tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338418806191718552024-03-19T04:00:32.879+00:00Pat'sBlogThe mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher,Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5546125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-76369089634463027322024-03-19T04:00:00.001+00:002024-03-19T04:00:00.139+00:00On This Day in Math - March 19<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHc5CFcVzkMD6IXXs2NAUgcmc3mO3aia2mQ4-MU1ufO5FwHBwaSFodZZDavEW4Ef3zZpVOvuItemw0PBeBUzO0CkvIFrhhpnn7IMnRcuaziqIZmLkkMjsUfc-1K7hJtb24ZwevBFojwjw/s1600/PearlsOfSluze_701.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHc5CFcVzkMD6IXXs2NAUgcmc3mO3aia2mQ4-MU1ufO5FwHBwaSFodZZDavEW4Ef3zZpVOvuItemw0PBeBUzO0CkvIFrhhpnn7IMnRcuaziqIZmLkkMjsUfc-1K7hJtb24ZwevBFojwjw/s1600/PearlsOfSluze_701.gif" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Pearls of Sluze, *Mathworld Wolfram</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p><br />There is no reason why the history and philosophy of science should not be taught in such a way as to bring home to all pupils the grandeur of science and the scope of its discoveries.<br />~Prince Louis-Victor de Broglie<br /><br /><br />The 78th day of the year; 78 is the smallest number that can be written as the sum of 4 distinct squares in 3 ways. *<a href="http://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/numbers.html" target="_blank">What's Special About This Number</a></p><p>In his pamphlet, "The Thousand Yard Model," Guy Ottewell creates a sacale model universe with the sun as a bowling ball. 78 feet away, the Earth is represented by a peppercorn.<br /><br />In his doctoral thesis in the early 60's, Ron Graham proved that 78, and every number greater than 78 can be partitioned into distinct numbers so that the sum of their reciprocals is one. 78=2+6+8+10+12+40, and the reciprocals of all these distinct integers add up to one. There are at least two smaller numbers for which this is true. Can you find them?<br /><br />78 is the sum of the first twelve integers, and thus a triangular number.<br /><br />90 = 21+22+23+24, 78= 25+26 + 27, but 21^2 + 22^2 + 23^2 + 24^2 = 25^2 + 26^2 + 27^2 = 2030</p><div><br />The cube of 78 is equal to the sum of three distinct cubes, 78<sup>3</sup> = 39<sup>3</sup> + 52<sup>3</sup> + 65<sup>3</sup><br />(Historically, it seems Ramanujan was inspired by a much smaller such triplet 6<sup>3</sup> = 3<sup>3</sup> + 4<sup>3</sup> + 5<sup>3</sup><br /><br />77 and 78 form the fourth Ruth-Aaron pair, named for the number of home runs hit by Babe Ruth, 714, and the number when Aaron broke the record, 715 (he hit more afterward). They are consecutive numbers that have the same sums of their prime factors (77 = 7*11, 78 = 2*3*13, and 7+11 = 2+3+13).<br /><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>In <b>1474</b>, the Venetian Patent Law, the first of its kind in the world, declared that “each person who will make in this city any new and ingenious contrivance, not made heretofore in our dominion, as soon as it is reduced to perfection... It being forbidden to any other in any territory and place of ours to make any other contrivance in the form and resemblance thereof, without the consent and licence of the author up to ten years.” The law was intended to attract inventors and investors to Venice and stimulate new economic activities. *TIS<br /><hr /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NAqsgZv66_dLbQuNAkiw6846YdIhAYq2yOfPHOy5Wkcw-kcKFDgJ2kmdT7GZL6zuDgOvaDESNMLGBG0lPAHpUuJkODkJiEnPXLTeAJiaLoZ_pWaoeZjhmxU4dOEDRUKuPyQUsXhBs7U/s1600/great+comet+of+1680.jpe" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NAqsgZv66_dLbQuNAkiw6846YdIhAYq2yOfPHOy5Wkcw-kcKFDgJ2kmdT7GZL6zuDgOvaDESNMLGBG0lPAHpUuJkODkJiEnPXLTeAJiaLoZ_pWaoeZjhmxU4dOEDRUKuPyQUsXhBs7U/s1600/great+comet+of+1680.jpe" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Mark Jardine,</td></tr></tbody></table><b>1681</b> Last observation of C/1680 V1, also called the Great Comet of 1680, Kirch's Comet, and Newton's Comet. It has the distinction of being the first comet discovered by telescope. Discovered by Gottfried Kirch on 14 November 1680, New Style, it became one of the brightest comets of the 17th century--reputedly visible even in daytime--and was noted for its spectacularly long tail. Passing only 0.4 AUs from Earth on 30 November, it sped around an incredibly close perihelion of .006 AU (898,000 km) on 18 December 1680, reaching its peak brightness on 29 December as it rushed outward again. It was last observed on 19 March 1681. As of December 2010 the comet was about 252.1 A.U. from the Sun. While the Kirch Comet of 1680-1681 was discovered and subsequently named for Gottfried Kirch , credit must also be given to the Jesuit, Eusebio Kino, who charted the comet’s course. During his delayed departure for Mexico, Kino began his observations of the comet in Cadíz in late 1680. Upon his arrival in Mexico City, he published his Exposisión astronómica de el [sic] cometa (Mexico City, 1681) in which he presented his findings. Kino’s Exposisión astronómica is among one of the earliest scientific treatises published by a European in the New World. Aside from its brilliance, it is probably most noted for being used by Isaac Newton to test and verify Kepler's laws. *Wik<br /><hr /><b>1706</b> Advertisement in English Tabloid for William Jones's Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos, or A New Introduction to the Mathematics. This is the book in which Jones introduces the symbol pi for the ratio of the circumference to diameter of a circle.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXt13W37Ms5AdzhHGjermyw5DffFM9FMHoPInXYge2-5sUGtw9CGXLmbRVbrKMdMbOg4HovGvsMcPnYubOZhYEHBqkpZKH88ytQnilQjPFrGrNQFhxJfqyibD1XUrER3F3LmqW6_R6zlQ/s1600/william+Jones+advertisement.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="363" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXt13W37Ms5AdzhHGjermyw5DffFM9FMHoPInXYge2-5sUGtw9CGXLmbRVbrKMdMbOg4HovGvsMcPnYubOZhYEHBqkpZKH88ytQnilQjPFrGrNQFhxJfqyibD1XUrER3F3LmqW6_R6zlQ/s400/william+Jones+advertisement.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>*Review of the State of the English Nation (Cumulation) (London, England), Tuesday, March 19, 1706; Issue 34.<br /><hr /><b>1752</b> Following the death of her father on March 19, 1752, a new phase of Maria Agnesi’s life began that lasted until her death. She restricted her study to theology and gave her time, effort, and money to devotional and charitable activities. Although continuing to live with her family, she kept a separate apartment, where she cared for a few poor, sick people. From 1759 she lived in a rented house with four of her poor people; and when money was needed for her charitable activity, she sold her gifts from the Empress Maria Theresa to a rich Englishman. Besides caring for the sick and indigent, she often taught catechism to working-class people. *Hubert Kennedy, Eight Mathematical Biographies, Pg 8</div><div> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinf_3g7-oiRdvVWikDCHumdaJ_7ZL4oGV1kOfXsIUyis8G3zmg_p7lalIbAmgSX2No0MEjMkqEroxCDvzHeJvph2ZaLirWvtQAqXdOOAHfzMd9zVJMmc0WYG4aETJj6dITWVApy8meigv4xcjwGGGWokemeQGPiImgGnxG5sNmRUhy9032NopBoBsc/s290/Witch_of_Agnesi_curves.svg.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="132" data-original-width="290" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinf_3g7-oiRdvVWikDCHumdaJ_7ZL4oGV1kOfXsIUyis8G3zmg_p7lalIbAmgSX2No0MEjMkqEroxCDvzHeJvph2ZaLirWvtQAqXdOOAHfzMd9zVJMmc0WYG4aETJj6dITWVApy8meigv4xcjwGGGWokemeQGPiImgGnxG5sNmRUhy9032NopBoBsc/s1600/Witch_of_Agnesi_curves.svg.png" width="290" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Selected witch of Agnesi curves</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><hr /><b>1791</b> Prior to 1784, when Jefferson arrived in France, most if not all of his drawings were made in ink. In Paris, Jefferson began to use pencil for drawing, and adopted the use of coordinate, or graph, paper. He treasured the coordinate paper that he brought back to the United States with him and used it sparingly over the course of many years. He gave a few sheets to his good friend David Rittenhouse, the astronomer and inventor:<br /><br />"I send for your acceptance some sheets of drawing-paper, which being laid off in squares representing feet or what you please, saves the necessity of using the rule and dividers in all rectangular draughts and those whose angles have their sines and cosines in the proportion of any integral numbers. Using a black lead pencil the lines are very visible, and easily effaced with Indian rubber to be used for any other draught."<br />A few precious sheets of the paper survive today. *Monticello.org<br />Jefferson was widely interested in Science. For those who wish to know more about his scientific interest, I can recommend this book</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0EEc2uLn8J6BAOmqk0OkovPdGYS_qUGe9NWU7Zbh97eNB3tm4862JOkOcGP9gZXAzbqHxl0oZbN0GTiApopak7XaDKpKnfCi03047BE0Xv7ITPr9MC_GCdDPksvc-mCmHvXZCRPf6bF23z9rUfCPh1XL21EiB8rJgXbvoN-8uF5xrHRoDmwsuoAxmT64/s500/jeffersons%20shadow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="329" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0EEc2uLn8J6BAOmqk0OkovPdGYS_qUGe9NWU7Zbh97eNB3tm4862JOkOcGP9gZXAzbqHxl0oZbN0GTiApopak7XaDKpKnfCi03047BE0Xv7ITPr9MC_GCdDPksvc-mCmHvXZCRPf6bF23z9rUfCPh1XL21EiB8rJgXbvoN-8uF5xrHRoDmwsuoAxmT64/s320/jeffersons%20shadow.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><HR><br /><b>1791</b> Report made to the Paris Academy of Sciences advocating the metric system, including the decimal subdivision of the circle. The committee consisted of J. C. Borda, J. Lagrange, P. S. Laplace, G. Monge, and de Condorcet. [Cajori, History of Mathematics 266] See April 14, 1790. *VFR<br />A metric system of angles was brought in, with 400 degrees in a full turn (100 degrees in a right angle). Now the earth would rotate 40 degrees in an hour and, since the metre had been designed so that one quarter meridian was 10 million metres, each degree of latitude would be 100 kilometres long. It was certainly a rational system but its introduction would require all watches, all clocks, all trigonometric tables, all charts etc. to be changed. Condorcet proposed that teams of out of work wig makers should be used to recalculate new mathematical tables with the new units. Why, one might ask, were the wig makers out of work? Well they had been employed by the aristocrats who, following the Revolution, no longer required their services! *SAU</div><div><div>The resolution found some traction in angle measures."In 1857, Mathematical Dictionary and Cyclopedia of Mathematical Science has: "The French have proposed to divide the right angle into 100 equal parts, called grades, but the suggestion has not been extensively adopted." In 1987 Mathographics by Robert Dixon has: “360° = 400 gradians = 2π radians.” And for those who have, or had, one, "The Texas Instruments TI-89 Titanium calculator has three modes, radians, degrees, and gradians."</div><div>*Jeff Miller "<strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #525252; font-family: Lato; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Angle:</strong><span style="color: #525252; font-family: Lato; font-size: 14px;"> Units in which angle values are interpreted and displayed: RADIAN, DEGREE or GRADIAN* (* not available on the TI-92 family). *TI Knowledge Base web page</span></div><div><span style="color: #525252; font-family: Lato; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkmOpOVDPAMcfXFokNH_3gsOpaWJwMY2t7GLTkGh6CVF9eZ0AFzusjSj0kZViPhRFLAoctTP8XPrqLAGgLPN1-xp5096Mr32PcEk-2OpxsQoQMCRQi9uUah8OYGqknHHanRNo5dDx0xJ_k9PcBvy6r1dgF_1bQvSzNGRcnExq1uc8qc-7rDNJ2w-fyhAk/s1600/TI%2089.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkmOpOVDPAMcfXFokNH_3gsOpaWJwMY2t7GLTkGh6CVF9eZ0AFzusjSj0kZViPhRFLAoctTP8XPrqLAGgLPN1-xp5096Mr32PcEk-2OpxsQoQMCRQi9uUah8OYGqknHHanRNo5dDx0xJ_k9PcBvy6r1dgF_1bQvSzNGRcnExq1uc8qc-7rDNJ2w-fyhAk/s320/TI%2089.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #525252; font-family: Lato; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><hr /><b>1797</b> The date of the entry in Gauss’s scientific diary showing that he had already discovered the double periodicity of certain elliptic functions. *VFR Gauss was investigating the lemniscate. Two days later he would show how to divide the lemniscate into five equal parts by ruler and compass. This means he must have had some sense of complex multiplication of elliptic functions. Abel would generalize this in 1826. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu8e88wMCPfBaujeu8qn_yHqmJwZLcsT22jwmbQpdlOOLamAYyxh5HRWukc0Otaup_8TR2kxPhrC46Hb_Lqfvwj_Ie5ro61QMXZHeo0ZEfxMbHDs4v069pGFH5Mfdd8BFrag7EQ2GYIt6aMDtw-vr5YGDEIYXktbtqWLq1Pi-oDcjhl8dxOU12m_-U/s319/lemniscate%20of%20bernoulli.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="158" data-original-width="319" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu8e88wMCPfBaujeu8qn_yHqmJwZLcsT22jwmbQpdlOOLamAYyxh5HRWukc0Otaup_8TR2kxPhrC46Hb_Lqfvwj_Ie5ro61QMXZHeo0ZEfxMbHDs4v069pGFH5Mfdd8BFrag7EQ2GYIt6aMDtw-vr5YGDEIYXktbtqWLq1Pi-oDcjhl8dxOU12m_-U/s1600/lemniscate%20of%20bernoulli.png" width="319" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lemniscate of Bernoulli</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /><hr /><b>1892</b> E. Hastings Moore, of Northwestern University, was elected professor of mathematics by the Board of Trustees of the new University of Chicago. *T. W. Goodspeed, The Story of the University of Chicago<br /><hr /><b>1915 </b>The first image of Pluto was taken by astronomer Thomas Gill at Lowell Observatory in 1915 using a nine-inch telescope borrowed from Swarthmore College. Percival undertook a passionate search for what he called “Planet X.” He took photographs of the sky where Planet X was predicted to be lurking, but failed to recognize Pluto because it was much fainter than expected. Percival died suddenly in 1916, not knowing he had in fact taken an image of Pluto. Only with the lens of history can we look back and recognize those photographs as containing some of the first images of Plut<b>o. </b>The calculations for the place to search for the undiscovered planet were directed by Elizabeth Williams, the head human computer, performing mathematical calculations on where Lowell should search for an unknown object and its size based on the differences in the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. Her calculations led to predictions for the location of the unknown planet. Lowell died unexpectedly in 1916 and the search was discontinued. In 1930 the search would resume, leading to the recognition of Pluto as a planet. Williams and her husband were then dismissed from their positions at the observatory by Percival Lowell's widow, Constance, because it was considered inappropriate to employ a married woman. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMRDj8v8yt00T50AqyETWp1_nWx4sszbk2fvAPe62NKwqrpedFwR9a85ewqoIppoqWzZmKFGdr7TP3eY7LTPnPQau6IfFoGMcCva7Nx_F8CxbjfTqXNblZ8tIvTzn5VXYSxsA8N5pUbFEVYGSOC_icI0B2x4bzuR5pCQh3Rwen0tseRwAMSXzuthMZN6M/s320/tombaugh%20williams%20Pluto%20Math.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="320" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMRDj8v8yt00T50AqyETWp1_nWx4sszbk2fvAPe62NKwqrpedFwR9a85ewqoIppoqWzZmKFGdr7TP3eY7LTPnPQau6IfFoGMcCva7Nx_F8CxbjfTqXNblZ8tIvTzn5VXYSxsA8N5pUbFEVYGSOC_icI0B2x4bzuR5pCQh3Rwen0tseRwAMSXzuthMZN6M/s1600/tombaugh%20williams%20Pluto%20Math.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><hr /><div><b>1918</b> "An Act to preserve daylight and provide standard time for the United States" was enacted on March 19, 1918. It both established standard time zones and set summer DST to begin on March 31, 1918. *<a href="http://www.webexhibits.org/" target="_blank">WebExhibits </a><br /><hr /><b>1937 </b>John von Neumann gave a popular lecture at Princeton on the game of poker. Game Theory became one of his substantial contributions to mathematics. [<a href="http://amzn.to/1pkK6Bw" target="_blank">A. Hodges, Alan Turing. The Enigma</a>, p. 550]The Book that inspired the movie.</div><div>In 1921, Emile Borel, a French mathematician, published several papers on the theory of games. He used poker as an example and addressed the problem of bluffing and second-guessing the opponent in a game of imperfect information. Borel envisioned game theory as being used in economic and military applications. Borel's ultimate goal was to determine whether a "best" strategy for a given game exists and to find that strategy. While Borel could be arguably called as the first mathematician to envision an organized system for playing games, he did not develop his ideas very far. For that reason, most historians give the credit for developing and popularizing game theory to John Von Neumann, who published his first paper on game theory in 1928, seven years after Borel.</div><div><div>For Von Neumann, the inspiration for game theory was poker, a game he played occasionally and not terribly well. Von Neumann realized that poker was not guided by probability theory alone, as an unfortunate player who would use only probability theory would find out. Von Neumann wanted to formalize the idea of "bluffing," a strategy that is meant to deceive the other players and hide information from them.</div><div><br /></div><div>In his 1928 article, "Theory of Parlor Games," Von Neumann first approached the discussion of game theory, and proved the famous Minimax theorem. From the outset, Von Neumann knew that game theory would prove invaluable to economists. He teamed up with Oskar Morgenstern, an Austrian economist at Princeton, to develop his theory.</div></div><div>I'm "All IN" on this hand.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7zwgWz8QxY2lttZXAwTEKhxdcQ-JnUwfKv6mdENAAzTjn5IjOi8x4qHEBT9PccfaDF5epan2q_ch1pfeB5z5ZoKELs0gRFWDoDo15x9bPhemjLxXk0A7AnmyVacqZGK6IruW_z1eewRnO0frD389vdkKOip_PNc7QQN9comktMFS1aDesP-YgoSlJNjw/s173/royal.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="129" data-original-width="173" height="129" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7zwgWz8QxY2lttZXAwTEKhxdcQ-JnUwfKv6mdENAAzTjn5IjOi8x4qHEBT9PccfaDF5epan2q_ch1pfeB5z5ZoKELs0gRFWDoDo15x9bPhemjLxXk0A7AnmyVacqZGK6IruW_z1eewRnO0frD389vdkKOip_PNc7QQN9comktMFS1aDesP-YgoSlJNjw/s1600/royal.gif" width="173" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1949</b> The American Museum of Atomic Energy opened for the public in an old WWII cafeteria in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The site had been part of the US projects to develop atomic bombs by processing U235. A new facility was opened in 1975. *Lucio Gelmini <hr /><div><div>In <b>1958,</b> Britain's first planetarium, the London Planetarium, opened in the west wing of Madame Tussaud's. It is one of the world's largest. The site used was that of the former Cinema and Restaurant added in 1929, that had been destroyed by a German bomb in 1940.