Mathematicians Of The Day

28th July



On this day in 1899, Cantor asked Dedekind whether the set of all cardinal numbers is itself a set, because, if it is, it would have a cardinal number larger than any other cardinal.

The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1990.

Click on for a poster.


Quotation of the day

From Gaspard Monge
Descriptive geometry has two objects: the first is to establish methods to represent on drawing paper which has only two dimensions, -- namely, length and width, -- all solids of nature which have three dimensions, -- length, width, and depth, -- provided, however, that these solids are capable of rigorous definition.
The second object is to furnish means to recognize accordingly an exact description of the forms of solids and to derive thereby all truths which result from their forms and their respective positions.