MacTutor
Mathematicians Of The Day
17th November
On this day in 1930 Kurt Godel's On formally undecidable propositions of Principia Mathematica and related systems was received for publication. It contained the result that there are true but unprovable statements in arithmetic.
The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1999.
The postage stamp of one of today's mathematicians at THIS LINK was issued in 1999.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1597: Henry Gellibrand Ⓟ
- 1717: Jean d'Alembert Ⓟ
- 1790: August Möbius Ⓟ
- 1862: James Wattie
- 1902: Eugene Paul Wigner Ⓟ
- 1919: Raimundo Chela Ⓟ
- 1946: Welington de Melo Ⓟ
Died:
- 1704: Valentin Heins Ⓟ
- 1929: Herman Hollerith Ⓟ
- 1953: Pierre Humbert Ⓟ
- 1954: Tadeusz Banachiewicz Ⓟ
- 1958: Yutaka Taniyama Ⓟ
- 2019: Alex Craik Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From Jean d'Alembert
Geometry, which should only obey Physics, when united with it sometimes commands it. If it happens that the question which we wish to examine is too complicated for all the elements to be able to enter into the analytical comparison we wish to make, we separate the more inconvenient [elements], we substitute others for them, less troublesome but also less real, and we are surprised to arrive, notwithstanding a painful labour, only at a result contradicted by nature; as if after having disguised it, cut it short or altered it, a purely mechanical combination could give it back to us.