*TIS<br /><hr /><b>1953</b> Frances Crick writes a letter to his son. "Dear Michael, Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery.” This was only two weeks after Crick solved the DNA puzzle and may well be the first written description of the code. The letter, was auctioned at Christie’s on April 10, 2013 for six million dollars. *NY Times Science</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9OH2SW0yDAdfV0ltcnt_DCW5yG2gJ2xHqwXMwbw29YxfEUf_hUew9QMpyy-hxjFWbKPZJBqEbJ0M4ftGPd98cviukNZ3tNLQWXArLmfzF8Ae6qgSvtVtw_osabk4xE9Kh_ze0Pn4aYQZZ7wulP8j8aH9iiG4t82N5OJ8fe5-oFydQvB9bdtN5RTmf/s244/crick%20letter.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="206" data-original-width="244" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9OH2SW0yDAdfV0ltcnt_DCW5yG2gJ2xHqwXMwbw29YxfEUf_hUew9QMpyy-hxjFWbKPZJBqEbJ0M4ftGPd98cviukNZ3tNLQWXArLmfzF8Ae6qgSvtVtw_osabk4xE9Kh_ze0Pn4aYQZZ7wulP8j8aH9iiG4t82N5OJ8fe5-oFydQvB9bdtN5RTmf/s1600/crick%20letter.jpeg" width="244" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crick letter *NBC</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><hr /><b>2008 </b>GRB 080319B was a gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected by the Swift satellite at 06:12 UTC on March 19, 2008. The burst set a new record for the farthest object that was observable with the naked eye: it had a peak visual apparent magnitude of 5.7 and remained visible to human eyes for approximately 30 seconds. The magnitude was brighter than 9.0 for approximately 60 seconds. If viewed from 1 AU away, it would have had a peak apparent magnitude of −67.57 (21 quadrillion times brighter than the Sun seen from Earth) *Wik </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUPP_M4N-wrb35LFAbuassAnFuCfCqphkpCe0kCZGoWRS8TeZmSZ8Uz2qLXdob5rFoFJoSS_sfQCoZ_v56Pgv1NZAAHHmmLBS4teZ8IZ-b9fRTK0SXI-OUg3nDNzEgmXv7-3Z3XF3JD0WPm_s1P7GrHyisM3GvSu4Fe8wwTcmkayqNqvtoDa7zNH4K/s220/The_Double_Firing_Burst.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="124" data-original-width="220" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUPP_M4N-wrb35LFAbuassAnFuCfCqphkpCe0kCZGoWRS8TeZmSZ8Uz2qLXdob5rFoFJoSS_sfQCoZ_v56Pgv1NZAAHHmmLBS4teZ8IZ-b9fRTK0SXI-OUg3nDNzEgmXv7-3Z3XF3JD0WPm_s1P7GrHyisM3GvSu4Fe8wwTcmkayqNqvtoDa7zNH4K/s1600/The_Double_Firing_Burst.jpg" width="220" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*artist's impression of gamma-ray<br /> burst GRB 080319B</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><hr /><b>2019</b> One of the top prizes in mathematics has been given to a woman. The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters announced it has awarded this year’s Abel Prize to Karen Uhlenbeck, an emeritus professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The award cites “the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry and mathematical physics.” *NY Times</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzu2-nsf6MEI0O3WfimFKIlodqK3Tzb3OgSo0uEnqrD7JxDxxZ0dUHLGkF1nIU0e6PGUWpuMf6P8YnpjM4XYmixprRZ9KEVcj9Ru57vm4bVfzEZjFuIi2ZenxuFkrJiM-gn5ETN3JBI9ElCTtf7ibZ8k0hKkMXXcI3YNhnyqTCy5SCySblu_uhWTKBg_g/s318/karen%20Uhlenbeck.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="318" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzu2-nsf6MEI0O3WfimFKIlodqK3Tzb3OgSo0uEnqrD7JxDxxZ0dUHLGkF1nIU0e6PGUWpuMf6P8YnpjM4XYmixprRZ9KEVcj9Ru57vm4bVfzEZjFuIi2ZenxuFkrJiM-gn5ETN3JBI9ElCTtf7ibZ8k0hKkMXXcI3YNhnyqTCy5SCySblu_uhWTKBg_g/s1600/karen%20Uhlenbeck.jpeg" width="318" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><b>1782 Baron Wilhelm von Biela</b> (19 Mar 1782, 18 Feb 1856 at age 73) Austrian astronomer who was known for his measurement (1826) of a previously known comet as having an orbital period of 6.6 years. Subsequently, known as Biela's Comet, it was observed to break in two (1846), and in 1852 the fragments returned as widely separated twin comets that were not seen again. However, in 1872 and 1885, bright meteor showers (known as Andromedids, or Bielids... current Andromedids are only weakly represented by displays of less than three meteors per hour around November 14. ) were observed when the Earth crossed the path of the comet's known orbit. This observation provided the first concrete evidence for the idea that some meteors are composed of fragments of disintegrated comets.*TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVG5uZfenfH1dsfN2Ga0HoljalXGajkEvydhkhm51sIrXD48YQR4FudRXC9beEgRSVIYq8BalVWArMfxVb4RJ4jZMIHm5GYCbul4x5GKfMXXbiG-A6fvbKet_lR9iVCHYPwHUd2LhyphenhyphenH3JfgOQllPJIsN_q_uk0e4vpXNvZdMQmITDs1TPQvRA3WhMgMZY/s330/biela_meteors,_November_1872.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="249" data-original-width="330" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVG5uZfenfH1dsfN2Ga0HoljalXGajkEvydhkhm51sIrXD48YQR4FudRXC9beEgRSVIYq8BalVWArMfxVb4RJ4jZMIHm5GYCbul4x5GKfMXXbiG-A6fvbKet_lR9iVCHYPwHUd2LhyphenhyphenH3JfgOQllPJIsN_q_uk0e4vpXNvZdMQmITDs1TPQvRA3WhMgMZY/s320/biela_meteors,_November_1872.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMqclYB_2zoZAwAYwqooRh6-TFkCOb2YNH5Fn2S5FGUXkeP9lSRuV3OiWKR_WKBv4JR_9QiLqyoVnVepFsnwdGYdmoII8sflnCKjVfGv0BByJL_qyuktH1t1r3KdX8znnlikhK4pxEUo1ni5E3-i0HlM1iJ56PfDlEPj-Y2QMMvRTCNpmKA9iS79G1S0E/s1024/CometBiela.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="483" data-original-width="1024" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMqclYB_2zoZAwAYwqooRh6-TFkCOb2YNH5Fn2S5FGUXkeP9lSRuV3OiWKR_WKBv4JR_9QiLqyoVnVepFsnwdGYdmoII8sflnCKjVfGv0BByJL_qyuktH1t1r3KdX8znnlikhK4pxEUo1ni5E3-i0HlM1iJ56PfDlEPj-Y2QMMvRTCNpmKA9iS79G1S0E/s320/CometBiela.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1799 William Rutter Dawes </b>(19 Mar 1799, 15 Feb 1868 at age 68) English amateur astronomer who set up a private observatory and made extensive measurements of binary stars and on 25 Nov 1850 discovered Saturn's inner Crepe Ring (independently of American William Bond). In 1864, he was the first to make an accurate map of Mars. He was called "Eagle-eyed Dawes" for the keenness of his sight with a telescope (though otherwise, he was very near-sighted). He devised a useful empirical formula by which the resolving power of a telescope - known as the Dawes limit - could be quickly determined. For a given telescope with an aperture of d cm, a double star of separation 11/d arcseconds or more can be resolved, that is, be visually recognized as two stars rather than one. *TIS</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVvbiL5uSmBkzoqiUFOH0VkIkTmSzNZuig42o26Fz_cz0J7Ur-rKzOdIG7anYKGJpUfJ9lbkdehyphenhyphenRB11jgtQ91bGpdej8KHPbo0VVnY5njCVQh2JMZOXoqhUl5orkTjYKNeutSxZhfmq5EPNsNejYoVkEkC6NlDJo0n3UCZEopOeGnjtGZXzXq7QCU8Y/s333/Dawes_William_Rutter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="225" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVvbiL5uSmBkzoqiUFOH0VkIkTmSzNZuig42o26Fz_cz0J7Ur-rKzOdIG7anYKGJpUfJ9lbkdehyphenhyphenRB11jgtQ91bGpdej8KHPbo0VVnY5njCVQh2JMZOXoqhUl5orkTjYKNeutSxZhfmq5EPNsNejYoVkEkC6NlDJo0n3UCZEopOeGnjtGZXzXq7QCU8Y/s320/Dawes_William_Rutter.jpg" width="216" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1862 Adolf Kneser</b> (19 March 1862 in Grüssow, Mecklenburg, Germany - 24 Jan 1930 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland)) He is remembered most for work mainly in two areas. One of these areas is that of linear differential equations; in particular he worked on the Sturm-Liouville problem and integral equations in general. He wrote an important text on integral equations. The second main area of his work was the calculus of variations. He published Lehrbruch der Variationsrechnung (Textbook of the calculus of variations) (1900) and he gave the topic many of the terms in common use today including 'extremal' for a resolution curve, 'field' for a family of extremals, 'transversal' and 'strong' and 'weak' extremals *SAU</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4CbNV2evp4ZBLldf3Zk7GhtXaA3T43bvxpbe3Lb39PvG1LsX9MiLr4hlaR_jzeBjrhTAfQZ-A4TZj7rig3KHnh_ltLyNEZ8-IU_g-G_J-n9lFQZHZYlMXAQznFsJNmvbyFdTjlBt6gRmpL7uzl7Z36vtR-2Lc9g8TJekyQthFepfZVv2bPOLOwOSsFnw/s400/Adolf_Kneser.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="289" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4CbNV2evp4ZBLldf3Zk7GhtXaA3T43bvxpbe3Lb39PvG1LsX9MiLr4hlaR_jzeBjrhTAfQZ-A4TZj7rig3KHnh_ltLyNEZ8-IU_g-G_J-n9lFQZHZYlMXAQznFsJNmvbyFdTjlBt6gRmpL7uzl7Z36vtR-2Lc9g8TJekyQthFepfZVv2bPOLOwOSsFnw/s320/Adolf_Kneser.jpeg" width="231" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1985 Margaret Harwood </b>(March 19, 1885 – February 6, 1979) was born in Littleton, Massachusetts, became the first woman – and for a long time the only woman – to serve as director of an independent astronomical observatory. She took charge of the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket Island in 1916, and remained in that post for forty-one years.</div><div><div>Miss Harwood had planned to study physics, chemistry and math when she entered Radcliffe College in 1903, but her choice of lodgings turned her to astronomy. She boarded with the family of Arthur Searle, a genial fixture at the Harvard College Observatory. Soon she was trailing him up Observatory Hill, learning to use the telescopes, earning the friendship and mentoring of other staff members, from Edward Pickering to Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Leavitt. By the time of Miss Harwood’s graduation, she was ready to step into a paid position as an assistant. The position didn’t pay much, however, and she supplemented her income of about $500 per year by teaching science in the mornings at a couple of local schools.</div><div>In 1912, the Maria Mitchell Association awarded Miss Harwood a new fellowship in astronomy worth $1,000. It came with a new opportunity: From June to December of that year, she took up residence in the old Mitchell homestead on Nantucket, where she curated a small museum and library, used the telescope in the next-door dome to further her own research on asteroids, and lectured on astronomy to the locals every Monday night.</div></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Avenir Book", arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">She received an offer from Wellesley College to begin teaching astronomy there upon completion of her graduate studies. But the Maria Mitchell Association, keen to keep her and see her continue her own research, matched the Wellesley salary and made her director of the Nantucket observatory </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Avenir Book", arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">. She was only thirty years old.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1957, with considerable reluctance, Miss Harwood retired from her post at Nantucket. In 1961 she accepted the Annie Jump Cannon Prize, which had been established by its namesake in the 1930s, and first conferred on Cecilia Payne. The prize is still awarded today by the American Astronomical Society to a young woman at the start of her career, but it no longer comes with a custom-designed piece of astronomically themed jewelry . Instead, the winner is invited to lecture about her research at the Society’s annual meeting. No doubt Miss Harwood would approve.*LH</span></div><div>Custom-made pin in the shape of a galaxy, designed for the occasion of the award of the Annie Jump Cannon Prize to Margaret Harwood, 1961 (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard Institute)</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijyRxD_XMDhDvArlbyNsKeHylZg1sCcheuD1y7lzoKESiOAST0KtPFkmVkoudTIldiN2jvgDN8gxFCMPUMcv-VzAJ5bRCEM4jcK0T8zq21N3q_Z4D2oKddRhHvFG1Aa_3IsB0pZHwhI1vH_gz4UxqI6HHtA2EWLYf_dMgR1-xhOfjMTIhjZdStLTHRpSg/s600/harwood2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="406" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijyRxD_XMDhDvArlbyNsKeHylZg1sCcheuD1y7lzoKESiOAST0KtPFkmVkoudTIldiN2jvgDN8gxFCMPUMcv-VzAJ5bRCEM4jcK0T8zq21N3q_Z4D2oKddRhHvFG1Aa_3IsB0pZHwhI1vH_gz4UxqI6HHtA2EWLYf_dMgR1-xhOfjMTIhjZdStLTHRpSg/s320/harwood2.jpeg" width="217" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKTvyxZyt8c5j78rJ8-IOnF1FNUs2ZkE0Bxa6YrDCEs6LJaiAtAAKfPRpBTqUZ-IwHpYLF9YYnfvRfS13fIzYO-Fo041Y-uz3ape6OKp_tXTftCIGruLUzSx-RhFtRsLCMajLVQRo1HTx40Q5JqpD5bmTAVWOMb9FMNG_-NCE5BAF-mHuwQYGadTlUUTo/s202/harwood%20cannon%20prize.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="202" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKTvyxZyt8c5j78rJ8-IOnF1FNUs2ZkE0Bxa6YrDCEs6LJaiAtAAKfPRpBTqUZ-IwHpYLF9YYnfvRfS13fIzYO-Fo041Y-uz3ape6OKp_tXTftCIGruLUzSx-RhFtRsLCMajLVQRo1HTx40Q5JqpD5bmTAVWOMb9FMNG_-NCE5BAF-mHuwQYGadTlUUTo/s1600/harwood%20cannon%20prize.jpeg" width="202" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><HR></b></div><div><b>1900 Frederic Joliot-Curie</b> (19 Mar 1900; 14 Aug 1958 at age 58) French physicist and physical chemist who became personal assistant to Marie Curie at the Radium Institute, Paris, and the following year married her daughter Irène (who was also an assistant at the institute). Later they collaborated on research, and shared the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "in recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements." For example, they discovered that aluminium atoms exposed to alpha rays transmuted to radioactive phosphorus atoms. By 1939 he was investigating the fission of uranium atoms. After WW II he supervised the first atomic pile in France. He succeeded his wife as head of the Radium Institute upon her death in 1956. *TIS</div><div>Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie | Nobel Prize-Winning French</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirkXyJWmLaq7nNYKBu6u0kHZECAH4MWdUkzBr0d7llBHnS-zmE2gk5IMVnROwK69Si85qKaKwwkaXvSwR0p2YiZEDY8UonWV3x6CtXJ9zIK6gIPezEIosIpqZ4qb0dKuYuE4q226-_xOZSo-QTj7DJ45xssZTRZURCp_AAhD366K65sNVlfks48ps4YFM/s1600/Irene-Frederic-Joliot-Curie.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1232" data-original-width="1600" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirkXyJWmLaq7nNYKBu6u0kHZECAH4MWdUkzBr0d7llBHnS-zmE2gk5IMVnROwK69Si85qKaKwwkaXvSwR0p2YiZEDY8UonWV3x6CtXJ9zIK6gIPezEIosIpqZ4qb0dKuYuE4q226-_xOZSo-QTj7DJ45xssZTRZURCp_AAhD366K65sNVlfks48ps4YFM/s320/Irene-Frederic-Joliot-Curie.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr /><b>1910 Jacob Wolfowitz</b> (March 19, 1910 – July 16, 1981) was a Polish-born American statistician and Shannon Award-winning information theorist. He was the father of former Deputy Secretary of Defense and World Bank Group President Paul Wolfowitz.<br />While a part-time graduate student, Wolfowitz met Abraham Wald, with whom he collaborated in numerous joint papers in the field of mathematical statistics. This collaboration continued until Wald's death in an airplane crash in 1950. In 1951, Wolfowitz became a professor of mathematics at Cornell University, where he stayed until 1970. He died of a heart attack in Tampa, Florida, where he was a professor at the University of South Florida.<br />Wolfowitz's main contributions were in the fields of statistical decision theory, non-parametric statistics, sequential analysis, and information theory.*Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggvvle4-GzXUDQxuzwxbSagStSnR5Iq1EueZE7enXtyY3EW-wwjssRymD6RiObj859I_3N49cuAwb7yIpDkYcyYZkx4vtc1dy0hvUpCxT7rN-2WtH1TkV7D9qf8wvr2By-HZaWM_J2RWPanRpF5OqRfOPnRU9drhRW8mrOTmmh6p_AwVT8ZRfPdi0Y5Oc/s338/Jacob_Wolfowitz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="338" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggvvle4-GzXUDQxuzwxbSagStSnR5Iq1EueZE7enXtyY3EW-wwjssRymD6RiObj859I_3N49cuAwb7yIpDkYcyYZkx4vtc1dy0hvUpCxT7rN-2WtH1TkV7D9qf8wvr2By-HZaWM_J2RWPanRpF5OqRfOPnRU9drhRW8mrOTmmh6p_AwVT8ZRfPdi0Y5Oc/s320/Jacob_Wolfowitz.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1910 Jerome Namias</b> (19 Mar 1910, 10 Feb 1997 at age 86) American meteorological researcher most noted for having pioneered the development of extended weather forecasts and who also studied the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and the El Niño phenomenon. *TIS In 1971 he joined the Scripps Institution and established the first Experimental Climate Research Center. His prognosis of warm weather during the Arab oil embargo of 1973 greatly aided domestic policy response.*Wik<br /><hr /><b>1927 Allen Newell</b> (March 19, 1927 – July 19, 1992) was a researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND Corporation and at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, and Department of Psychology. He contributed to the Information Processing Language (1956) and two of the earliest AI programs, the Logic Theory Machine (1956) and the General Problem Solver (1957) (with Herbert A. Simon). He was awarded the ACM's A.M. Turing Award along with Herbert A. Simon in 1975 for their basic contributions to artificial intelligence and the psychology of human cognition *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhadaD-umnh-h5zM72zkz8PYOAp4fg61hnSayF5PU1DXIu_JUot6JmgGIf6lgHSkU30htlQHd8EISazofeUksRgHudnZR6T0E1qJFleosCppVkBIetnmgT4YaXhn77tCwAD60RTxInFfRr676VA4-6eFM7THqGBc34snxLqWbAePAVjl-cYfDFrZVzBhMU/s314/Allen_Newell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="299" data-original-width="314" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhadaD-umnh-h5zM72zkz8PYOAp4fg61hnSayF5PU1DXIu_JUot6JmgGIf6lgHSkU30htlQHd8EISazofeUksRgHudnZR6T0E1qJFleosCppVkBIetnmgT4YaXhn77tCwAD60RTxInFfRr676VA4-6eFM7THqGBc34snxLqWbAePAVjl-cYfDFrZVzBhMU/s1600/Allen_Newell.jpg" width="314" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1951 Arthur T. Benjamin </b>(March 19, 1961; ) is an American mathematician who specializes in combinatorics. Since 1989 he has been a Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College.<br />He is known for mental math capabilities and mathemagics performances. These have included shows at the Magic Castle and TED. He is also the first mathematician to have been featured on the Colbert Report.<br />The Mathematical Association of America gave him a regional award for distinguished teaching in 1999 and a national one in 2000. He was the Mathematical Association of America's George Pólya Lecturer for 2006-8. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.