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.

The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1939.

Click on for a poster.


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.
F N David: Games, God and Gambling (1962)