Mathematicians Of The Day

22nd July



On this day in 1680, Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus was elected to the Paris Académie des Sciences.

Click on for a poster.


Quotation of the day

From David van Dantzig
The attempt to apply rational arithmetic to a problem in geometry resulted in the first crisis in the history of mathematics. The two relatively simple problems -- the determination of the diagonal of a square and that of the circumference of a circle -- revealed the existence of new mathematical beings for which no place could be found within the rational domain.
Quoted in E Maor, To infinity and beyond (Princeton 1991)