<br />Benjamin was one of the performers at the inaugural San Diego Science Festival on April 4, 2009. He also won the American Backgammon Tour in 1997. *Wik A video of his "mathmagic" is <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_does_mathemagic.html" target="_blank">here </a><br />And his book, The Magic of Math: Solving for x and Figuring Out Why, is delightful,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibdJtgJQbBpqI37eiG-KUa2aRb15g-6hjyLnrFMZ42vUmoEKWV7b_rF351uae7-t2SMTNfc38f8Ftkc1F6t0xcxs3woHAZb2vrvub32Gj1RRbmw_AvCfQBaLrOZkk33PcE9CjVqh5VntoInZwIIU6OtpRzzuiSq4lt5QdBNFCmkUKvQoBViSP2KEtcWMw/s445/art%20benjamin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibdJtgJQbBpqI37eiG-KUa2aRb15g-6hjyLnrFMZ42vUmoEKWV7b_rF351uae7-t2SMTNfc38f8Ftkc1F6t0xcxs3woHAZb2vrvub32Gj1RRbmw_AvCfQBaLrOZkk33PcE9CjVqh5VntoInZwIIU6OtpRzzuiSq4lt5QdBNFCmkUKvQoBViSP2KEtcWMw/s320/art%20benjamin.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwfwz77L8tt8TdY1mCpIBGNOR2IRLpUGjOOm4iAAe3Tz_9NXI-dnb0iW8d-A0CLfbzuheEUkGXaV4vrxl_u2XGIORpf3Dz4Jav5Ezllfm4BYyqAYA5hyjmp1UZXLAI96g6Wfsv_oqq4tCQAA1yedrB3pHlFzqHZmyHTxQKpWtl9zys5znCbe8W2c1e_Ew/s360/benjamin%20ActionShot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="360" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwfwz77L8tt8TdY1mCpIBGNOR2IRLpUGjOOm4iAAe3Tz_9NXI-dnb0iW8d-A0CLfbzuheEUkGXaV4vrxl_u2XGIORpf3Dz4Jav5Ezllfm4BYyqAYA5hyjmp1UZXLAI96g6Wfsv_oqq4tCQAA1yedrB3pHlFzqHZmyHTxQKpWtl9zys5znCbe8W2c1e_Ew/s320/benjamin%20ActionShot.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>1406 Ibn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun Al-Ḥaḍrami, May 27, 1332 AD/732 AH – March 19, 1406 AD/808 AH) was a Muslim historiographer and historian who is often viewed as one of the fathers of modern historiography,sociology and economics.<br />He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomenon in English), which was discovered, evaluated and fully appreciated first by 19th century European scholarship, although it has also had considerable influence on 17th-century Ottoman historians like Ḥajjī Khalīfa and Mustafa Naima who relied on his theories to analyze the growth and decline of the Ottoman Empire. Later in the 19th century, Western scholars recognized him as one of the greatest philosophers to come out of the Muslim world. *Wik</div><div>Ibn Khaldun Statue and Square, Mohandessin, Cairo</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYaLKxcvxvG0fcRhyphenhyphen01gvluzUM5N54TL6dHXjsgdZkgwr8glSGNPp4NLGeTKs3pp1Usn8myigE5foo7gDqxC_BbOp8oPE4hjK0BnXQI0oWhglviJtavbgkaRjFz2dMkNs0OpA0Pm5V7vAHWuRMGDFpGX89HVmxT3Cfn-TIezRcaSCPqF6qoiWkU_egnGE/s440/Ibn_Khaldoun_Statue_and_Square.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYaLKxcvxvG0fcRhyphenhyphen01gvluzUM5N54TL6dHXjsgdZkgwr8glSGNPp4NLGeTKs3pp1Usn8myigE5foo7gDqxC_BbOp8oPE4hjK0BnXQI0oWhglviJtavbgkaRjFz2dMkNs0OpA0Pm5V7vAHWuRMGDFpGX89HVmxT3Cfn-TIezRcaSCPqF6qoiWkU_egnGE/s320/Ibn_Khaldoun_Statue_and_Square.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /><b>1862 John Edward Campbell</b> <span class="st">(27 May 1862, Lisburn, Ireland – 1 October 1924, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England) </span>is remembered for the Campbell-Baker-Hausdorff theorem which gives a formula for multiplication of exponentials in Lie algebras. *SAU His 1903 book, Introductory Treatise on Lie's Theory of Finite Continuous Transformation Groups, popularized the ideas of Sophus Lie among British mathematicians.<br />He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1905, and served as President of the London Mathematical Society from 1918 to 1920. *Wik<br /><hr /><b>1685 René François Walter de Sluse</b> (2 July 1622 in Visé, Principality of Liège (now Belgium) - 19 March 1685 in Liège, Principality of Liège (now Belgium)) a French mathematician, intellectual and clergyman who wrote many books about mathematics and contributed to the development of mathematics.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Vis%C3%A9_-_%C3%89glise_Saint-Martin_-_Tombe_de_Ren%C3%A9_Fran%C3%A7ois_Walter_de_Sluse_-_plaque.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Vis%C3%A9_-_%C3%89glise_Saint-Martin_-_Tombe_de_Ren%C3%A9_Fran%C3%A7ois_Walter_de_Sluse_-_plaque.JPG" width="133" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Plague in Église Saint-Martin</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />He studied at a university in Rome, and later moved to Liège. His position in the church prevented him from visiting other mathematicians, but he corresponded with the mathematicians and intellectuals of the day.<br />He studied calculus and his work discusses spirals, tangents, turning points and points of inflection.<br />There is a family of curves named after him called the Pearls of Sluze: the curves represented by the following equation with positive integer values of m, n and p:<br />y<sup>n</sup> = k(a - x)<sup>p</sup>x<sup>m</sup> *Wik<br />This group of curves was studied by de Sluze between 1657 and 1698. It was Blaise Pascal who named the curves after de Sluze.<br /><hr /><b>1922 George Ballard Mathews</b>, FRS (February 23, 1861 — March 19, 1922) was a London born mathematician who specialized in number theory.<br />After receiving his degree (as Senior Wrangler) from St John's College, Cambridge in 1883, he was elected a Fellow of St John's College. *Wik Mathews also wrote Algebraic equations (1907) which is a clear exposition of Galois theory, and Projective geometry (1914). This latter book develops the subject of projective geometry without using the concept of distance and it bases projective geometry on a minimal set of axioms. The book also treats von Staudt's theory of complex elements as defined by real involutions. The book contains a wealth of information concerning the projective geometry of conics and quadrics. *SAU<br /><hr /><b>1930 Henry Faulds</b> (1 Jun 1843, 19 Mar 1930 at age 86) Scottish physician who, from 1873, became a missionary in Japan, where he worked as a surgeon superintendent at a Tokyo hospital, taught at the local university, and founded the Tokyo Institute for the Blind. In the late 1870s, his attention was drawn to fingerprints of ancient potters remaining on their work that he helped unearth at an archaeological dig site in Japan. He commenced a study of fingerprints, and became convinced that each individual had a unique pattern. He corresponded on the subject with Charles Darwin, and published a paper about his ideas in Nature (28 Oct 1880). When he returned to Britain in 1886, he unsuccessfully offered his fingerprinting identification scheme for forensic uses to Scotland Yard. Undeserved confusion on priority for the discovery with Francis Galton and Sir William J. Herschel lasted until 1917. *TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6eGcNPanqhTSEAe09pc2t3o67VgPuOl9o-4vmCule1RoolEbm05eDCyfoTZ9WQcKd1acRSEc6KzwE-4Aeh0aoFUYmxFCcrjhWPvHMC5MV7xq1eupX_o4tDXp8QVw4fS2800wBDNrc49YJ18JQ721tXoXyimEIz4G0cY7M2zA_9jbD86PkL0OJdpgLI0/s442/Henry_Faulds2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6eGcNPanqhTSEAe09pc2t3o67VgPuOl9o-4vmCule1RoolEbm05eDCyfoTZ9WQcKd1acRSEc6KzwE-4Aeh0aoFUYmxFCcrjhWPvHMC5MV7xq1eupX_o4tDXp8QVw4fS2800wBDNrc49YJ18JQ721tXoXyimEIz4G0cY7M2zA_9jbD86PkL0OJdpgLI0/s320/Henry_Faulds2.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1978 Gaston Maurice Julia</b> (February 3, 1893 – March 19, 1978) was a French mathematician who devised the formula for the Julia set. His works were popularized by French mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot; the Julia and Mandelbrot fractals are closely related.*Wik A report of his bravery during WWI during which he lost his nose:<br /><blockquote>January 25, 1915, showed complete contempt for danger. Under an extremely violent bombardment, he succeeded despite his youth (22 years) to give a real example to his men. Struck by a bullet in the middle of his face causing a terrible injury, he could no longer speak but wrote on a ticket that he would not be evacuated. He only went to the ambulance when the attack had been driven back. It was the first time this officer had come under fire.</blockquote>When only 25 years of age, Julia published his 199 page masterpiece Mémoire sur l'iteration des fonctions rationelles which made him famous in the mathematics centres of his day. The beautiful paper, published in Journal de Math. Pure et Appl. 8 (1918), 47-245, concerned the iteration of a rational function f. Julia gave a precise description of the set J(f) of those z in C for which the nth iterate f n(z) stays bounded as n tends to infinity. (These are the Julia Sets popularized by Mandelbrot) *SAU</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrftBBLVXuS9jeFC01sse6MdRSboWZ8Lmdm7_TigfUHH_mn20cRTSGQLzHc14hDlaGHCHGR6kqu1LhsrnZOVxOn7mge1gWiGmg0iR6S80kQ2Kywf7JuKoO4tQURgZj2Q1GXlAhqbkuuPMPUQmvsquyct-ikh7J5J787cA8wF-FaobS29s03Ny3hNy0yfc/s220/julia%20set.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="220" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrftBBLVXuS9jeFC01sse6MdRSboWZ8Lmdm7_TigfUHH_mn20cRTSGQLzHc14hDlaGHCHGR6kqu1LhsrnZOVxOn7mge1gWiGmg0iR6S80kQ2Kywf7JuKoO4tQURgZj2Q1GXlAhqbkuuPMPUQmvsquyct-ikh7J5J787cA8wF-FaobS29s03Ny3hNy0yfc/s1600/julia%20set.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzZnbk6Ci4ehlFj1wocT1A_W_sWC3113I0JdOheumGfzECFwIGSSIgTrcN4Wb7A4sjAhM2RmLzVb8wShkud-h7ZSJ8bGMIcpK9Ea3aOJv5aP0OHMPR4S9WI0NrwBuqv4xKmlitZKOeo_0qTjHloex0DejylhKiwGoaQSaVcwtjfoqsuyB6kcI3P0BGXK8/s326/Julia_5.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="246" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzZnbk6Ci4ehlFj1wocT1A_W_sWC3113I0JdOheumGfzECFwIGSSIgTrcN4Wb7A4sjAhM2RmLzVb8wShkud-h7ZSJ8bGMIcpK9Ea3aOJv5aP0OHMPR4S9WI0NrwBuqv4xKmlitZKOeo_0qTjHloex0DejylhKiwGoaQSaVcwtjfoqsuyB6kcI3P0BGXK8/s320/Julia_5.jpeg" width="241" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1984 Richard Ernest Bellman</b> (August 26, 1920 – March 19, 1984) was an American applied mathematician, celebrated for his invention of dynamic programming in 1953, and important contributions in other fields of mathematics. A Bellman equation, also known as a dynamic programming equation, is a necessary condition for optimality associated with the mathematical optimization method known as dynamic programming. Almost any problem which can be solved using optimal control theory can also be solved by analyzing the appropriate Bellman equation. The Bellman equation was first applied to engineering control theory and to other topics in applied mathematics, and subsequently became an important tool in economic theory. The "Curse of dimensionality", is a term coined by Bellman to describe the problem caused by the exponential increase in volume associated with adding extra dimensions to a (mathematical) space.*Wik</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVBq-wymjeMlp4tZJHtEcL8FY0sj7uu82ijqgSO913zQEU7-G3FEYr59-alQkNrcStOIIW-ApRiMh7JnpdFADQ-Eh5eJWgqq9SppCApzLXAjclGFH6IdmuHOykGzr6hSUvC9eHMy3SwvB65yVsbWnzOQyLJSMfFz8MKcLhCLzkzXqgMTyWvLSDHdUJ7GI/s320/Richard_Ernest_Bellman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="256" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVBq-wymjeMlp4tZJHtEcL8FY0sj7uu82ijqgSO913zQEU7-G3FEYr59-alQkNrcStOIIW-ApRiMh7JnpdFADQ-Eh5eJWgqq9SppCApzLXAjclGFH6IdmuHOykGzr6hSUvC9eHMy3SwvB65yVsbWnzOQyLJSMfFz8MKcLhCLzkzXqgMTyWvLSDHdUJ7GI/s1600/Richard_Ernest_Bellman.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://image2.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2006/87/13776355_114366435201.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://image2.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2006/87/13776355_114366435201.jpg" width="171" /></a></div><b>1987 Louis Victor Pierre Raymond duc de Broglie</b> (15 Aug 1892,19 Mar 1987 at age 94) was a French physicist best known for his research on quantum theory and for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons. De Broglie was of the French aristocracy - hence the title "duc" (Prince). In 1923, as part of his Ph.D. thesis, he argued that since light could be seen to behave under some conditions as particles (photoelectric effect) and other times as waves (diffraction), we should consider that matter has the same ambiguity of possessing both particle and wave properties. For this, he was awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize for Physics. *TIS<br />He is buried in the Cimetière de Neuilly-sur-Seine (Ancien),Hauts-de-Seine, Ile-de-France Region, France. (Just outside Paris)<br /><hr /><b>2011 J(ames) Laurie Snell,</b> (January 15th, 1925, Wheaton, Illinois; March 19, 2011, Hanover, New Hampshire) was an American mathematician.<br />A graduate of the University of Illinois, he taught at Dartmouth College until retiring in 1995. Among his publications was the book "Introduction to Finite Mathematics", written with John George Kemeny and Gerald L. Thompson, first published in 1956 and in multiple editions since.<br />The Snell envelope, used in stochastics and mathematical finance, is the smallest supermartingale dominating the price process. Snell has published the related theory 1952 in the paper Applications of<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_%28probability_theory%29" target="_blank"> martingale</a> system theorems.*Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheValHmv3LlUozewTsj8xuOKvNE6iGHTcxl6Trf-3Kpaw7PWHqrWJD_5PWP0H9gtY_8edLXLwtpyNpZmyC6yQ1mDjKKm9Oj33BbXjLPFYA4WMhf7fkayQVdIIgn4Cyq_0bhwNlx8JBlAydCLX6N7PWozBMwvf03lyo1azAbqKQPgF0D14-_Vu8W9rGDRU/s466/Laurie_Snell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheValHmv3LlUozewTsj8xuOKvNE6iGHTcxl6Trf-3Kpaw7PWHqrWJD_5PWP0H9gtY_8edLXLwtpyNpZmyC6yQ1mDjKKm9Oj33BbXjLPFYA4WMhf7fkayQVdIIgn4Cyq_0bhwNlx8JBlAydCLX6N7PWozBMwvf03lyo1azAbqKQPgF0D14-_Vu8W9rGDRU/s320/Laurie_Snell.jpg" width="227" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCPZCw0TuEa6IuXEJurAOk4maD9wqrGpkQEUJFtvwVHMRQlvotwMrGX9gREUnu7_f14scxxGSk1M0VZtXaaxh_HATnHdKqZWJepXBB3ClAnubZ2E0SuDGnFTUlNXeV4YVy7bk8KKO9uGw6LWDB2JDYl1eLvR9W-cVcO_lSzaeu3yH7AfzbA9jAqmzSXSU/s400/snell%20markov%20chains.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="267" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCPZCw0TuEa6IuXEJurAOk4maD9wqrGpkQEUJFtvwVHMRQlvotwMrGX9gREUnu7_f14scxxGSk1M0VZtXaaxh_HATnHdKqZWJepXBB3ClAnubZ2E0SuDGnFTUlNXeV4YVy7bk8KKO9uGw6LWDB2JDYl1eLvR9W-cVcO_lSzaeu3yH7AfzbA9jAqmzSXSU/s320/snell%20markov%20chains.jpeg" width="214" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-43846476328590093022024-03-18T05:30:00.002+00:002024-03-18T17:30:14.793+00:00The Also-ran and the King<p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: large;">The Also-ran and the King</span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Combing through Greg Ross wonderful Futility Closet I found a nice post he called "Also-Ran". </p><p>I'll give you his article and then fill in the missing details...</p><p>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">Arthur Conan Doyle tells us little about James Moriarty, the criminal mastermind in the Sherlock Holmes stories. But he does mention one intriguing accomplishment in <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Valley of Fear</em>:</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9rem; margin: 0px; padding: 1em 0em 1em 3.5em; position: relative; quotes: "" ""; z-index: 1;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">Is he not the celebrated author of <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Dynamics of an Asteroid</em>, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it?</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">Mathematicians Alain Goriely and Simon P. Norton have both pointed out that in 1887 King Oscar II of Sweden <a href="http://goriely.com/wp-content/uploads/2012-SIAM-News.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; transition: color 0.3s ease-out 0s;">offered a bounty</a> for the solution to the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">n</em>-body problem in celestial mechanics. Doyle’s story was set in 1888, so it’s possible that Moriarty had intended his book as his entry in this contest.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">If he did, he was disappointed — the prize went to Henri Poincaré.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">Ok, I thought, but wait.... I didn't think the n-body solution was actually solved, so I did the obvious thing, I queried Quora. Quora says, "There are no solutions to the n-body question.. " quickly followed by such things as, "If you stand on one leg and squint your eyes" ... Ok, they don't say that bit exactly, but lots of talk about assumptions that might make it "sort of"accurate if you stand on one leg... but I covered that. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">So I started to research the actual contest described in his post. Turns out the idea did not suddenly appear to the king of Sweden one day. His 60th birthday they were celebrating, just to plant this thing in calendar tile, was January 21, 1889. And it wasn't exactly the King's idea from the start. The usually quite accurate Wikipedia tells it this way, " "<span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;">Oscar was also particularly interested in mathematics. In 1889 he set up a contest, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, for "an important discovery in the realm of higher mathematical analysis". In truth the contest was to be decided and awarded on the Kings Birthday on, yep, </span>January 21, 1889. That doesn't leave much time to solve, write up and deliver your solution to an unsolved problem." In fact the idea was thought up years before with not a whisper at first to the Good King Oscar II. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2lQ8iP_8Q3o00dTrCVrYneUFI7qUl7uzazUyC8VyMvXlaTmXu0xrbC-dee-I2iPEt6W9glGUaIVpi9NNmlK5vKofo9fa_v3o9tXjZpSMgafz59FQVqQ_jatp6X_iEp8j7K0GWULOKu4iZTIw12NXozEAZgWOQdFsThlHwcNe1UykKNNuli8AK57E2Xsw/s300/king%20oscar%20of%20sweden.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2lQ8iP_8Q3o00dTrCVrYneUFI7qUl7uzazUyC8VyMvXlaTmXu0xrbC-dee-I2iPEt6W9glGUaIVpi9NNmlK5vKofo9fa_v3o9tXjZpSMgafz59FQVqQ_jatp6X_iEp8j7K0GWULOKu4iZTIw12NXozEAZgWOQdFsThlHwcNe1UykKNNuli8AK57E2Xsw/s1600/king%20oscar%20of%20sweden.