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Mathematicians Of The Day
23rd August
On this day in 1638, René Descartes, in a letter to Mersenne, proposed his folium () as a test case to challenge Fermat's differentiation techniques. To Descartes' embarrassment, Fermat's method worked better than his own.
See THIS LINK
The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1961.
See THIS LINK
The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1961.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1683: Giovanni Poleni Ⓟ
- 1778: Jozéf Hoëné Wronski Ⓟ
- 1797: Jean Claude Saint-Venant Ⓟ
- 1829: Moritz Cantor Ⓟ
- 1842: Osborne Reynolds Ⓟ
- 1873: Zoárd Geöcze Ⓟ
- 1893: Joseph Ritt Ⓟ
- 1908: John Todd Ⓟ
- 1909: Florence Nightingale David Ⓟ
- 1919: Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin Ⓟ
- 1928: Israel Gohberg Ⓟ
- 1929: Anthony Spencer Ⓟ
- 1956: Andreas Floer Ⓟ
Died:
- 1806: Charles Augustin Coulomb Ⓟ
- 1923: Hertha Marks Ayrton Ⓟ
- 1935: Julius Gysel Ⓟ
- 1973: Hellmuth Kneser Ⓟ
- 1988: Hans Lewy Ⓟ
- 2004: Leopold Schmetterer Ⓟ
- 2006: Elemér Kiss Ⓟ
- 2009: Pierre Samuel Ⓟ
- 2012: James Serrin Ⓟ
- 2016: Reinhard Selten Ⓟ
- 2020: Peter Borwein Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From Hertha Marks Ayrton
An error that ascribes to a man what was actually the work of a woman has more lives than a cat.
