Italian mathematicians Essays

  • Historical Context of the Barometer

    1276 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the year 1600 CE, a man impri/soned in Rome by the name of Giordano Bruno was tried and found guilty of heresy by the Roman Inquisition. Pope Clement VIII deemed Bruno to be an “impenitent and pertinacious heretic” and he sentenced Bruno to be burned alive at the stake for his crimes. Bruno was a free thinker and spoke almost as freely about those thoughts. His crime was to be in support of the Copernican heliocentrism theory of the earth orbiting the sun (Copernicus’ findings were not

  • Carl Friedrich Gauss

    3547 Words  | 8 Pages

    Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) Introduction: Carl Friedrich Gauss is considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. He is a creator in the logical-mathematical domain as he contributed many ideas to the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and physics. Being a math education major, I have come into contact with Gauss’ work quite a few times. He contributed greatly to the different areas of mathematics like linear algebra, calculus, and number theory. Creativity can be seen

  • M.C. Escher

    918 Words  | 2 Pages

    His work continues to fascinate both young and old across a broad spectrum of interests. · M.C. Escher was a man studied and greatly appreciated by respected mathematicians, scientists and crystallographers yet he had no formal training in math or science. He was a humble man who considered himself neither an artist or mathematician. · Intricate repeating patterns, mathematically complex structures, spatial perspectives all require a "second look". In Escher's work what you see the first

  • Algorithm Research - Quicksort

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    Of all the popular sorting algorithms, I have chosen to research and explain in detail an algorithm known as the ‘Quicksort’. Quicksort is a popular and speedy sorting algorithm that is the multi-purpose, sorting algorithm of choice for many mathematicians and computer scientists. Though of course the choosing of an algorithm comes down to which algorithm is best suited to the clients needs, and is dependent on the specific set of data to be sorted, Quicksort has proven to fulfill the required criteria

  • Leonhard Euler, a Brief Biography

    867 Words  | 2 Pages

    Math is everywhere, and is used in many daily activities. It took many people many years to develop the maths that we use today. Mathematicians are some of the most important people in the world, because they have developed theorems that have progressed humanity, and ultimately helped to develop the world into what it is today. Leonhard Euler is a prominent mathematician with many incredible contributions to the world of mathematics and more. His contributions are so widely used that math would not

  • Life of Hypatia

    963 Words  | 2 Pages

    recalled a movie I watched couple months ago, titled “Agora”. It was a movie based on the life of Hypatia. She was a female mathematician and philosopher who lived and died upholding the principles. On this post, I will review the life of Hypatia noting her life stages in as they relate to cognitive, physical, and social-emotional developmental processes. Hypatia was a mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who is more remembered by her death then on how she lived her life with emphasis to intellectual

  • Rene Descartes' Impact on the Scientific Method

    914 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rene Descartes' Impact on the Scientific Method People have always thought about the world around them. Through the centuries they have wondered about what their surroundings were made of. Modern science has proven to be most effective in explaining our environment. What makes modern science superior to the ancient schools of thought is the employment of the scientific method. The man credited to a great extent with the development of the scientific method is René Descartes, a French philosopher

  • Fractals: A New-Age Mathematics to Explain Our World

    1852 Words  | 4 Pages

    fractals themselves are relatively young in the mathematical world. Of course since the beginning of art and history and mathematics, self-similar objects have existed and been intriguing to the human mind. However it has only been recently that mathematicians have begun to explain them. So the question is posed, what is a fractal? Fractals are actually very simple. A fractal is any design that contains self-similar images within itself. One real-life example would be a circulatory system. Each

  • Hypatia

    893 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hypatia Hypatia was born in the year 370 AD in Alexandria, Egypt. She was the daughter of Theon, a famous mathematician and astronomer. He invented many things, but his most famous invention is the astrolabe, which measures the altitude of a star or planet. Hypatia studied with her father for many years at the Museum in Alexandria, but soon became unsatisfied with his instruction because she was smarter than him. She left Egypt, and traveled to Greece and Rome to do "post-graduate" work.