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span>The whole contest was the brainchild of </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Magnus Gustaf "Gösta" Mittag-Leffler, who had founded in 1882, </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;"> the most important mathematical periodical ever, Acta Mathematica, and would be its editor for 40 years. </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;">One of Mittag-Leffler’s inventive ideas in promoting Acta Mathematica was to turn to King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway, both for financial support of the project and as the first enlisted subscriber. In 1884 another grand idea from Mittag-Leffler had matured. Again involving King Oscar, he now wanted to arrange an international prize competition in mathematics honouring the 60th birthday of the king. It seems that Mittag-Leffler first revealed his plan to Kovalevskaya. We find a short reference in a letter to her from 4 May 1884. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ZsCOPCjGAr6etVdZiNKti2l88oktjUGDKtb7x-vrqL1V0VJcK5NDKmSm6C4sPzeREiUOsLkxlvtfSih6Rqjk210vPVFqI0-U0axcH44BkJDiCQa7DE8Cdwaoy8an9KXAJ-qjw5SLjODw2KzhtfJ8ogPyZZiqyg8JHC3yW3epJWFTjajoDznGuM03RgU/s403/Acta_Mathematica_1884_Titel.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ZsCOPCjGAr6etVdZiNKti2l88oktjUGDKtb7x-vrqL1V0VJcK5NDKmSm6C4sPzeREiUOsLkxlvtfSih6Rqjk210vPVFqI0-U0axcH44BkJDiCQa7DE8Cdwaoy8an9KXAJ-qjw5SLjODw2KzhtfJ8ogPyZZiqyg8JHC3yW3epJWFTjajoDznGuM03RgU/w298-h400/Acta_Mathematica_1884_Titel.jpg" width="298" /></a></div><br /><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">The special features of this competition was the international and ambitious appeal, and the connection not to an academy or institution, but to the journal Acta Mathematica, where the winning entry finally was to be published. The prize consisted of a gold medal and 2,500 Swedish kronor. (Note the prize amount, it becomes important later.) The memoirs should be submitted before 1 June 1888 (nearly three years after the original announcement and six months before the King's birthday), with anonymity maintained through a motto on an enclosed sealed envelope containing the name of the author. (Even in the beginning the three judges, "</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Mittag-Leffler himself, acting as administrative and coordinative liaison with his mentors and friends Karl Weierstrass in Berlin and Charles Hermite in Paris. They were not only the two dominant mathematicians of the older generation, but there was also a special sympathy between them. This would be a prize awarded not for past contributions, but for a solution to an unsolved problem specified by the committee. In order to attract the best mathematicians from different branches of mathematical analysis they agreed on four questions." (So there were choices and the n-body problem was just one of them. )* </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Institut Mittag-Leffler</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivALWrY_jbQYW8HiSIT03BjSVieuk4b9M_Jy4N7WjGGPgOz8XQ3pPGKBmb_ENOiuzHiR3lnSdo2PqKI8cu1RGiTIkfybyWVmhkSY4hiRDjIcNl9cljZXx55_LxOreXEo4KWzZ01winVjCbc3r__ApI1DbUkTOtHpocvHbflYaQxGMzqwMaLJCiaAj39fo/s680/mittag-leffler%20institute.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="680" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivALWrY_jbQYW8HiSIT03BjSVieuk4b9M_Jy4N7WjGGPgOz8XQ3pPGKBmb_ENOiuzHiR3lnSdo2PqKI8cu1RGiTIkfybyWVmhkSY4hiRDjIcNl9cljZXx55_LxOreXEo4KWzZ01winVjCbc3r__ApI1DbUkTOtHpocvHbflYaQxGMzqwMaLJCiaAj39fo/s320/mittag-leffler%20institute.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;">* </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Institut Mittag-Leffler</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">The committee knew very well that Poincaré had the capacity to attack any of the four questions. In correspondence with Mittag-Leffler he made clear his intention to grapple with Question 1, the n-body problem. In May 1888, after hard work and many doubts, he submitted his memoir Sur le problème des trois corps et les équations de la dynamique. As for the anonymity, well …, accompanying the memoir were two letter notes, one to the prize jury and one to Mittag-Leffler.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">A list of all the twelve manuscripts received by June 1888 was published in Volume 11 of Acta with their identifying epigraphs. It turned out that five of the authors had attempted the prestigious n-body problem, one had tried Question 3 (???), while six treated a subject of their own, which remained a secondary option. Only four of the authors have been identified: in addition to Poincaré also Paul Appell, Guy de Longchamps and Jean Escary.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Finally after almost 300 handwritten pages (including the appendices) his (Poincaré ) new concept of integral invariants and the subsequent geometrical arguments led to a claim of stability for this system.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Mittag-Leffler made his final presentation to the king on 20 January 1889, the day before the monarch’s 60th birthday, only the brief summary from Weierstrass was enclosed in the general report. For the winning entry Henri Poincaré received the sum of 2,500 kronor together with a gold medal. Paul Appell was also rewarded with a gold medal in addition to the honourable mention. For various reasons the prize ceremony didn’t take place on the king’s birthday, but the announcement was made public that day. Instead Poincaré received his prize from the hands of the Swedish ambassador in Paris later in March. Mittag-Leffler also informed the French Academy of Sciences of the news.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj43WYhvv69NcepCUryPWWJ0-P9WzOFmBY5kL0FGy1n9841xjWV0IynizphM-vpghq-OemHtDIc1vF46J4dU3muIfAVp_sP1e_FZ9H9KAEu7znFVc6fqyv6PF6624MmUhSmRn0nwageiIl3l90PvP8KwFcj8Yq-JC5jwxdFsDx9Me8Uhs7YiUrwg5mdZRY/s322/G%C3%B6sta_Mittag-Leffler_1904.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj43WYhvv69NcepCUryPWWJ0-P9WzOFmBY5kL0FGy1n9841xjWV0IynizphM-vpghq-OemHtDIc1vF46J4dU3muIfAVp_sP1e_FZ9H9KAEu7znFVc6fqyv6PF6624MmUhSmRn0nwageiIl3l90PvP8KwFcj8Yq-JC5jwxdFsDx9Me8Uhs7YiUrwg5mdZRY/s320/G%C3%B6sta_Mittag-Leffler_1904.JPG" width="248" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">One of Mittag-Leffler’s inventive ideas in promoting Acta Mathematica was to turn to King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway, both for financial support of the project and as the first enlisted subscriber. In 1884 another grand idea from Mittag-Leffler had matured. Again involving King Oscar, he now wanted to arrange an international prize competition in mathematics honouring the 60th birthday of the king. It seems that Mittag-Leffler first revealed his plan to Kovalevskaya. We find a short reference in a letter to her from 4 May 1884. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">The prize consisted of a gold medal and 2,500 Swedish kronor. (As a comparison, Mittag-Leffler’s annual salary as professor was 7,000 kronor.) The memoirs should be submitted before 1 June 1888 (almost three years after the announcement), with anonymity maintained through a motto on an enclosed sealed envelope containing the name of the author.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">A list of all the twelve manuscripts received by June 1888 was published in Volume 11 of Acta with their identifying epigraphs. It turned out that five of the authors had attempted the prestigious Question 1, the n-body problem; one had tried Question 3, while six treated a subject of their own, which remained a secondary option. Only four of the authors have been identified: in addition to Poincaré also Paul Appell, Guy de Longchamps and Jean Escary.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">Finally after almost 300 handwritten pages (including the appendices) his (Poincaré ) new concept of integral invariants and the subsequent geometrical arguments led to a claim of stability for this system.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">Although no entry had actually solved any of the questions, Mittag-Leffler and his jury were soon of the preliminary opinion that Poincaré was in a class of his own, that Appell should be awarded a second honorary prize, and that no other entries needed much further examination.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">Mittag-Leffler made his final presentation to the king on 20 January 1889, the day before the monarch’s 60th birthday, only the brief summary from Weierstrass was enclosed in the general report. For the winning entry Henri Poincaré received the sum of 2,500 kronor together with a gold medal. Paul Appell was also rewarded with a gold medal in addition to the honourable mention. For various reasons the prize ceremony didn’t take place on the king’s birthday, but the announcement was made public that day. Instead Poincaré received his prize from the hands of the Swedish ambassador in Paris later in March. Mittag-Leffler also informed the French Academy of Sciences of the news.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">Amid suspicions of a flaw in the work by assistant and gifted former student Edvard Phragmén, who became an active editor in Stockholm while Mittag-Leffler traveled Europe, the printing was held up.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">Finally, in July 1889, Mittag-Leffler decided that it was time to take action and print Poincaré’s dissertation, with all its added appendices. This went on until mid November, when the next volume of Acta was due to appear. Phragmén went on with the editorial work, and from the summer he was the only one who still raised objections to conclusions in the memoir that he didn’t understand, first to Mittag-Leffler and Weierstrass, and then directly in contact with Poincaré. The queries forced Poincaré more and more to confront his arguments in detail.On the last day of November 1889, an ominous telegram reached Mittag-Leffler. Poincaré briefly told him to stop the presses. He had found an error. An explanation was expected by letter the next day. After a sleepless night Mittag-Leffler could then read that the error was graver than Poincaré had first thought. “It is not true that the asymptotic surfaces are closed”, he wrote.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">Poincaré was asked to pay for the first printing, which he accepted. The expenses amounted to over 3,500 kronor, i.e. 1,000 more than the prize money he had received!</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">After intense work in December, and over Christmas and New Year, Poincaré was ready to submit a substantially revised memoir on 5 January 1890. He had altered some of the implicit assumptions which had turned out to be precipitate. Instead of stability for the restricted three-body problem, he had come to the inevitable conclusion that chaotic motion could occur, as we would now call the phenomenon.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">The printing resumed in late April 1890, but Poincaré’s final memoir of 290 pages only appeared in December 1890, in Volume 13 of Acta, together with Appell’s contribution and Hermite’s report. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span face="Lato, sans-serif" style="color: #4e5a68; font-size: 14px;">Henri Poincaré and Gösta Mittag-Leffler</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWdsh-h0DhPpMP10NK1XdF9eZt-jARyvGGYvTNfuak-LmyspyQyK6ACp-3bV2u9vs2VDVO3iCvGxAkd26LU-Dxv_qqfoUntXHav12XeNWg7AEESn97K0R79D4a0A61DQsDXaAoTnpt9gm4XdAvJebNZMsJc-Trw3cSBJ1ml-qoKD53fxvwBxujiXZGPXs/s600/poincare%20leffler.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="414" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWdsh-h0DhPpMP10NK1XdF9eZt-jARyvGGYvTNfuak-LmyspyQyK6ACp-3bV2u9vs2VDVO3iCvGxAkd26LU-Dxv_qqfoUntXHav12XeNWg7AEESn97K0R79D4a0A61DQsDXaAoTnpt9gm4XdAvJebNZMsJc-Trw3cSBJ1ml-qoKD53fxvwBxujiXZGPXs/s320/poincare%20leffler.jpeg" width="221" /></a></div><br /><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">A remarkable epilogue to King Oscar’s prize competition occurred when the Finnish mathematician and astronomer Karl Sundman actually found a complete solution to Question 1 in the general case of three bodies. In articles between 1907 and 1912 he gave a proof of the convergence of an infinite series solution to the three-body problem for almost all initial values, using well-known results. Although the methods used are relatively simple, the very slow convergence renders the series solutions unusable for practical purposes, and they provide no qualitative insight into the motion of the bodies. Even though Sundman’s achievement was praised and received attention in the decade to follow, it soon faded into oblivion. In 1991 Qiudong Wang managed to generalize Sundman’s solution to the general n-body case. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;">Extensive parts of this post have been clipped and/or paraphrased from a <a href="https://www.mittag-leffler.se/about-us/history/prize-competition/" target="_blank">much longer article at </a><span style="background-color: transparent;"><a href="https://www.mittag-leffler.se/about-us/history/prize-competition/" target="_blank">Mittag-Leffler Institute</a> *PB</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span face="Lato, sans-serif" style="color: #4e5a68;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-block-start: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span face="Lato, sans-serif" style="color: #4e5a68; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-92144005511661794662024-03-18T04:00:00.001+00:002024-03-18T04:00:00.137+00:00On This Day in Math - March 18<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzmREnVanLRf11Vs-nEgRlx7SEBIV3mlDK1U-I01IKM6wQmtVHSusZkKp9360Z7e7nCvLqV3vT-mLpQITDi890ZY1n1nW9e6c5lCtWtKKpEVbfh_sNtBgUAzwKGDiunU2JbYe0rbiq0og/s1600/SteinerEllipse_1000.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzmREnVanLRf11Vs-nEgRlx7SEBIV3mlDK1U-I01IKM6wQmtVHSusZkKp9360Z7e7nCvLqV3vT-mLpQITDi890ZY1n1nW9e6c5lCtWtKKpEVbfh_sNtBgUAzwKGDiunU2JbYe0rbiq0og/s1600/SteinerEllipse_1000.gif" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Steiner eircumellipse *wolfram alpha</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p><br />Scientific discovery consists in the interpretation for our own convenience of a system of existence which has been made with no eye to our convenience at all.<br />~Norbert Wiener<br /><br /><br />The 77th day of the year; 77 is the only number less than 100 with a multiplicative persistence of 4. Can you find the next? (Multiply all the digits of a number n, repeating with the product until a single digit is obtained. The number of steps required is known as the multiplicative persistence, and the final digit obtained is called the multiplicative digital root of n.) There is not another year day that will have a multiplicative persistence greater than four. [7x7=49, 4x9=36, 3x6=18, 1x8=8]<br /><br />77<sup>2</sup> is the smallest square number that can be the sum of consecutive squares greater than 1, \(sum_{k=18}^{28}k^2 = 77^2\)</p><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #0f1419;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Every integer greater than 77 is the sum of integers whose reciprocals sum to 1 @AlgebraFact. I take this to mean that 77 can not be the sum of such numbers, and 78 can. What are the digits that sum to 78 whose reciprocals sum to one? ***</span></span></span><br /><br />The concatenation of all palindromes from one up to 77 is prime.<br /><br />77 is equal to the sum of three consecutive squares, \(4^2 + 5^2 + 6^2= 77\) and also the sum of the first 8 primes. *Prime Curios<div><br /></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">77 and 78 form the fourth Ruth-Aaron pair, named for the number of home runs hit by Babe Ruth, 714, and the number when Aaron broke the record, 715 (he hit more afterward). They are consecutive numbers that have the same sums of their prime factors (77 = 7*11, 78 = 2*3*13, and 7+11 = 2+3+13).</span></div><div><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #222222;">***</span><table style="background-color: white; border-spacing: 0px; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><tbody><tr><td align="right" style="padding: 6px 5px;"><span class="MathJax" data-mathml="<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0"><mn>2</mn><mo>+</mo><mn>6</mn><mo>+</mo><mn>8</mn><mo>+</mo><mn>10</mn><mo>+</mo><mn>12</mn><mo>+</mo><mn>40</mn></mstyle></math>" id="MathJax-Element-1-Frame" role="presentation" style="border: 0px; direction: ltr; display: inline; float: none; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-height: none; max-width: none; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: normal; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left; text-wrap: nowrap; word-spacing: normal;" tabindex="0"><nobr aria-hidden="true" style="border: 0px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-height: none; max-width: none; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="math" id="MathJax-Span-1" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px; width: 13.176em;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; font-size: 17.08px; height: 0px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px; width: 10.776em;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; clip: rect(1.291em, 1010.72em, 2.403em, -999.997em); left: 0em; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: -2.163em; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="mrow" id="MathJax-Span-2" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="mstyle" id="MathJax-Span-3" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="mrow" id="MathJax-Span-4" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="mn" id="MathJax-Span-5" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">2</span><span class="mo" id="MathJax-Span-6" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.237em; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">+</span><span class="mn" id="MathJax-Span-7" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.237em; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">6</span><span class="mo" id="MathJax-Span-8" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.237em; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">+</span><span class="mn" id="MathJax-Span-9" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.237em; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">8</span><span class="mo" id="MathJax-Span-10" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.237em; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">+</span><span class="mn" id="MathJax-Span-11" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.237em; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">10</span><span class="mo" id="MathJax-Span-12" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.237em; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">+</span><span