MacTutor
Mathematicians Of The Day
1st December
On this day in 1729, the correspondence between Leonard Euler and Christian Goldbach began. For over 25 years they exchanged letters, 196 of which survive.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1671: John Keill
- 1792: Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky Ⓟ
- 1847: Christine Ladd-Franklin Ⓟ
- 1884: Francesco Cecioni Ⓟ
- 1892: A A Krishnaswami Ayyangar Ⓟ
- 1892: Félix Pollaczek Ⓟ
- 1948: Philippe Flajolet Ⓟ
Died:
- 1750: Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr Ⓟ
- 1937: Alfred Lodge
- 1942: Hildegard Ille Ⓟ
- 1947: G H Hardy Ⓟ
- 1959: Jur Hronec Ⓟ
- 1977: Kenneth May Ⓟ
- 1983: Leon Mirsky Ⓟ
- 2007: Leone Burton Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From G H Hardy
No mathematician should ever allow him to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game. ... Galois died at twenty-one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty. There have been men who have done great work later; ... [but] I do not know of a single instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty. ... A mathematician may still be competent enough at sixty, but it is useless to expect him to have original ideas.
