MacTutor
Mathematicians Of The Day
2nd August
On this day in 1784, Lazare Carnot received two gold medals and a prize from the Paris Academy of Science for his Éloge de Vauban, the presentation being by the Prince of Condé.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1856: Ferdinand Rudio Ⓟ
- 1887: Oskar Anderson Ⓟ
- 1890: Herbert Dingle Ⓟ
- 1902: Mina Rees Ⓟ
- 1942: Patrick Keast Ⓟ
Died:
- 1823: Lazare Carnot Ⓟ
- 1962: John Smith
- 1970: Salvatore Cherubino
- 1976: László Kalmár Ⓟ
- 2016: Jonathan Borwein Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From Lazare Carnot
... the sciences are like a beautiful river, of which the course is easy to follow, when it has acquired a certain regularity; but if one wants to go back to the source, one will find it nowhere, because it is everywhere; it is spread so much [as to be] over all the surface of the earth; it is the same if one wants to go back to the origin of the sciences, one will find only obscurity, vague ideas, vicious circles; and one loses oneself in the primitive ideas.