class="mn" id="MathJax-Span-13" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.237em; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">12</span><span class="mo" id="MathJax-Span-14" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.237em; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">+</span><span class="mn" id="MathJax-Span-15" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.237em; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">40</span></span></span></span><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; height: 2.169em; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px; width: 0px;"></span></span></span><span style="border-bottom-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-right-style: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; height: 1.075em; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: -0.139em; width: 0px;"></span></span></nobr><br /></span></td><td align="center" style="padding: 6px 5px;"><span class="MathJax_Preview" color="inherit"></span><span class="MathJax" data-mathml="<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mo>=</mo></math>" id="MathJax-Element-2-Frame" role="presentation" style="border: 0px; direction: ltr; display: inline; float: none; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-height: none; max-width: none; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: normal; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left; text-wrap: nowrap; word-spacing: normal;" tabindex="0"><nobr aria-hidden="true" style="border: 0px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-height: none; max-width: none; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="math" id="MathJax-Span-16" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px; width: 0.94em;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; font-size: 17.08px; height: 0px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px; width: 0.764em;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; clip: rect(1.642em, 1000.71em, 2.228em, -999.997em); left: 0em; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: -2.163em; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="mrow" id="MathJax-Span-17" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="mo" id="MathJax-Span-18" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">=</span></span><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; height: 2.169em; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px; width: 0px;"></span></span></span><span style="border-bottom-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-right-style: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; height: 0.432em; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0.075em; width: 0px;"></span></span></nobr><br /></span></td><td align="center" style="padding: 6px 0px;"></td><td align="center" style="padding: 6px 0px;"></td><td align="left" style="padding: 6px 0px;"></td><td align="left" style="padding: 6px 5px;"><span class="MathJax_Preview" color="inherit"></span><span class="MathJax" data-mathml="<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0"><mn>78</mn></mstyle></math>" id="MathJax-Element-3-Frame" role="presentation" style="border: 0px; direction: ltr; display: inline; float: none; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-height: none; max-width: none; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: normal; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-wrap: nowrap; word-spacing: normal;" tabindex="0"><nobr aria-hidden="true" style="border: 0px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-height: none; max-width: none; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="math" id="MathJax-Span-19" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px; width: 1.232em;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; font-size: 17.08px; height: 0px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px; width: 0.998em;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; clip: rect(1.291em, 1000.94em, 2.345em, -999.997em); left: 0em; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: -2.163em; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="mrow" id="MathJax-Span-20" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="mstyle" id="MathJax-Span-21" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="mrow" id="MathJax-Span-22" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;"><span class="mn" id="MathJax-Span-23" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; font-family: MathJax_Main; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px;">78</span></span></span></span><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; height: 2.169em; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: 0px; width: 0px;"></span></span></span><span style="border-bottom-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-right-style: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; height: 1.004em; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: static; transition: none 0s ease 0s; vertical-align: -0.068em; width: 0px;"></span></span></nobr><br /></span></td><td align="left" style="padding: 6px 5px;"></td><td align="left" style="padding: 6px 5px;"></td></tr></tbody></table><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>1658 </b>The younger Franz von Schooten, in a letter to John Wallis, challenged Fermat to prove or disprove the existence of Perfect numbers other than the type of Euclid. At this time there was much discussion of whether or not other forms of perfect numbers existed that did not meet Euclid's format. In Book IX of The Elements, Euclid gave a method for constructing perfect numbers (Euclid stated that if the sum of the powers of two from zero to some n are a prime number p, then \( 2^n*P \) is perfect), although this method applies only to even perfect numbers. In a 1638 letter to Mersenne, Descartes proposed that every even perfect number is of Euclid's form, and stated that he saw no reason why an odd perfect number could not exist (Dickson 2005, p. 12). Descartes was therefore among the first to consider the existence of odd perfect numbers; prior to Descartes, many authors had implicitly assumed (without proof) that the perfect numbers generated by Euclid's construction comprised all possible perfect numbers (Dickson 2005, pp. 6-12). In 1657, Frenicle repeated Descartes' belief that every even perfect number is of Euclid's form and that there was no reason odd perfect number could not exist. Like Frenicle, Euler also considered odd perfect numbers.</div><br />To this day, it is not known if any odd perfect numbers exist, although numbers up to 10^(1500) have been checked without success, making the existence of odd perfect numbers appear unlikely (Ochem and Rao 2012). <br />*Wolfram Mathworld</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3SpWOznPAN47g6pEEx6pfLFfJ0jFDp6vmg66amlMNhRsFQx-yf9MX6FzoXWZRYr8_w-3X7yqMQcLY3wtWUiwtAtni-agIhX7MhdsnEiH5Y9YOLXU7udnJnE1fOQTTlv9WaTpZQBy-yCmHcryz0x3gijp5d2bld13LMuk7REgy4fq7Yac1snloWFJtLtc/s330/Frans_van_schooten_jr.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="330" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3SpWOznPAN47g6pEEx6pfLFfJ0jFDp6vmg66amlMNhRsFQx-yf9MX6FzoXWZRYr8_w-3X7yqMQcLY3wtWUiwtAtni-agIhX7MhdsnEiH5Y9YOLXU7udnJnE1fOQTTlv9WaTpZQBy-yCmHcryz0x3gijp5d2bld13LMuk7REgy4fq7Yac1snloWFJtLtc/w200-h198/Frans_van_schooten_jr.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /></div><div><b>1649 </b>Christopher Wren received his BA degree from Oxford. He was elected a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, two years later and lived in the College until 1657. At Oxford Wren carried out many scientific experiments. He worked on anatomy, making drawings of the human brain for Willis's Cerebri anatome and he devised a blood transfusion method which he demonstrated by transfusing blood from one dog to another.</div><div>Wren's crypt at St. Pauls.. "<span face=""Google Sans", Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 16px;"> '</span><span face=""Google Sans", Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(80, 151, 255, 0.18); color: #040c28; font-size: 16px;">Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice</span><span face=""Google Sans", Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 16px;">. ' Translated from the original Latin, this means, 'Reader if you wish to see his memorial, look around you. "</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnfdIsaeEbcpOHbAw-D-T7JN571nD4qSdv0HNClEPIbfkZL1u0hY44oWHFzhh_p7pQ86shoPSNVrMqJqhNdjRWMG4XuGHj2nqY0TqXBmrueqZxg411lkhpiAuCPgV8c2q8n2KPv9YTamqyFHVMNT3-Fjr6pNXhI9u2LQ6g3Y-Rc1vkwLvrd9vshWJXYC0/s276/wren's%20crypt%20at%20st%20paul's.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnfdIsaeEbcpOHbAw-D-T7JN571nD4qSdv0HNClEPIbfkZL1u0hY44oWHFzhh_p7pQ86shoPSNVrMqJqhNdjRWMG4XuGHj2nqY0TqXBmrueqZxg411lkhpiAuCPgV8c2q8n2KPv9YTamqyFHVMNT3-Fjr6pNXhI9u2LQ6g3Y-Rc1vkwLvrd9vshWJXYC0/s1600/wren's%20crypt%20at%20st%20paul's.jpeg" width="183" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><b><hr /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>1940 </b>The first bombe, an electro-mechanical device used to try to decode German Enigma codes, was named "Victory". It was installed in "Hut 1" at Bletchley Park on 18 March 1940 (14 March is sometimes given). It was based on Turing's original design and so lacked a diagonal board. Successful messages from late April were de coded in May and June of the same year. The first US Navy machines were competed and tested on 3 May of 1943.</div><div><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSAKv45TYP7iJW83mE12Eikc1N6joMaPQFUOnN1yZRuP8sKIkIWfAPGbacxYq9JVoTI4vQPtOMlfbzn6p3x2MdhAXzRlTRYXEBVBlYFAXhiS0J2JvTIm8O5ZWOuzxm9BItuc-DDT3TQPA/s330/bombe.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSAKv45TYP7iJW83mE12Eikc1N6joMaPQFUOnN1yZRuP8sKIkIWfAPGbacxYq9JVoTI4vQPtOMlfbzn6p3x2MdhAXzRlTRYXEBVBlYFAXhiS0J2JvTIm8O5ZWOuzxm9BItuc-DDT3TQPA/s320/bombe.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><hr /><b>1965 </b>Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov became the first person to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for 12 minutes and 9 seconds. He was also selected to be the first Soviet person to land on the Moon although the project was cancelled. Leonov[a] (30 May 1934 – 11 October 2019) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut, Air Force major general, writer, and artist.*Wik<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr-LqPZQEk0qaHvlHbu1V_htlI8Oou58aJVtscGsx1pMc6iFhiUjgA6L48DfQNeypY1Aq6x72alIUX1eiDNAre8vGIAiyEYkYq7cXO40MG48ZrBu58-BUAjFPU_Bhl5g38YThh4RGVHv502YJe5bnenzu_M6W7evoHLofWM_sCH6LBebL0FSFnXoL5/s244/Aleksei_Leonov_-_Near_the_Moon.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="244" data-original-width="171" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr-LqPZQEk0qaHvlHbu1V_htlI8Oou58aJVtscGsx1pMc6iFhiUjgA6L48DfQNeypY1Aq6x72alIUX1eiDNAre8vGIAiyEYkYq7cXO40MG48ZrBu58-BUAjFPU_Bhl5g38YThh4RGVHv502YJe5bnenzu_M6W7evoHLofWM_sCH6LBebL0FSFnXoL5/s1600/Aleksei_Leonov_-_Near_the_Moon.jpg" width="171" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Leonov's 1967 painting <i style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.3704px; text-align: left;">Near the Moon</i><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 12.3704px; text-align: left;"> </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><hr />1973 Comet Kohoutek, formally designated C/1973 E1, 1973 XII, and 1973f, was first discovered on this date while examining photographic plates taken on 7 March 1973 by Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutek. It attained perihelion on 28 December that same year. Will not be back for a really, really long time.</div></div><hr /><p>1986 The New York Times reports that a 17-year-old student in New Jersey had tracked the launch of the new Soviet space station, Mir, before the Soviet government formally announced it. With a group of friends, Phillip Naranjo tracked transmissions between space vessels and control centers on Earth. Just before the Russians announced Mir on February 20, the teens had picked up some Cyrillic code.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXASY3m6Hc2F_x8niGKuVL05CzK9z4Ejcpmhci3zl84mqcmOV0AL2epzVk3n4S70_qMu77JMNA20jX0iCDFnrp51G8v1eZmNBriWJ6BHyZiK_cJRcNy0733XE9yuLCw7EfjPm7qjdAOggBTLlcxWOb72SyiiDf_8DfwYZmFT1FcTTIAffEie8SQtL6kYk/s600/march-18-mir.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXASY3m6Hc2F_x8niGKuVL05CzK9z4Ejcpmhci3zl84mqcmOV0AL2epzVk3n4S70_qMu77JMNA20jX0iCDFnrp51G8v1eZmNBriWJ6BHyZiK_cJRcNy0733XE9yuLCw7EfjPm7qjdAOggBTLlcxWOb72SyiiDf_8DfwYZmFT1FcTTIAffEie8SQtL6kYk/s320/march-18-mir.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p></p><hr /><p></p><p>In 1987, the discovery of "high-temperature" superconductivity was announced to thousands of scientists at a packed meeting of the American Physical Society in New York City. The phenomenon, discovered 1911, was at first known to occur at only 4 degrees above absolute zero, when all electrical resistance in a metal sample disappeared. In 1986, researchers discovered a ceramic material that was a superconductor at a temperature of more than 30 degrees above absolute zero. When published in September of that year, that news stirred the wider scientific community into action. By the time of the APS meeting, further discoveries had been made. The scene of excitement at the meeting was dubbed the "Woodstock of Physics." *TIS<br /></p><p>Many questions remain about high temperature superconductivity, and many of the expected applications have not appeared, speakers pointed out. At the time nothing seemed impossible; more great developments were expected to be just around the corner. But while engineers have made a number of minor improvements in high Tc materials, there have been no major breakthrough in the past 20 years. No one has made a room temperature superconductor, and it is not known whether such a material is possible. *APS</p><p>In 2020, the headline in Science read: "After decades, room temperature superconductivity achieved</p><p>But the hydrogen-based material requires high pressure"</p><hr /><p>1990 The Mathematische Gesellschaft, the world’s oldest existing mathematical society (founded 1690) began a seven day meeting in Hamburg to celebrate its third centenary. *VFR<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK_9Cdq6_oOB5eEu0MuKHaFuiYxv0s-swYZlFiKO0RuSU7K4WXfD1Vczgr3ZkomfWPT7CWEFuCp-niHdxHcCU5cuW46B6uXc-tdCBoD3BxClDS8s4YKmyMEzMUOyo9QraZfpiupvDo2x2JAMM9BjScHqqK33tcEdHsnHpbY6sOElhJkVD6WPw4Oa2Muqg/s124/MathematischeGesellschaftHamburg.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="124" data-original-width="117" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK_9Cdq6_oOB5eEu0MuKHaFuiYxv0s-swYZlFiKO0RuSU7K4WXfD1Vczgr3ZkomfWPT7CWEFuCp-niHdxHcCU5cuW46B6uXc-tdCBoD3BxClDS8s4YKmyMEzMUOyo9QraZfpiupvDo2x2JAMM9BjScHqqK33tcEdHsnHpbY6sOElhJkVD6WPw4Oa2Muqg/w302-h320/MathematischeGesellschaftHamburg.gif" width="302" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>2010 It was announced that Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman had met the criteria to receive the first Clay Millennium Prize for resolution of the Poincaré conjecture. On 1 July 2010, he turned down the prize of one million dollars, saying that he considers his contribution to proving the Poincaré conjecture to be no greater than that of Richard Hamilton, who introduced the theory of Ricci flow with the aim of attacking the geometrization conjecture. *Wik<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNitmCPaljaIGxdi21Q5iOdYkwFLBwCC2pdXthtQ4nQOR_GvVuAorx4ToeuUDabAVuJTaIt3hyphenhyphenVZHxVo-IEeoXJ3sxJSqBLONnPwSfzqjU10nbk7tsxGRkTqHA_qHCEtx-UfUIfHu-ht4RB9WxnAKc2bsC3ncxd-Lf-ME9346IKYbk84Atsxl86VJhoDo/s240/perelman190.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="190" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNitmCPaljaIGxdi21Q5iOdYkwFLBwCC2pdXthtQ4nQOR_GvVuAorx4ToeuUDabAVuJTaIt3hyphenhyphenVZHxVo-IEeoXJ3sxJSqBLONnPwSfzqjU10nbk7tsxGRkTqHA_qHCEtx-UfUIfHu-ht4RB9WxnAKc2bsC3ncxd-Lf-ME9346IKYbk84Atsxl86VJhoDo/s1600/perelman190.jpeg" width="190" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>2011 The Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft flew past Uranus’ orbit at about 6 p.m. EDT, 1.8 billion miles from Earth. New Horizons is now well over halfway through its journey to Pluto. Motoring along at 57,9000 km/hr (36,000 mph), it will travel more than 4.8 billion km (3 billion miles) to fly past Pluto and its moons Nix, Hydra and Charon in July 2015.The next planetary milestone for New Horizons will be the orbit of Neptune, which it crosses on Aug. 25, 2014, exactly 25 years after Voyager 2 made its historic exploration of that giant planet. *Universe Today (Hat tip to David Dickinson@Astroguyz<br /></p><hr /><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqhB1yv08b0VuIWxKfGOSdhnH9cgCZZHv3q08r9pindx9gGH0ako5Uar9gyqxYPfQC2GVNxaRBSTbKItat4XeufS5ZmKMaTwE5MfkfwlDp2y-LtsgZ-Puy6FWDOq-dXGDZ-KqKNZ7hjts/s1600/buzzards+hinkley+ohio.jpe" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqhB1yv08b0VuIWxKfGOSdhnH9cgCZZHv3q08r9pindx9gGH0ako5Uar9gyqxYPfQC2GVNxaRBSTbKItat4XeufS5ZmKMaTwE5MfkfwlDp2y-LtsgZ-Puy6FWDOq-dXGDZ-KqKNZ7hjts/s1600/buzzards+hinkley+ohio.jpe" /></a></div><p>2012 The Sunday following March 15 is "Buzzard Sunday" at the Hinckley Reservation (Near Cleveland, Ohio) a family fun day celebrating the buzzards (a common name for the "turkey vulture,"). Every year on March 15 since 1957, the city of Hinckley Ohio has eagerly awaited the return of the buzzards at "Buzzards' Roost" at the Hinckley Reservation, part of the Cleveland Metroparks. *about.com So in 2020 you'll have to wait until the 22nd for the official Buzzard Sunday!<br /></p><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>BIRTHS</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><p>1550 Johannes Petreius, a German printer, died in Nuremberg on Mar. 18, 1550; his day and year of birth are unknown. Petreius was the foremost publisher of scientific books in the sixteenth century. The most famous book to emerge from his press was De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) by Nicholas Copernicus (see fifth image above), but Petreius also printed books by such important authors as Regiomontanus (fourth image above), Girolamo Cardano, Johannes Schöner, Peter Apian, Witelo, and Ptolemy of Alexandria. When Georg Joachim Rheticus went to visit Copernicus in 1539, he brought several books with him, as presents, including the Petreius editions of Apian’s instrument book (second image above) and Witelo’s book on optics (third image above). The suspicion is that Rheticus was trying to show Copernicus what a fine printer Petreius was, so that Copernicus might choose Petreius as publisher for his own book. And that is exactly how things turned out. A detail from the Regiomontanus book shows the typical Petreius imprint, embellished by a fine example of Petreius' ability to print complicated astronomical diagrams .