MacTutor
Mathematicians Of The Day
17th October
On this day in 1952, D H Lehmer announced that for n = 2203 and 2281 are Mersenne primes. He was aided by a SWAC computer, with the first result taking 59 minutes. SWAC had been built in 1950 in Los Angeles.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1759: Jacob (II) Bernoulli Ⓟ
- 1808: Philip Kelland Ⓟ
- 1870: David J Tweedie
- 1888: Paul Bernays Ⓟ
- 1927: Friedrich Hirzebruch Ⓟ
Died:
- 1817: John West
- 1887: Gustav Kirchhoff Ⓟ
- 1923: August Adler
- 1937: Frank Morley Ⓟ
- 1952: Ernest Vessiot Ⓟ
- 1963: Jacques Hadamard Ⓟ
- 1976: Edward Marczewski Ⓟ
- 1978: Gertrude Cox Ⓟ
- 1989: Mark Krein Ⓟ
- 2008: Andrew Gleason Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From Jacques Hadamard
Practical application is found by not looking for it, and one can say that the whole progress of civilization rests on that principle.
