Mathematicians Of The Day

30th December



On this day in 1902, Leonard Dickson married Susan Davis. Later, he said of his honeymoon: "It was a great success, except that I only got two research papers written."

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Quotation of the day

From Alfred North Whitehead
Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language. It is essentially a written language, and it endeavors to exemplify in its written structures the patterns which it is its purpose to convey. The pattern of the marks on paper is a particular instance of the pattern to be conveyed to thought. The algebraic method is our best approach to the expression of necessity, by reason of its reduction of accident to the ghostlike character of the real variable.
Quoted in W H Auden and L Kronenberger The Viking Book of Aphorisms (New York 1966).