</p><p>The Linda Hall Library has one of the finest Petreius collections in the United States, with twenty-five Petreius imprints in our holdings. We used to be able to add a Petreius printing to the collection every few years, but Petreius books now command such a high price that further acquisitions seem unlikely. But we are pleased with what we have. *LH</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOO9KgZZiPUGHDwkQGoZ1GOJQrDjImBv00DPFSOP0VRu7xjuplY28mSFMegZBRFDG6FkQJ_wDki-azzs4ivqd-zHbdjoGohC7kiLnWrwbGgRDpuA46h2cNj3TdIxQ5Dn5ApJVnHpz7e65DE0NfG0WnlzczmW0SGrtHCPuLTmRgK1fCR2HeQ7ZYTRit680/s800/petreius1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOO9KgZZiPUGHDwkQGoZ1GOJQrDjImBv00DPFSOP0VRu7xjuplY28mSFMegZBRFDG6FkQJ_wDki-azzs4ivqd-zHbdjoGohC7kiLnWrwbGgRDpuA46h2cNj3TdIxQ5Dn5ApJVnHpz7e65DE0NfG0WnlzczmW0SGrtHCPuLTmRgK1fCR2HeQ7ZYTRit680/s320/petreius1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMjEwB1cL8BCJMruWhsHS6Ns_LNKG2m5eeXHQTCDzgamBeOM6RKvWj9ecuchAxbUSG9-hDUkSEuoDb3xAaESaG2NTyYkIK8TOudR2VialkrI1DH2Se0I2d3ImVBt6HcmT4ORTZDufp3y8prc_6Bq97OaC3-zEWiWstE6TqeKlF2b3qRvMdMwIwURThQGI/s800/petreius5.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMjEwB1cL8BCJMruWhsHS6Ns_LNKG2m5eeXHQTCDzgamBeOM6RKvWj9ecuchAxbUSG9-hDUkSEuoDb3xAaESaG2NTyYkIK8TOudR2VialkrI1DH2Se0I2d3ImVBt6HcmT4ORTZDufp3y8prc_6Bq97OaC3-zEWiWstE6TqeKlF2b3qRvMdMwIwURThQGI/s320/petreius5.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p></p><hr /><p></p><p>1602 Jacques de Billy (18 March 1602 in Compiègne, France - 14 Jan 1679 in Dijon, France) was a French Jesuit. Billy corresponded with Fermat and produced a number of results in number theory which have been named after him. Billy had collected many problems from Fermat's letters and, after the death of his father, Fermat's son appended de Billy's collection under the title Doctrinae analyticae inventum novum (New discovery in the art of analysis) as an annex to his edition of the Arithmetica of Diophantus (1670). *SAU . At the College de Dijon he taught privately Jacques Ozanam, in whom he instilled a love of the calculus. *VFR</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG6ZCUr-EtVTvBQtJlxakfIOyHX6AyltopriDAw9SPxrHsL6xHfyuCtCeYUuZyIdqDyS50igwed8qcCr-jJWJO-IvR1tLLnFWuYRrFjKR9MV6NppdPtZjTgbNcrQMrCxuLrZrueUyQs9iegtqns6aRP0158fjyVvy2CLLcZsBflHK7ZnXTobcRQhEmUc4/s326/billy_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="258" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG6ZCUr-EtVTvBQtJlxakfIOyHX6AyltopriDAw9SPxrHsL6xHfyuCtCeYUuZyIdqDyS50igwed8qcCr-jJWJO-IvR1tLLnFWuYRrFjKR9MV6NppdPtZjTgbNcrQMrCxuLrZrueUyQs9iegtqns6aRP0158fjyVvy2CLLcZsBflHK7ZnXTobcRQhEmUc4/s320/billy_1.jpg" width="253" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1640 Philippe de La Hire (or Lahire or Phillipe de La Hire) (March 18, 1640 – April 21, 1718) was a French mathematician and astronomer. According to Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle he was an "academy unto himself". La Hire wrote on graphical methods, 1673; on conic sections, 1685; a treatise on epicycloids, 1694; one on roulettes, 1702; and, lastly, another on conchoids, 1708. His works on conic sections and epicycloids were founded on the teaching of Desargues, of whom he was his favourite pupil. He also translated the essay of Manuel Moschopulus on magic squares, and collected many of the theorems on them which were previously known; this was published in 1705. He also published a set of astronomical tables in 1702. La Hire's work also extended to descriptive zoology, the study of respiration, and physiological optics.<br />Two of his sons were also notable for their scientific achievements: Gabriel-Philippe de La Hire (1677–1719), mathematician, and Jean-Nicolas de La Hire (1685–1727), botanist.<br />The mountain Mons La Hire on the Moon is named for him. *Wik He was also the first to find the arc length of the cardioid in 1708.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3oaWzYoMQIWPxuF1T5m7sZ4MnLzUuQCqpEFtyz6R4D8xgd53FLPDS92H7bCRJRx4L2ee39mD-hfNPikW_HsErlq5YJwavK-s8y0g3IVQwPYKjYtfAE8VaXpaOV1qPvQD1aCMScFwuSLD3rjFxQaptgr40YnEpW6YR2x23YP9Uf3zz40ZgGBJKIoNkva4/s582/lahire1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="582" data-original-width="534" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3oaWzYoMQIWPxuF1T5m7sZ4MnLzUuQCqpEFtyz6R4D8xgd53FLPDS92H7bCRJRx4L2ee39mD-hfNPikW_HsErlq5YJwavK-s8y0g3IVQwPYKjYtfAE8VaXpaOV1qPvQD1aCMScFwuSLD3rjFxQaptgr40YnEpW6YR2x23YP9Uf3zz40ZgGBJKIoNkva4/s320/lahire1.jpeg" width="294" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX1Y6ooX7eU4dNBzUQtpPfrlr5eQE9AAr9ZSOLSuMiShG7diClLbDSsRFAvO2Pib9mZnJSEufvK3xj4cg5nfbdGUcJeQzIl0hF489UD1l1XUowiB4CCuhqC5qHuiMEg9ldowI1yczfaABKq5VAuU2zweKkBjJ0fqaRal01W7_gPKRMmZaszINekyXkNiw/s326/La_Hire.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="237" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX1Y6ooX7eU4dNBzUQtpPfrlr5eQE9AAr9ZSOLSuMiShG7diClLbDSsRFAvO2Pib9mZnJSEufvK3xj4cg5nfbdGUcJeQzIl0hF489UD1l1XUowiB4CCuhqC5qHuiMEg9ldowI1yczfaABKq5VAuU2zweKkBjJ0fqaRal01W7_gPKRMmZaszINekyXkNiw/s320/La_Hire.jpeg" width="233" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1690 Christian Goldbach (18 Mar 1690, 20 Nov 1764) Russian mathematician whose contributions to number theory include Goldbach's conjecture, formulated in a letter to Leonhard Euler dated 7 Jul 1742. Stated in modern terms it proposes that: "Every even natural number greater than 2 is equal to the sum of two prime numbers." It has been checked by computer for vast numbers - up to at least 4 x 1014 - but still remains unproved. Goldbach made another conjecture that every odd number is the sum of three primes, on which Vinogradov made progress in 1937. (It has been checked by computer for vast numbers, but remains unproved.) Goldbach also studied infinite sums, the theory of curves and the theory of equations. *TIS</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeVLHU-oc2Zvmb-XwwX7MAfIvsw8q2p-YGbiLJmGKhDRT4_Q6eQv0mQT14b1nr1zIpgn4eEAjDzC_iMhGUrDrFeQOdQkwr7AUdNCUNKPBucPpvhZ40YSmXlVekpNGu5lENgVZRCwIIQxn6j9F_C8DjflUbjsMmFJZxrs81yCWQDUgOkE_yj2tKXFxATwg/s308/Letter_Goldbach-Euler%201742.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeVLHU-oc2Zvmb-XwwX7MAfIvsw8q2p-YGbiLJmGKhDRT4_Q6eQv0mQT14b1nr1zIpgn4eEAjDzC_iMhGUrDrFeQOdQkwr7AUdNCUNKPBucPpvhZ40YSmXlVekpNGu5lENgVZRCwIIQxn6j9F_C8DjflUbjsMmFJZxrs81yCWQDUgOkE_yj2tKXFxATwg/w312-h320/Letter_Goldbach-Euler%201742.jpg" width="312" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1796 Jakob Steiner (18 Mar 1796; 1 Apr 1863 at age 67) Swiss mathematician who was one of the greatest, contributors to projective geometry. He discovered the Steiner surface which has a double infinity of conic sections on it. The Steiner theorem states that the two pencils by which a conic is projected from two of its points are projectively related. He is also known for the Poncelet-Steiner theorem which shows that only one given circle and a straight edge are required for Euclidean constructions. His work included conic sections and surfaces, the theory of second-degree surfaces and centre-of-gravity problems. He developed the principle of symmetrization (1840-41). In 1848 he ws the first to define various polar curves with respect to a given curve, and introduced the “Steiner Curves.” *TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9GW8xEkN3wm8tthQ_a7nb7I_LHFPGCpEKS5Q9iprTFuByzkJlnoo5PNVuu6zFxZyiBHyeGjnroP5rAC9-V56xpNpXKcK3ZDmLdH8iK3B5Ou2r-oObCTmuF9CifNzxloqizprL3zuP6eRSwrkS7tRF_6I4EBNwN4orRiMe2xMNCuzRa8WJqJHPeg_ltvo/s317/JakobSteiner.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="225" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9GW8xEkN3wm8tthQ_a7nb7I_LHFPGCpEKS5Q9iprTFuByzkJlnoo5PNVuu6zFxZyiBHyeGjnroP5rAC9-V56xpNpXKcK3ZDmLdH8iK3B5Ou2r-oObCTmuF9CifNzxloqizprL3zuP6eRSwrkS7tRF_6I4EBNwN4orRiMe2xMNCuzRa8WJqJHPeg_ltvo/s1600/JakobSteiner.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1839 Joseph Émile Barbier (18 March 1839 in St Hilaire-Cottes, Pas-de-Calais, France - 28 Jan 1889 in St Genest, Loire, France)<br />He was offered a post at the Paris Observatory by Le Verrier and Barbier left Nice to begin work as an assistant astronomer. For a few years he applied his undoubted genius to problems of astronomy. He proved a skilled observer, a talented calculator and he used his brilliant ideas to devise a new type of thermometer. He made many contributions to astronomy while at the observatory but his talents in mathematics were also to the fore and he looked at problems in a wide range of mathematical topics in addition to his astronomy work.<br />As time went by, however, Barbier's behaviour became more and more peculiar. He was clearly becoming unstable and exhibited the fine line between genius and mental problems which are relatively common. He left the Paris Observatory in 1865 after only a few years of working there. He tried to join a religious order but then severed all contacts with his friends and associates. Nothing more was heard of him for the next fifteen years until he was discovered by Bertrand in an asylum in Charenton-St-Maurice in 1880.<br />Bertrand discovered that although Barbier was clearly unstable mentally, he was still able to make superb original contributions to mathematics. He encouraged Barbier to return to scientific writing and, although he never recovered his sanity, he wrote many excellent and original mathematical papers. Bertrand, as Secretary to the Académie des Sciences, was able to find a small source of income for Barbier from a foundation which was associated with the Académie. Barbier, although mentally unstable, was a gentle person and it was seen that, with his small income, it was possible for him to live in the community. This was arranged and Barbier spent his last few years in much more pleasant surroundings.<br />Barbier's early work, while at the Observatory, consists of over twenty memoirs and reports. These cover topics such as spherical geometry and spherical trigonometry. We mentioned above his work with devising a new type of thermometer and Barbier wrote on this as well as on other aspects of instruments. He also wrote on probability and calculus.<br />After he was encouraged to undertake research in mathematics again by Bertrand, Barbier wrote over ten articles between the years 1882 and 1887. These were entirely on mathematical topics and he made worthwhile contributions to the study of polyhedra, integral calculus and number theory. He is remembered for Barbier's theorem, nicely <a href="http://www.cut-the-knot.org/ctk/Barbier.shtml" target="_blank">explained here</a> by Alex Bogomolny.*SAU<br /></p><p>These Reuleaux polygons have constant width, and all have the same width; therefore by Barbier's theorem they also have equal perimeters.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3orH8TuIdeb8r_mSeNDm-ThP2Z8by58bYIq_lHOVoUB2dC_GeXh7loHuRSvLANvM913PRG4mNavBlCgI9SOtj2W59LkU5SeM_anbD3Nr7yWPXo9nDtluZfHmBPu2Sgxg7xVjZ7SegWC7WqeCh6ovqQG870lM6zyHncgIuSK8tDGERPM7jIRUbaMQrbDQ/s330/Reuleaux%20polygons.svg.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="330" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3orH8TuIdeb8r_mSeNDm-ThP2Z8by58bYIq_lHOVoUB2dC_GeXh7loHuRSvLANvM913PRG4mNavBlCgI9SOtj2W59LkU5SeM_anbD3Nr7yWPXo9nDtluZfHmBPu2Sgxg7xVjZ7SegWC7WqeCh6ovqQG870lM6zyHncgIuSK8tDGERPM7jIRUbaMQrbDQ/s320/Reuleaux%20polygons.svg.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1870 Agnes Sime Baxter (Hill) (18 March 1870 – 9 March 1917) was a Canadian-born mathematician. She studied at Dalhousie University, receiving her BA in 1891, and her MA in 1892. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1895; her dissertation was “On Abelian integrals, a resume of Neumann’s ‘Abelsche Integrele’ with comments and applications." *Wik<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHeDG6u6ZK6M8Y5wLo5bhccPUpi_u8z1-Tz_NcBTQGrDv41UE304tIJIiL3DUexmP-xiGEQpNQHKQXL6fS4jq4QDToiT3tIjOacQ_BfEW3Jtx43GiQEJNgLTOJnaC6ZODNc2MbMewY_wvuRkv_lgi4z5Ltabqgh7jYFodn-KK0HSAWgVHDVTXmdWrg7d0/s326/agnes%20Baxter%20hill.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="271" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHeDG6u6ZK6M8Y5wLo5bhccPUpi_u8z1-Tz_NcBTQGrDv41UE304tIJIiL3DUexmP-xiGEQpNQHKQXL6fS4jq4QDToiT3tIjOacQ_BfEW3Jtx43GiQEJNgLTOJnaC6ZODNc2MbMewY_wvuRkv_lgi4z5Ltabqgh7jYFodn-KK0HSAWgVHDVTXmdWrg7d0/s320/agnes%20Baxter%20hill.jpeg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1891 Walter Andrew Shewhart (March 18, 1891 - March 11, 1967) was an American physicist, engineer and statistician, sometimes known as the father of statistical quality control.<br />W. Edwards Deming said of him, "As a statistician, he was, like so many of the rest of us, self-taught, on a good background of physics and mathematics. "<br />His more conventional work led him to formulate the statistical idea of tolerance intervals and to propose his data presentation rules, which are listed below:<br /><br />Data have no meaning apart from their context.<br />Data contain both signal and noise. To be able to extract information, one must separate the signal from the noise within the data.<br />Walter Shewhart visited India in 1947-48 under the sponsorship of P. C. Mahalanobis of the Indian Statistical Institute. Shewhart toured the country, held conferences and stimulated interest in statistical quality control among Indian industrialists<br />*SAU<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgThMbRzpmqIb37aeT5IEzTD9-HU5ZtQDxbocPN8r3L5hACtVf3u_vHOBJxy5dfaIcLfgxX8LHA_yMfQXzMHNw4g-S1Xf3yGLfddYaASiTO6I7zvXoc_gVWaYqpZJr4dxzPksA1Mx5jFmbm9PUTwiH2PWhNzDU5CksCFH-jP5CBNSEOFX9HS6V9DB78eVI/s452/WAShewhart.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgThMbRzpmqIb37aeT5IEzTD9-HU5ZtQDxbocPN8r3L5hACtVf3u_vHOBJxy5dfaIcLfgxX8LHA_yMfQXzMHNw4g-S1Xf3yGLfddYaASiTO6I7zvXoc_gVWaYqpZJr4dxzPksA1Mx5jFmbm9PUTwiH2PWhNzDU5CksCFH-jP5CBNSEOFX9HS6V9DB78eVI/s320/WAShewhart.jpg" width="234" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1911 Walter Ledermann (18 March 1911 in Berlin, Germany - 22 May 2009 in London, England) graduated from Berlin but was forced to leave Germany in 1933 to avoid Nazi persecution. He came to St Andrews and studied under Turnbull. He worked at Dundee and St Andrews until after World War II when he moved to Manchester and then to the University of Sussex. He is especially known for his work in homology, group theory and number theory. *SAU<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglD3D7aPbu5FyUIOSMvEYfO_97xdbWuLJJtLc63LiWdiSoMDopDe4G5StievByRSiAre-BmeeLr9NI8NkFV3EwODIbNFeYqgqfe9-ULFQW2BuLiIh58w_9uifb6GmhPFcOUkkfMGplVchgqqgPZlLwnTlnYPrEj_j2RYLEOp7hZ-3-klnad5ZLMOaeL90/s330/Walter_Ledermann.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="235" data-original-width="330" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglD3D7aPbu5FyUIOSMvEYfO_97xdbWuLJJtLc63LiWdiSoMDopDe4G5StievByRSiAre-BmeeLr9NI8NkFV3EwODIbNFeYqgqfe9-ULFQW2BuLiIh58w_9uifb6GmhPFcOUkkfMGplVchgqqgPZlLwnTlnYPrEj_j2RYLEOp7hZ-3-klnad5ZLMOaeL90/s320/Walter_Ledermann.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1928 Lennart Axel Edvard Carleson (18 March 1928 in Stockholm, Sweden - ) is a Swedish mathematician who solved one of the most important problems in the theory of Fourier series. He was director of the Mittag-Leffler Institute, Stockholm, from 1968 to 1984, during which time he built the Institute from a small base into one of the leading mathematical research institutes in the world.*SAU<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhDPV3vmiGF1xNuW2-WfQYl8zvFg_Y8M6dSETPenVvzv5blSUy5hCqdTKT0OznPwYFtpEGR4M2K1oRyxp0D3FC2U2NrEPsF9b5aiUjY8mpF6qfh6ikPSKu0xWQ2QcbQL2q4lLddduma2pCHGNNk2svQqCiQgZlDQE0N3rwmwkvXMx8Rk3lO3RFjdKUBQ4/s326/Carleson_2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="241" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhDPV3vmiGF1xNuW2-WfQYl8zvFg_Y8M6dSETPenVvzv5blSUy5hCqdTKT0OznPwYFtpEGR4M2K1oRyxp0D3FC2U2NrEPsF9b5aiUjY8mpF6qfh6ikPSKu0xWQ2QcbQL2q4lLddduma2pCHGNNk2svQqCiQgZlDQE0N3rwmwkvXMx8Rk3lO3RFjdKUBQ4/s320/Carleson_2.jpeg" width="237" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>DEATHS</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><p>1871 Augustus de Morgan <small></small> (born <span class="quietlink">27 Jun 1806</span>, 18 Mar 1871 <small>at age 64</small>) Born in Madura (now Madurai), India, son of a colonel in the Indian Army. He is best known for his work in Formal Logic. “De Morgan’s Laws”, are contained in his first book (1847), although they were known to Peter of Spain in the fourteenth century. *VFR<br /><span style="color: black;">In </span><span style="color: #0645ad;">formal logic</span><span style="color: black;">, </span><b>De Morgan's laws</b><span style="color: black;"> are rules relating the </span><span style="color: #0645ad;">logical operators</span><span style="color: black;"> "</span><span style="color: #0645ad;">and</span><span style="color: black;">" and "</span><span style="color: #0645ad;">or</span><span style="color: black;">" in terms of each other via </span><span style="color: #0645ad;">negation</span>. With two operands A and B:<br /></p><dl><dd><img alt="\overline{A \cdot B} = \overline A + \overline B" class="tex" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/math/e/0/9/e09d6bc9d901e55fb22c356afc359e96.png" /></dd></dl><dl><dd><img alt="\overline{A + B} = \overline {A} \cdot \overline {B}" class="tex" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/math/a/a/a/aaa8271ed3c6ab7eb08d25c6ba314133.png" /></dd></dl><p>In another form:<br /></p><dl><dd>NOT (P AND Q) = (NOT P) OR (NOT Q)</dd></dl><dl><dd>NOT (P OR Q) = (NOT P) AND (NOT Q)</dd></dl><p>The rules can be expressed in English as:<br /></p><blockquote><span style="color: black;">"<i>The negation of a conjunction is the disjunction of the negations.</i>" and<br />"<i>The negation of a disjunction is the conjunction of the negations.</i>"</span></blockquote><p>*Wik<br />When he defined and introduced the term "mathematical induction" (1838), he gave the process a rigorous basis and clarity that it had previously lacked. He originated the use of the slash to represent fractions, as in 1/5 or 3/7. In Trigonometry and Double Algebra (1849) he gave a geometric interpretation of complex numbers. *TIS A<a href="http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/a-lover-of-paradoxes/" target="_blank"> nice blog about De Morgan's life and relationships</a> is at The Renaissance Mathematicus.