  • alice and wonderland

    1869 Words  | 4 Pages

    classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has entertained not only children but adults for over one hundred years. The tale has become a treasure of philosophers, literary critics, psychoanalysts, and linguists. It also has attracted Carroll’s fellow mathematicians and logicians. There appears to be something in Alice for everyone, and there are almost as many explanations of the work as there are commentators. It may be perhaps Carroll’s fantastical style of writing that entertains the reader, rather than

  • history of algebra

    1187 Words  | 3 Pages

    was not developed in Europe. Algebra was actually discovered (or developed) in the Arab countries along side geometry. Many mathematicians worked and developed the system of math to be known as the algebra of today. European countries did not obtain information on algebra until relatively later years of the 12th century. After algebra was discovered in Europe, mathematicians put the information to use in very remarkable ways. Also, algebraic and geometric ways of thinking were considered to be two

  • Georg Cantor

    2070 Words  | 5 Pages

    with the idea that he mustered up the courage to beg his father to become a mathematician. Finally, just before entering college, his father let Georg study mathematics. In 1862, Georg Cantor entered the University of Zurich only to transfer the next year to the University of Berlin after his father's death. At Berlin he studied mathematics, philosophy and physics. There he studied under some of the greatest mathematicians of the day including Kronecker and Weierstrass. After receiving his doctorate

  • Galileos Life

    1194 Words  | 3 Pages

    Balancitta) which described Archimedes' method of finding the relative densities of substances using a balance. In the following year he traveled to Rome to visit Clavius who was professor of mathematics there. A topic which was very popular with mathematicians at this time was centers of gravity and Galileo brought with him some results which he had discovered on this topic. But even though he impressed Clavius with his knowledge on various subjects, Galileo failed to gain a job to teach mathematics

  • Deconstructing the clock

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    Summary Ever since the dawn of civilization we have observed time by its natural occurrence and we also relied on man made primitive tools to measure time. In the beginning, time has always been a natural event, for example, sunrise to sunset but men’s earlier primitive tools to measure time were inaccurate and were only an approximate indicator, hence often unreliable such as the hour glass. We became enslaved by the concept of time; our society is controlled by this mechanical device which dictates

  • Nothing Is Certain

    868 Words  | 2 Pages

    illustration below. It shows that in this spherical universe one can go straight but never for very long. If you are certain you are going in a straight line think again. But these facts are known, if not by the general public then at least by mathematicians. However Max Born states the theory only holds water if the exact sphere of reference is specified, if nothing is certain then the sphere of reference can never be known to a point where there is no question as to it being perfect, therefore a

  • Emilie Du Chatelet

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    with good education, she studied and soon mastered Latin, Italian and English. She also studied Tasso, Virgil, Milton and other great scholars of the time. In spite of her talents in the area of languages, her true love was mathematics. Her study in this area was encouraged be a family friend, M. de Mezieres, who recognized her talent. Emilie's work in mathematics was rarely original or as captivating as that of other female mathematicians but it was substantive. At the age of nineteen she married

  • Joseph-Louis Lagrange

    602 Words  | 2 Pages

    favorite subject was classic Latin. After reading Halley’s 1693 work on the use of algebra in optics Lagrange became very interested in mathematics and astronomy. Unfortunately for Lagrange he did not have the benefit of studying with the leading mathematicians, so he became self-motivated and was self-taught. Then in 1754 he got the opportunity to publish his first mathematical work, which was an analogy between the binomial theorem and the successive derivatives of the product functions. Lagrange sent

  • Calculus and Its Use in Everyday Life

    1302 Words  | 3 Pages

    who study Physics. Mechanics find calculus useful to determine rates of flow of fluids in a car. Numerous developments in mathematics by Ancient Greeks to Europeans led to the discovery of integral calculus, which is still expanding. The first mathematicians came from Egypt, where they discovered the rule for the volume of a pyramid and approximation of the area of a circle. Later, Greeks made tremendous discoveries. Archimedes extended the method of inscribed and circumscribed figures by means of

  • Nancy Kopell

    1394 Words  | 3 Pages

    more prominent female mathematicians. Mathematics has traditionally been a male dominated field of study and it has taken the work of several brilliant and strong willed women over the past several decades to demonstrate that women deserve a place in this area of study as well as the men. These women have been tireless in their efforts and they have provided like-minded females with role models that they can connect with and try to emulate. One such female mathematician that has had an interesting

  • A Notion of Zero in the Philosophy of Aristotle

    2038 Words  | 5 Pages

    so-called diagonally drafted double nail ( ) indicated, first of all, a lack of units of some "sixty" order. It was also treated as kind of an arithmetic operator, since adding it at the end meant multiplication by "sixty". But neither the Babilonian mathematicians nor astronomers treated zero as a number. A diagonally drafted double nail was conceived of as an empty place, that is a lack of unites of a respective order. Hellenes people used two systems of denoting numbers. The Athenian system was mathematically