Peter G.L. Dirichlet was born in the time period of Napoleon’s great attempt at world domination, Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration, and the birth of Webster’s dictionary. Ultimately this period of time is known as the 1800s, and Peter G.L. Dirichlet was born in 1805. Dirichlet was not born into great wealth, (nor are many others, in this day and age either) his father was a postmaster in Germany where Dirichlet and his family lived. Though they didn’t have much spare change, it was recorded that Dirichlet would use any collected money to purchase math books. Dirichlet was said to be a model pupil, attentive in class and predominantly fascinated by history and mathematics. His parents ultimately believed that Jesuit College would be a better suit for their son than his current school, the Gymnasium, to which he had attended for two years, beginning his enrollment in 1817 at age twelve.
Of the people to influence Dirichlet, Ohm, the mathematician known for Ohm’s law, was Dirichlet’s teacher and influenced him greatly in inspiring Dirichlet to pursue mathematic developments and studies. Not only did Ohm have a relatively influential grasp on Dirichlet; the mathematician, Guass, did as well. One book in particular is said to have been placed under Dirichlet’s pillow every night, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, by Guass. This book was treasured by Dirichlet and worshiped as some might worship the bible.
At age 16, Dirichlet had finished his school credentials and was able to attend a university. However, the German universities were not up to par, thus allowing Dirichlet to explore other forms of education in Paris. While the German Universities were lacking at the time, in only a few more years they would be world renown for their ...
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... even if it’s not necessarily understood how.
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Michael Guillen, the author of Five Equations that Changed the World, choose five famous mathematician to describe. Each of these mathematicians came up with a significant formula that deals with Physics. One could argue that others could be added to the list but there is no question that these are certainly all contenders for the top five. The book is divided into five sections, one for each of the mathematicians. Each section then has five parts, the prologue, the Veni, the Vidi, the Vici, and the epilogue. The Veni talks about the scientists as a person and their personal life. The Vidi talks about the history of the subject that the scientist talks about. The Vici talks about how the mathematician came up with their most famous formula.
Johann Heinrich Lambert didn’t come from the wealthiest of families. His parents were tailors. Therefore, at the age of twelve, recognizing his family’s financial condition, Lambert ceased traditional education and dropped out of school. He worked alongside his father in order to help provide. Lambert didn’t let this deter him completely, however. He was capable in both French and Latin, and spent his free time educating himself to the best of his ability. It wasn’t until after he became the assistant to Professor Basler Zeitung of Basel University, that he was able to return to his studies. He then had a brief stint as a clerk due to his impeccable handwriting. When he was twenty he tutored the sons of Count Salis ...
“Thus in arithmetic, during the few months that he studied it, he made such progress that he frequently confounded his master by continually raising doubts and difficulties. He devoted some time to music … Yet though he studied so many different things, he never neglected design and working in relief, those being the things which appealed to his fancy more than any other.”
His pursuit of knowledge became even more important when he entered the university of Ingolstadt. He "read with ardour" (35) and soon become "so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the light of the morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory" (35). He was a proud product of the Enlightenment...
When you first see the name DeMoivre, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? While for many their first thought could be an Italian pizza, many may be surprised to find out it’s actually a French mathematician. Abraham de Moivre was a French Huguenot, a pioneer in the development of analytic trigonometry and in the theory of probability. Abraham became interested in mathematics at a very young age, he later perused mathematics intentionally in school all by himself. Eventually, he left France at the age of 18 and decided to move to London. Believing that maybe there he could soon pursue and advance his lifelong dreams, and oh boy he did!
"Understanding the World Through the Thomas Theorem. " Soul Shelter » Understanding the World Through the Thomas Theorem. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr.
No other scholar has affected more fields of learning than Blaise Pascal. Born in 1623 in Clermont, France, he was born into a family of respected mathematicians. Being the childhood prodigy that he was, he came up with a theory at the age of three that was Euclid’s book on the sum of the interior of triangles. At the age of sixteen, he was brought by his father Etienne to discuss about math with the greatest minds at the time. He spent his life working with math but also came up with a plethora of new discoveries in the physical sciences, religion, computers, and in math. He died at the ripe age of thirty nine in 1662(). Blaise Pascal has contributed to the fields of mathematics, physical science and computers in countless ways.
Pierre de Fermat Pierre de Fermat was born in the year 1601 in Beaumont-de-Lomages, France. Mr. Fermat's education began in 1631. He was home schooled. Mr. Fermat was a single man through his life. Pierre de Fermat, like many mathematicians of the early 17th century, found solutions to the four major problems that created a form of math called calculus. Before Sir Isaac Newton was even born, Fermat found a method for finding the tangent to a curve. He tried different ways in math to improve the system. This was his occupation. Mr. Fermat was a good scholar, and amused himself by restoring the work of Apollonius on plane loci. Mr. Fermat published only a few papers in his lifetime and gave no systematic exposition of his methods. He had a habit of scribbling notes in the margins of books or in letters rather than publishing them. He was modest because he thought if he published his theorems the people would not believe them. He did not seem to have the intention to publish his papers. It is probable that he revised his notes as the occasion required. His published works represent the final form of his research, and therefore cannot be dated earlier than 1660. Mr. Pierre de Fermat discovered many things in his lifetime. Some things that he did include: -If p is a prime and a is a prime to p then ap-1-1 is divisible by p, that is, ap-1-1=0 (mod p). The proof of this, first given by Euler, was known quite well. A more general theorem is that a0-(n)-1=0 (mod n), where a is prime...
Carl Friedrich Gauss was born April 30, 1777 in Brunswick, Germany to a stern father and a loving mother. At a young age, his mother sensed how intelligent her son was and insisted on sending him to school to develop even though his dad displayed much resistance to the idea. The first test of Gauss’ brilliance was at age ten in his arithmetic class when the teacher asked the students to find the sum of all whole numbers 1 to 100. In his mind, Gauss was able to connect that 1+100=101, 2+99=101, and so on, deducing that all 50 pairs of numbers would equal 101. By this logic all Gauss had to do was multiply 50 by 101 and get his answer of 5,050. Gauss was bound to the mathematics field when at the age of 14, Gauss met the Duke of Brunswick. The duke was so astounded by Gauss’ photographic memory that he financially supported him through his studies at Caroline College and other universities afterwards. A major feat that Gauss had while he was enrolled college helped him decide that he wanted to focus on studying mathematics as opposed to languages. Besides his life of math, Gauss also had six children, three with Johanna Osthoff and three with his first deceased wife’s best fri...
Between 1850 and 1900, the mathematics and physics fields began advancing. The advancements involved extremely arduous calculations and formulas that took a great deal of time when done manually.
Burton, D. (2011). The History of Mathematics: An Introduction. (Seventh Ed.) New York, NY. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
The 17th Century saw Napier, Briggs and others greatly extend the power of mathematics as a calculator science with his discovery of logarithms. Cavalieri made progress towards the calculus with his infinitesimal methods and Descartes added the power of algebraic methods to geometry. Euclid, who lived around 300 BC in Alexandria, first stated his five postulates in his book The Elements that forms the base for all of his later Abu Abd-Allah ibn Musa al’Khwarizmi, was born abo...