<br />Teachers might give students the opportunity to find the date of his birth using De Morgan's own clues; “I was x years old in the year x<sup>2</sup>” *VFR<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE5N71f5YKAfgFYS5so_zfZhyphenhyphen76v-srstEMrbsu3IEb1SQICEEHXzq-v2sIhSz7atTZ99daQVjwEROaz7tomEkPV-Mkkeq4xFuZtKwDEMWfUx_a7tkQD9loWNKxN8eIcbwT_z0MKVKz_J_rxssEWEl3a_UwoYcV-YrU9RTLmySQ_FKi83ZlNJInN3Iat8/s370/De_Morgan_Augustus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE5N71f5YKAfgFYS5so_zfZhyphenhyphen76v-srstEMrbsu3IEb1SQICEEHXzq-v2sIhSz7atTZ99daQVjwEROaz7tomEkPV-Mkkeq4xFuZtKwDEMWfUx_a7tkQD9loWNKxN8eIcbwT_z0MKVKz_J_rxssEWEl3a_UwoYcV-YrU9RTLmySQ_FKi83ZlNJInN3Iat8/s320/De_Morgan_Augustus.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1907 Pierre-Eugène-Marcellin Berthelot (27 Oct 1827, 18 Mar 1907 at age 79) was a French chemist and science historian and government official whose creative thought and work significantly influenced the development of chemistry in the late 19th century. He helped to found the study of thermochemistry, introduced a standard method for determining the latent heat of steam, measured hundreds of heats of reactions and coined the words exothermic and endothermic. Berthelot systematically synthesized organic compounds, including some not found in nature. His syntheses of many fundamental organic compounds helped to destroy the classical division between organic and inorganic compounds. *TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyRsvmU03tcFfpFOTpmcHK2vvHOoIxDSjcw42EXiD6oOZe92WZbtlozj3kktbAl_S-53-CqOZgezgdUTiGemqU0a_CWy7Epu17OHxyitf03JGBfc1dIDQazKwZ-Dfhpv6NRn39VkETHwrPgtxNu14vtliNJlsZPBwxxis2L_NB65hppaF-gB1rNlVp7Jk/s414/Marcellin_Berthelot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyRsvmU03tcFfpFOTpmcHK2vvHOoIxDSjcw42EXiD6oOZe92WZbtlozj3kktbAl_S-53-CqOZgezgdUTiGemqU0a_CWy7Epu17OHxyitf03JGBfc1dIDQazKwZ-Dfhpv6NRn39VkETHwrPgtxNu14vtliNJlsZPBwxxis2L_NB65hppaF-gB1rNlVp7Jk/s320/Marcellin_Berthelot.jpg" width="255" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1964 Norbert Wiener (26 Nov 1894; 18 Mar 1964) U.S. mathematician, who established the science of cybernetics, a term he coined, which is concerned with the common factors of control and communication in living organisms, automatic machines, and organizations. He attained international renown by formulating some of the most important contributions to mathematics in the 20th century. His work on generalised harmonic analysis and Tauberian theorems won the Bôcher Prize in 1933 when he received the prize <a href="http://image2.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2007/195/CEM46602183_118451510429.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://image2.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2007/195/CEM46602183_118451510429.jpg" width="200" /></a>from the American Mathematical Society for his memoir Tauberian theorems published in Annals of Mathematics in the previous year. His extraordinarily wide range of interests included stochastic processes, quantum theory and during WW II he worked on gunfire control. *TIS Cybernetics, published in 1948, was a major influence on later research into artificial intelligence. In the book, Wiener drew on World War II experiments with anti-aircraft systems that anticipated the course of enemy planes by interpreting radar images. Wiener also did extensive analysis of brain waves and explored the similarities between the human brain and a modern computing machine capable of memory association, choice, and decision making.*CHM (Wiener is somewhat revered as the ultimate absent-minded professor. An anecdote I used to share with my classes, almost certainly exaggerated, went something like this: Wiener had moved to a new address, and his wife knowing of his forgetfulness wrote a note with his new address and put it in his coat pocket. During the day struck by a mathematical muse he whipped out the piece of paper and scribbled notes on the back, then realizing his idea had been wrong, he tossed the piece of paper away and went about his day. In the afternoon he returned to his old house out of habit and coming up to the empty house remembered that he had moved, but not where. As he started to leave a young girl walked up and he stopped here. "Young lady, I am the famous mathematician Wiener. Do you know where I live?" The lass replied, "Yes, father, I'll show you the way home."... )<br />Wiener is buried in Vittum Hill Cemetery in Sandwich, Carroll County, New Hampshire, USA<br />reader Tom @umacf24 told me that "Before this guy, 'kyber' was an obscure Greek word for 'steering.' " (seems very appropriate root) Thanks Tom.<br /></p><hr /><p><br />1989 Sir Harold Jeffreys (22 Apr 1891, 18 Mar 1989 at age 97)English astronomer, geophysicist and mathematician who had diverse scientific interests. In astronomy he proposed models for the structures of the outer planets, and studied the origin of the solar system. He calculated the surface temperatures of gas at less than -100°C, contradicting then accepted views of red-hot temperatures, but Jeffreys was shown to be correct when direct observations were made. In geophysics he researched the circulation of the atmosphere and earthquakes. Analyzing earthquake waves (1926), he became the first to claim that the core of the Earth is molten fluid. Jeffreys also contributed to the general theory of dynamics, aerodynamics, relativity theory and plant ecology.*TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnZ166U451XGpPoaC5in7yy__RY8BChSMkH8jPrcnwY6I9K7uUMrJSt_38pJFh24CkUsjRNwGFokj4UOEAhhq2foOMZz0-PD8pofdGtOdlQg2_DEnteVhZkyzxrF4qy7svO2emQteeEysmF6cU3I7Hhl0DMmw_q7obneQf5FZrFUe69qF1vknHwS9FcUI/s225/Harold_Jeffreys,_Sir.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="174" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnZ166U451XGpPoaC5in7yy__RY8BChSMkH8jPrcnwY6I9K7uUMrJSt_38pJFh24CkUsjRNwGFokj4UOEAhhq2foOMZz0-PD8pofdGtOdlQg2_DEnteVhZkyzxrF4qy7svO2emQteeEysmF6cU3I7Hhl0DMmw_q7obneQf5FZrFUe69qF1vknHwS9FcUI/s1600/Harold_Jeffreys,_Sir.jpg" width="174" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>2001 Dirk Polder (August 23, 1919, The Hague — March 18, 2001, Iran) was a Dutch physicist who, together with Hendrik Casimir, first predicted the existence of what today is known as the Casimir-Polder force, sometimes also referred to as the Casimir effect or Casimir force. He also worked on the similar topic of radiative heat transfer at nanoscale. *Wik<br /></p><hr /><p>2013 Mary Ellen Rudin (born December 7, 1924, Hillsboro, Texas - March 18, 2013, Madison, Wisconsin) was an American mathematician.<br />Born Mary Ellen Estill, she attended the University of Texas, completing her B.A. in 1944 and her Ph.D. in 1949, under Robert Lee Moore. In 1953, she married the mathematician Walter Rudin. Following her mentor Moore, her research centers on point-set topology. She was appointed as Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin in 1971, and is currently a Professor Emerita there. She served as vice-president of the American Mathematical Society, 1980–1981. In 1984 she was selected to be a Noether Lecturer. She is an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1995).<br />Rudin is best known in topology for her constructions of counterexamples to well-known conjectures. Most famously, she was the first to construct a Dowker space, thus disproving a conjecture of Dowker's that had stood, and helped drive topological research, for more than twenty years. She also proved the first Morita conjecture and a restricted version of the second. Her latest major result is a proof of Nikiel's conjecture. Rudin's Erdős number is 1.<br />"Reading the articles of Mary Ellen Rudin, studying them until there is no mystery takes hours and hours; but those hours are rewarded, the student obtains power to which few have access. They are not hard to read, they are just hard mathematics, that's all." (Steve Watson)<br />She lived in Madison, Wisconsin, in the Rudin House, a home designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and died at the age of 88. *SAU<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhODfYIlpjOMwFAMFOTyUuY5h2BkA-TjWTgAqZUHxWt_pfnBpt5Qy1f4pOQ8Zba1bIhGlBSSxK63YTTU4iJ0r_x33dlSVAJ86XjcJR-ZG9ql9mFjv2RZN0XudJBbrzp24D7oDzIjNtFo2bPIgLkn7xYXwFjLiKUI8VA77mpuyX4-O0ysfc-P2vmiRrtP_Q/s318/mary%20ellen%20rudin.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="318" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhODfYIlpjOMwFAMFOTyUuY5h2BkA-TjWTgAqZUHxWt_pfnBpt5Qy1f4pOQ8Zba1bIhGlBSSxK63YTTU4iJ0r_x33dlSVAJ86XjcJR-ZG9ql9mFjv2RZN0XudJBbrzp24D7oDzIjNtFo2bPIgLkn7xYXwFjLiKUI8VA77mpuyX4-O0ysfc-P2vmiRrtP_Q/s1600/mary%20ellen%20rudin.jpeg" width="318" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>2015 <b style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Bernice (Trimble) Steadman</b><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> (</span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">July 9, 1925, Rudyard, Michigan – March 18, 2015, Traverse City, Michigan) was an American aviator </span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">and businesswoman. She was one of thirteen women chosen to take the same tests as the astronauts of the Mercury 7 </span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">during the early 1960's. The group later became known as the M</span>ercury 13<span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">.</span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> However, Steadman and the other twelve women in the program were denied the opportunity to become astronauts due to their gender.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-dfpress_2-1" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 11.2px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernice_Steadman#cite_note-dfpress-2" style="background: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration-line: none;">[</a></sup><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">Steadman, a professional pilot, later co-founded the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Air_%26_Space_Museum" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0645ad; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="International Women's Air & Space Museum">International Women's Air & Space Museum</a><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> in </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0645ad; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Ohio">Ohio</a><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> during the 1980's. </span></p><div><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">Bernice Steadman died at her home in </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City,_Michigan" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0645ad; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Traverse City, Michigan">Traverse City, Michigan</a><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">, on March 18, 2015, at the age of 89 following a lengthy battle with Alzheimer's disease. *Wik</span></div><div><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBwhqpijcnkkwzQ2KEFvdGs_Kc0E6p4hG3whaEfDIcld4B9WOoylJGk74v1usW2jQNgZCypEmbVSH-d2Lpwf1j2X8qQnzkco0dLzFA3c92uhj5yfsjFIcSSn3b-uZFmdKJDvc4e9nnnv2S5y-zNo5ygJxrqoGYCfK0eBllR_3xnVR6f2afiPf9GdUdfAQ/s495/Bernice_Trimble_Steadman_in_1995.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBwhqpijcnkkwzQ2KEFvdGs_Kc0E6p4hG3whaEfDIcld4B9WOoylJGk74v1usW2jQNgZCypEmbVSH-d2Lpwf1j2X8qQnzkco0dLzFA3c92uhj5yfsjFIcSSn3b-uZFmdKJDvc4e9nnnv2S5y-zNo5ygJxrqoGYCfK0eBllR_3xnVR6f2afiPf9GdUdfAQ/s320/Bernice_Trimble_Steadman_in_1995.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><hr /><br /></span></span><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbel</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-27091183295706913342024-03-17T14:33:00.000+00:002024-03-17T14:33:13.312+00:00Snopes Reduex<p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Bringing back a hit from 2009 !!!!</b></p><p>My recent post mentioning the snopes debunking site reminded me of this classic from the folks at <a href="http://xkcd.com/">XKCD </a>, which dubs itself as "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language" and frequently lives up to that billing.</p><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMJUkNN8Q4RyFUltzRbsVKjCaJkr3Gh17eLgwsrDtQlnbQ18lvu9MZC7ThhGM3n3crCBvDirNF-4RHc1mqnvY9som6QXWWM14elYyegaQ2qtwscOsmoD1Pg3VNZa54yCsWqFAprohFegI/s1600-h/snopes1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343955176255410786" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMJUkNN8Q4RyFUltzRbsVKjCaJkr3Gh17eLgwsrDtQlnbQ18lvu9MZC7ThhGM3n3crCBvDirNF-4RHc1mqnvY9som6QXWWM14elYyegaQ2qtwscOsmoD1Pg3VNZa54yCsWqFAprohFegI/s320/snopes1.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 231px;" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLmrEtXxAUqK99vb73aj1w620HhAB3GAYbIatlq8D83G21tH5yxZyqeI5JhG5Xuxb44ypWiBQQf5zmzRsGfgHWFbK0JCKoE8ZFAkD9qXv3dsf8o6mZKETu8hziRaIXDkn__0fOpLR40eg/s1600-h/snopes2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343955179744590898" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLmrEtXxAUqK99vb73aj1w620HhAB3GAYbIatlq8D83G21tH5yxZyqeI5JhG5Xuxb44ypWiBQQf5zmzRsGfgHWFbK0JCKoE8ZFAkD9qXv3dsf8o6mZKETu8hziRaIXDkn__0fOpLR40eg/s320/snopes2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 259px;" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRuTptObwBOBMQrFepsPl60pDwjEZ9CsPZxE6dWf_ZJiMulxU-_hp9hslDVJ9UngbBBhHQbP-veZ_h3MfmZSO9ut0LIwIPczmED1qzCLVYXr5at9e_CacMJZATN-f2kadBud4djNl77MY/s1600-h/snopes3.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343955185399568658" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRuTptObwBOBMQrFepsPl60pDwjEZ9CsPZxE6dWf_ZJiMulxU-_hp9hslDVJ9UngbBBhHQbP-veZ_h3MfmZSO9ut0LIwIPczmED1qzCLVYXr5at9e_CacMJZATN-f2kadBud4djNl77MY/s320/snopes3.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 193px;" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-4805325490865322312024-03-17T14:23:00.002+00:002024-03-17T14:23:24.295+00:00On This Day in Math March 17<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy2i8aiXWs4OoN8elSRXyX6Now-zrZZCfZhv1k_uJmt0pIHiok9snTjq8aaHEf6zZXvM4wOxXobSzTthMWqDZNzF-Knuv0GfQ_9hF97K6ajDzFIqa-gHtMVMt8OeH0GQARobOFYun68qA/s1600/clover+plot.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy2i8aiXWs4OoN8elSRXyX6Now-zrZZCfZhv1k_uJmt0pIHiok9snTjq8aaHEf6zZXvM4wOxXobSzTthMWqDZNzF-Knuv0GfQ_9hF97K6ajDzFIqa-gHtMVMt8OeH0GQARobOFYun68qA/s400/clover+plot.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">*WolframAlpha</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /><b>St. Patrick’s Day.</b> The equation of the day is the four-leaved rose r = sin(2θ). Work on this curve was first published by the Italian priest Guido Grandi in 1723. *VFR<br /><br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQGsXNN2zlNOwPgXH8Jk8_Pl_o1Z67vkJclxhNAXlQBMVQ8rf3D2zxBpWUWBBftrGwR5fFbCIT9JoIWxDffkqHz-hm5iG_PFhISR-fsgPaCgQqwXexGGEnVu_zS0E3zjXSuUyEep_4sU0/s1600/Spirit+of+76.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQGsXNN2zlNOwPgXH8Jk8_Pl_o1Z67vkJclxhNAXlQBMVQ8rf3D2zxBpWUWBBftrGwR5fFbCIT9JoIWxDffkqHz-hm5iG_PFhISR-fsgPaCgQqwXexGGEnVu_zS0E3zjXSuUyEep_4sU0/s1600/Spirit+of+76.jpg" width="163" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Spirit of '76" by Archibald McNeal Willard, 189</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />The 76th day of the year; 76 is an automorphic number because the square of 76 ends in 76. (5 and 6 are automorphic because 5<sup>2</sup> ends in five and 6<sup>2</sup> ends in six).<br />There is one other two digit automorphic number (it should be easy to find) but can you find the three digit ones?<br /><br />76= 8 + 13 + 21 + 34 the sum of four consecutive Fibonacci numbers<br /><br />76 is the number of 6 X 6 symmetric permutation matrices.<br /><br />Seventy Six is an unincorporated community in Clinton County, Kentucky, United States. Seventy Six is 6.9 miles north of Albany( and 46 miles west of 88, Ky.). Its post office has been closed. (Strange subtraction, in Kentucky, the difference between 76 and 88 is 46???)<br /><br /></p><hr /><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p>1694 Guillaume L’Hospital hires his former tutor Johann Bernoulli to “work on what I shall ask you ... and also to communicate to me your discoveries, with the request not to mention them to others.” The first calculus text resulted in 1696. It contained the famous “L’Hospital’s rule,” which, we now know, is the work of Bernoulli. [Eves, Circles, 208◦] VFR</p><p>(<i>Because L'Hospital is so often discredited by Intro Calculus teachers for his role, I wanted to add more detail in the hopes they will share a more enlightened presentation of his work.</i>)<br />In a letter from March 17, 1694, l'Hôpital made the following proposal to Johann Bernoulli: in exchange for an annual payment of 300 Francs, Bernoulli would inform L'Hôpital of his latest mathematical discoveries, withholding them from correspondence with others, including Varignon. Bernoulli's immediate response has not been preserved, but he must have agreed soon, as the subsequent letters show. L'Hôpital may have felt fully justified in describing these results in his book, after acknowledging his debt to Leibniz and the Bernoulli brothers, "especially the younger one" (Johann). Johann Bernoulli grew increasingly unhappy with the accolades bestowed on l'Hôpital's work and complained in private correspondence about being sidelined. After l'Hôpital's death, he publicly revealed their agreement and claimed credit for the statements and portions of the text of Analyse, which were supplied to l'Hôpital in letters. Over a period of many years, Bernoulli made progressively stronger allegations about his role in the writing of Analyse, culminating in the publication of his own work on integral calculus in 1742: he remarked that this is a continuation of his old lectures on differential calculus, which he discarded since l'Hôpital had already included them in his famous book. For a long time, these claims were not regarded as credible by many historians of mathematics, because l'Hôpital's mathematical talent was not in doubt, while Bernoulli was involved in several other priority disputes. For example, both H. G. Zeuthen and Moritz Cantor, writing at the cusp of the 20th century, dismissed Bernoulli's claims on these grounds. However, in 1921 Paul Schafheitlin discovered a manuscript of Bernoulli's lectures on differential calculus from 1691–1692 in the Basel University library. The text showed remarkable similarities to l'Hôpital's writing, substantiating Bernoulli's account of the book's origin.