Mathematicians Of The Day

17th December



On this day in 1610 Father Christoph Clavius SJ, the senior mathematician at the Collegio Romano wrote to inform Galileo that he and other Jesuits at the college had seen the four moons of Jupiter. Only two months earlier he had said that if Galileo saw "planets" around Jupiter in his glass, then he must have put them there.

On this day in 2012 Google released a Chatelet doodle.

Click on for a poster.


Quotation of the day

From William Thomson
Scientific wealth tends to accumulate according to the law of compound interest. Every addition to knowledge of the properties of matter supplies [the physical scientist] with new instrumental means for discovering and interpreting phenomena of nature, which in their turn afford foundations of fresh generalisations, bringing gains of permanent value into the great storehouse of [natural] philosophy.
Presidential address to British Association 1871