Mathematicians Of The Day

27th April



On this day in 1657 Christiaan Huygens published De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae [Reasoning in games of chance] on the calculus of probabilities, the first printed work on the subject.

Click on for a poster.


Quotation of the day

From Gian-Carlo Rota
Why is it that Serge Lange's Linear Algebra, published by no less a Verlag than Springer, ostentatiously displays the sale of a few thousand copies over a period of fifteen years, while the same title by Seymour Lipschutz in the The Schaum's Outlines will be considered a failure unless it brings in a steady annual income from the sale of a few hundred thousand copies in twenty-six languages?
Indiscrete Thoughts