓟ
- 1883: Clarence Lewis Ⓟ
- 1900: William Youden Ⓟ
- 1903: Jan Tinbergen Ⓟ
Died:
- 1919: Rudolf Sturm Ⓟ
- 1944: John Raymond Wilton
- 1971: Wolfgang Krull Ⓟ
- 2000: David Crighton Ⓟ
- 2023: Ivo Babuska Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From Ferdinand von Lindemann
The oxygen atom has the shape of a ring, and the sulphur atom, the shape of a clot.
