MacTutor
Mathematicians Of The Day
12th May
On this day in 1819, Sophie Germain wrote to Gauss
... I have never ceased to think of the theory of numbers. ... A long time before our Academy proposed as the subject of a prize the proof of the impossibility of Fermat's equation, this challenge ... has often tormented me.She proposed a strategy for a general proof of Fermat's last theorem: the first substantial progress in 200 years.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1820: John Casey Ⓟ
- 1820: Florence Nightingale Ⓟ
- 1845: Henri Brocard Ⓟ
- 1851: Samuel Dickstein Ⓟ
- 1857: Oskar Bolza Ⓟ
- 1865: Thomas Scott Fiske Ⓟ
- 1889: Mildred Sanderson Ⓟ
- 1900: Pedro Puig Adam Ⓟ
- 1902: Frank Yates Ⓟ
- 1919: Wen-Tsun Wu Ⓟ
- 1939: Herbert Pahlings Ⓟ
- 1977: Maryam Mirzakhani Ⓟ
Died:
- 1003: Gerbert of Aurillac Ⓟ
- 1682: Michelangelo Ricci Ⓟ
- 1742: Joseph Privat de Molières
- 1856: Jacques Binet Ⓟ
- 1859: Leslie Ellis Ⓟ
- 1927: Giuseppe Bagnera Ⓟ
- 1952: George Lidstone Ⓟ
- 1977: Joseph Dennis Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From Florence Nightingale
The true foundation of theology is to ascertain the character of God. It is by the art of Statistics that law in the social sphere can be ascertained and codified, and certain aspects of the character of God thereby revealed. The study of statistics is thus a religious service.