<br />L'Hôpital's pedagogical brilliance in arranging and presenting the material remains universally recognized. Regardless of the exact authorship (one should also note that the book was first published anonymously), Analyse was remarkably successful in popularizing the ideas of differential calculus stemming from Leibniz. *Wik<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4qVwOjv_kOCQiLYwAfhGv05heE5uN_nYlsWt3UX4rFILdhbVLPHawr_Q2F3bzTjHl2s5GUwEepG9d_qkRTmS033nmKmIXR8HQ7ObevCgwhdFGfnlz8dvfdKr2gjUi0QvSnRnOb6IMe6ez7UxfhwPgF_XVQHY-1cXzafTkr3iz6ZrLVyCtz0GOtOhS00/s471/L'Hospital_-_Analyse_des_infiniment_petits_pour_l'intelligence_des_lignes_courbes,_1715_-_1425244.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4qVwOjv_kOCQiLYwAfhGv05heE5uN_nYlsWt3UX4rFILdhbVLPHawr_Q2F3bzTjHl2s5GUwEepG9d_qkRTmS033nmKmIXR8HQ7ObevCgwhdFGfnlz8dvfdKr2gjUi0QvSnRnOb6IMe6ez7UxfhwPgF_XVQHY-1cXzafTkr3iz6ZrLVyCtz0GOtOhS00/s320/L'Hospital_-_Analyse_des_infiniment_petits_pour_l'intelligence_des_lignes_courbes,_1715_-_1425244.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1845 </b>The rubber band was patented in England on March 17, 1845 by Stephen Perry. Most rubber bands are manufactured out of natural rubber or, especially at larger sizes, an elastomer, and are sold in a variety of sizes.</p><div>Notable developments in the evolution of rubber bands began in 1923 when William H. Spencer obtained a few Goodyear inner tubes and cut the bands by hand in his basement, where he founded Alliance Rubber Company. Spencer persuaded the Akron Beacon Journal as well as the Tulsa World to try wrapping their newspapers with one of his rubber bands to prevent them from blowing across lawns. He went on to pioneer other new markets for rubber bands such as: agricultural and industrial applications and a myriad of other uses. Spencer obtained a patent on February 19, 1957 for a new "Method for Making Elastic Bands" which produced rubber bands in an Open Ring design.</div><div> </div><div>Originally, and in some instances still today, the rubber tubes will then be placed on mandrels, curing the rubber with heat, and then slicing them across the width of the tube into little bands.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, in 1969 the world's first continuous cure extrusion line for rubber bands was installed at the Alliance Rubber Company rubber band manufacturing facility in Alliance, OH, U.S.A. Rubber bands produced using this high speed continuous production equipment feature an improved modulus (stretch), a smoother, more consistent quality, and yield a higher count per pound. There is no need to use mandrels in this process. With the continuous cure process, the rubber is forced through the aperture or die, traveling in a continuous stream directly into and through a "curing tunnel" which uniformly raises the extrudite to the vulcanizing temperature and maintains it there for the entire curing or vulcanizing period. *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn6n1nBipPa4RvZ_KvDXjX9u5-dXtjVqwU4xpLtP8M9GXIK2AdBwnO_CBmRtYgTa-zHEknM40I3tmNsHkrXS2vQC09yIRl23a-VjhsD2ZSun9XJkvACmqwdyr9uQG5sHsu2VOea2oNealLw_Kf-I_7-xAcHFUSIMSL3CyGRSPLUTPYPqWk2nK-AaSJGwc/s1476/rubber%20bands.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1239" data-original-width="1476" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn6n1nBipPa4RvZ_KvDXjX9u5-dXtjVqwU4xpLtP8M9GXIK2AdBwnO_CBmRtYgTa-zHEknM40I3tmNsHkrXS2vQC09yIRl23a-VjhsD2ZSun9XJkvACmqwdyr9uQG5sHsu2VOea2oNealLw_Kf-I_7-xAcHFUSIMSL3CyGRSPLUTPYPqWk2nK-AaSJGwc/s320/rubber%20bands.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><hr /><div><b>1856</b> Joseph Lacomme, a French well-sinker, and illiterate laborer who asked a mathematics professor to tell him the amount of stone needed to cover the bottom of a circular cistern, and unsatisfied with the reply that it would be impossible to tell him exactly, set about experimenting and determined the "True" ratio of the circumference to diameter of a circle. Teaching himself arithmetic and writing to confirm the results he obtained by experimentation he shared his computation with the commissioner of police in Paris. The commissioner introduced Lacomme to his father, who presented him to the Academie and after consideration by a committee, Lacomme received a silver medal from the French Academie for his discovery of the true ratio of diameter to circumfrence of a circle. He would later receive three more medals from other societies for his value of 3 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>8</sub>. *Augustus DeMorgan, A Budget of Paradoxes, pgs 46-47</div><div>The Kindle edition of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002RKRRO8/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=httppbalnet-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002RKRRO8" target="_blank">A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=httppbalnet-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B002RKRRO8" style="border: none; margin: 0px;" width="1" /> is currently $1.60.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW9mdz4fRcMO36FAehtoDa3X1FDapcEaDlHW-iWPcDO45HAkvc0bMsC-fXUT2DuFHP0Mn8Tn5reUP7F7gYcdfPl7l0BEzb-DU1xwhph7IH1xYF1_NnU1JnIjaapFnXMk9w4qVvhV3kNzXZNnMAJAO60uwNojvqcm-jrELRjPY5HOQX2gv4w3GgJwRm4bw/s445/budget%20of%20paradoxes.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW9mdz4fRcMO36FAehtoDa3X1FDapcEaDlHW-iWPcDO45HAkvc0bMsC-fXUT2DuFHP0Mn8Tn5reUP7F7gYcdfPl7l0BEzb-DU1xwhph7IH1xYF1_NnU1JnIjaapFnXMk9w4qVvhV3kNzXZNnMAJAO60uwNojvqcm-jrELRjPY5HOQX2gv4w3GgJwRm4bw/s320/budget%20of%20paradoxes.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2yOH3GRcKrZAPs177BVs3u4iQFRdbQOPB_Eh8al8CuJBflXu7AClAYEmRkhvXQUOESqstUzbx8-85wftp3bTNrY_EDV7XigVbVTcGyAxv4ui3Ok5h5VBUDhagG0ITHJ4A8sQWZIdbeSY/s1600/Pigs+in+Clover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2yOH3GRcKrZAPs177BVs3u4iQFRdbQOPB_Eh8al8CuJBflXu7AClAYEmRkhvXQUOESqstUzbx8-85wftp3bTNrY_EDV7XigVbVTcGyAxv4ui3Ok5h5VBUDhagG0ITHJ4A8sQWZIdbeSY/s320/Pigs+in+Clover.jpg" /></a></div><b>1889</b> A political cartoon in the New York World lampooned President Benjamin Harrison's advisers and cabinet members showing the group sitting around playing the game, Pigs in Clover which had recently been invented by Charles Martin Crandall. The caption read "Will Mr. Harrison be able to get all these hungry pigs in the official pen?"<br />The events which prompted the story were related in a New York Tribune's March 13, 1889 issue:<br /><blockquote>Senator William M. Evarts purchased one from a street fakir in order to get rid of him. He took the puzzle home and worked it for hours. The following morning he brought it with him into senate chambers where Senator George Graham Vest stopped by Evarts' desk, borrowed the puzzle and took it to a cloak room. Soon thereafter he was joined by Senators James L. Pugh, James B. Eustis, Edward C. Walthall and John E. Kenna. A page was sent out to buy five of the puzzles and upon his return, the group engaged in a "pig driving contest". About 30 minutes later, Senator Vest announced his accomplishment of driving the last pig in the pen.</blockquote>*Antique Toy Collectors of America *Wik (<i>Will negotiate trade of my off-spring or other not-to-valuable property for a imageof this cartoon. </i>)</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_ajRZXhl8rZWJJ0Dnb0WHWfaXn8ygSz5Cyp4GqSBvBFyt4YeEAK_p_ciIInqy5N-7QFgQBr2A4Zbq4Azm7C4EaUGGTGqhEdw9_stg5Hl8tKSYhxajhSSqxF2NI2ch73WtztQ5tcMIxPzICQ0hGdSNtWMUsjjTNb9vUXEwpeimbNaTq-Dmox9GR7_Y/s388/pigsin.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="388" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_ajRZXhl8rZWJJ0Dnb0WHWfaXn8ygSz5Cyp4GqSBvBFyt4YeEAK_p_ciIInqy5N-7QFgQBr2A4Zbq4Azm7C4EaUGGTGqhEdw9_stg5Hl8tKSYhxajhSSqxF2NI2ch73WtztQ5tcMIxPzICQ0hGdSNtWMUsjjTNb9vUXEwpeimbNaTq-Dmox9GR7_Y/s320/pigsin.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*</td><td class="tr-caption">VIRTUAL MUSEUM OF GAMES<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /><hr /><b>1905</b> Albert Einstein submits his paper "On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light" to the Annalen der Physik. In this revolutionary paper he proposes that light can be conceived both as waves and as discrete quanta (later to be called photons) which are localized at points in space. This paper was the primary reason for his Nobel Prize.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiaapuDSQ4d1OsB3jxU7aYBlOBGXiFXgEjd2raGu5zKtqntJbiDpCDHbVhAgdpBjqSYPKV3eWpV8HN3A-bf7eBMqZLpjRF1NEBuKIKeJQZx5pzHcr_lidYt7vK-BQxqWDtR1AInSt4iJ4fsgXWFSpva1zdn3wofFN30vlgT-sRvgodAr5r8tUxY1AeyDQ/s320/einstein%20playing%20violin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="311" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiaapuDSQ4d1OsB3jxU7aYBlOBGXiFXgEjd2raGu5zKtqntJbiDpCDHbVhAgdpBjqSYPKV3eWpV8HN3A-bf7eBMqZLpjRF1NEBuKIKeJQZx5pzHcr_lidYt7vK-BQxqWDtR1AInSt4iJ4fsgXWFSpva1zdn3wofFN30vlgT-sRvgodAr5r8tUxY1AeyDQ/s1600/einstein%20playing%20violin.jpg" width="311" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1914 </b>Ramanujan boarded the S.S. Nevasa on 17 March 1914, and at 10 o'clock in the morning, the ship departed from Madras. He arrived in London on 14 April, with E. H. Neville waiting for him with a car. A tweet from @amanicdroid pointed out that, "this was significant for him culturally as a high-caste Hindu as crossing the ocean was taboo. "</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwWVCKhvpcZs-gPjQ6r1rJhoEA6Wj14p7sLx0lVN7DINlRBUDbhbmC2VkjHSG6E5V09g7UUU93FeDHBFfuIK4D730oFiq-WTAFudtHGKujf63TUY6KQ9QPp66ZlV7zQygPlkkqg_ezmzFd5qW8CeZvwDouuqux25snVbo9yZpiQsyzVVrhTGJHWksmgLs/s405/Srinivasa_Ramanujan_2012_stamp_of_India.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="245" data-original-width="405" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwWVCKhvpcZs-gPjQ6r1rJhoEA6Wj14p7sLx0lVN7DINlRBUDbhbmC2VkjHSG6E5V09g7UUU93FeDHBFfuIK4D730oFiq-WTAFudtHGKujf63TUY6KQ9QPp66ZlV7zQygPlkkqg_ezmzFd5qW8CeZvwDouuqux25snVbo9yZpiQsyzVVrhTGJHWksmgLs/s320/Srinivasa_Ramanujan_2012_stamp_of_India.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><b>1941 </b>The National Gallery of Art opened its doors on the mall in Washington D.C. The gallery was a gift of Pittsburgh financier Andrew W. Mellon. His personal collection of 152 masterpieces has grown to 80,000 priceless works today. Today it is a good place to see some mathematics, from the lack of perspective in its medieval works, to Girl with the Red Hat with its camera obscura technique, to the geometric starkness of the East Wing. *VFR</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDGfTKTzO-XrUF1fRnY16z7d8h603tnP1IVsoZYwdJt6m_VG2c2YB6QTndauoKN8O_9NnmBOT0SSCtnZKXiRI62uqyQh1HinIcvZRdTiVlHD0htZBM8N3Z17g3PurEscUDayz7nEVQHe76SwlzILgVzREUUqiezJ6DORxx_Mc7S2i30JzxPNK2KD4v9k/s300/girl%20with%20red%20hat.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="237" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDGfTKTzO-XrUF1fRnY16z7d8h603tnP1IVsoZYwdJt6m_VG2c2YB6QTndauoKN8O_9NnmBOT0SSCtnZKXiRI62uqyQh1HinIcvZRdTiVlHD0htZBM8N3Z17g3PurEscUDayz7nEVQHe76SwlzILgVzREUUqiezJ6DORxx_Mc7S2i30JzxPNK2KD4v9k/s1600/girl%20with%20red%20hat.jpeg" width="237" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1964, </b>In a headline, the New York Times notes the Nazi past of William Mrazek, one of the Marshall Space Flight Center’s managers working on the Saturn V. Mrazek was one of the Operation Paperclip engineers who came to the U.S. in late 1945. * @ChasingMoonBk <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlRPOITcecnZlpXnodbTELWdgu2deBJzIDTM7BE19XymQ7Wb58wHd-RkbZ2EuJhyphenhyphenG1mNM954eyw50YAgQZDIMwt5qv9kHa7uvtIxtm_h4814KlXB9W_-Ae5NzSSarBedVmH0oPdLplEAU/s370/von+braun+NY+times.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="356" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlRPOITcecnZlpXnodbTELWdgu2deBJzIDTM7BE19XymQ7Wb58wHd-RkbZ2EuJhyphenhyphenG1mNM954eyw50YAgQZDIMwt5qv9kHa7uvtIxtm_h4814KlXB9W_-Ae5NzSSarBedVmH0oPdLplEAU/s320/von+braun+NY+times.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1988 </b>Apple Computer sues Microsoft Corporation for copyright infringement in its Windows design. After Apple developed a highly successful graphical user interface for its Macintosh computer released in 1984, Microsoft fought back with an operating system of its own, called "Windows." In 1995, Apple lost the lawsuit, in which it claimed that the similarities of the Windows and Macintosh environments extended too far.*CHM<br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><b>2013 </b>Flash of Meteor hitting moon visible to naked eye. Scientists monitoring the moon for meteorite impacts spotted the biggest impact event to date: a space rock the size of a basketball slammed into the lunar surface at a speed of 56,000 miles per hour (90,000 km/hr), creating a new crater around 20 meters wide.<br />The flash was impressive — it unleashed the equivalent energy of 5 tons of TNT exploding and would have been visible to anyone casually looking at the moon, no telescope required. *NASA The impact hit almost exactly on a crater already present. This animated gif shows before and after shots of the site.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdm3v5h3Fw81BKEZCDtlZ0-gtunyI8CW9zn_WOyT0SowBERxqq5gHuucBcx7OhhVK-sNKbn91QiBeJcgJ3Cf_OF_ogIHOdIzJ3EoCmgC6LJxQTMeZtUHEZFBmrl1NX7NItSP88nN_013Y/s1600/2013+meteor+newcrater.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdm3v5h3Fw81BKEZCDtlZ0-gtunyI8CW9zn_WOyT0SowBERxqq5gHuucBcx7OhhVK-sNKbn91QiBeJcgJ3Cf_OF_ogIHOdIzJ3EoCmgC6LJxQTMeZtUHEZFBmrl1NX7NItSP88nN_013Y/s320/2013+meteor+newcrater.gif" /></a></div><b><script height="352px" src="https://player.ooyala.com/iframe.js#ec=V3cWN5cDpUj22-ESMbw1ax4oQT8x-3K1&pbid=91ac0f6dcbdf466c84659dbc54039487" width="540px"></script></b><br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span></div><b>1733 </b>Carsten Niebuhr(March 17, 1733 Lüdingworth – April 26, 1815 Meldorf, Dithmarschen), German mathematician, cartographer, and explorer in the service of Denmark. Niebuhr's first book, Beschreibung von Arabien, was published in Copenhagen in 1772, the Danish government providing subsidies for the engraving and printing of its numerous illustrations. This was followed in 1774 and 1778 by the two volumes of Niebuhr's Reisebeschreibung von Arabien und anderen umliegenden Ländern. These works (particularly the one published in 1778), and most specifically the accurate copies of the cuneiform inscriptions found at Persepolis, were to prove to be extremely important to the decipherment of cuneiform writing. Before Niebuhr's publication, cuneiform inscriptions were often thought to be merely decorations and embellishments, and no accurate decipherments or translations had been made up to that point. Niebuhr demonstrated that the three trilingual inscriptions found at Persepolis were in fact three distinct forms of cuneiform writing (which he termed Class I, Class II, and Class III) to be read from left to right. His accurate copies of the trilingual inscriptions gave Orientalists the key finally crack the cuneiform code, leading to the discovery of Old Persian, Akkadian, and Sumerian. *Wik</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXaS78fhGJYTZdPIcGB4nWXbbk-UlcximytcrqsszU3KcoAikSkw0ip8cSGouwP5D5VBKn93rTaRRCfX9sh587vlwYiPxsI5FUikBSU_RspMJASoR2nI_g1kF0Hh7Ut1ip-1kLb95kiJYgtOVkpo33SvwUoPi6ybu9a3EPQ-6iWCCze6f1ZSTq9YIxOGw/s318/niebuhr.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="318" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXaS78fhGJYTZdPIcGB4nWXbbk-UlcximytcrqsszU3KcoAikSkw0ip8cSGouwP5D5VBKn93rTaRRCfX9sh587vlwYiPxsI5FUikBSU_RspMJASoR2nI_g1kF0Hh7Ut1ip-1kLb95kiJYgtOVkpo33SvwUoPi6ybu9a3EPQ-6iWCCze6f1ZSTq9YIxOGw/s1600/niebuhr.jpeg" width="318" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><b>1876 </b>Ernest Benjamin Esclangon (March 17, 1876 – January 28, 1954) was a French astronomer and mathematician. During World War I, he worked on ballistics and developed a novel method for precisely locating enemy artillery. When a gun is fired, it initiates a spherical shock wave but the projectile also generates a conical wave. By using the sound of distant guns to compare the two waves, Escaglon was able to make accurate predictions of gun locations.<br />After the armistice, Esclangon became director of the Strasbourg Observatory and professor of astronomy at the university the following year. In 1929, he was appointed director of the Paris Observatory and of the International Time Bureau, and elected to the Bureau des Longitudes in 1932. In 1933, he initiated the talking clock telephone service in France. He was elected to the Académie des Sciences in 1939.<br />Serving as director of the Paris Observatory throughout World War II and the German occupation of Paris, he retired in 1944. He died in Eyrenville, France.<br />The binary asteroid 1509 Esclangona and the lunar crater Esclangon are named after him.*Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3EB0ZNM0tDAcoyOvmsUlVAgC49CY4n15o5o3oVfDJ_Fc2gtCB4rMAsphZkQdlEUXncxIOfrWrh4ia6HG57xPHqlXWZlbYhY5W_vQ3J7-R23abfC1eEZqewNb8ZNzRZVPTiKPJvRs7X4tzqhs3FncHDrnnpZhk9LB8X68nG4UVIfC3lgqd1xBoUuRRsvA/s425/Esclangon.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3EB0ZNM0tDAcoyOvmsUlVAgC49CY4n15o5o3oVfDJ_Fc2gtCB4rMAsphZkQdlEUXncxIOfrWrh4ia6HG57xPHqlXWZlbYhY5W_vQ3J7-R23abfC1eEZqewNb8ZNzRZVPTiKPJvRs7X4tzqhs3FncHDrnnpZhk9LB8X68nG4UVIfC3lgqd1xBoUuRRsvA/s320/Esclangon.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><b>1915 </b>Wolfgang Döblin, known in France as Vincent Doblin, (17 March 1915 – 21 June 1940) was a German-French mathematician. Wolfgang was the son of the Jewish-German novelist, Alfred Döblin. His family escaped from Nazi Germany to France where he became a citizen. Studying probability theory at the Institute Henri Poincaré under Fréchet, he quickly made a name for himself as a gifted theorist. He became a doctor at age 23. Drafted in November 1938, after refusing to be exempted of military service, he had to stay in the active Army when World War II broke out in 1939, and was quartered at Givet, in the Ardennes, as a telephone operator. There, he wrote down his latest work on the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation, and sent this as a "pli cacheté" (sealed envelope) to the French Academy of Sciences. His company, sent to the sector of the Saare on the ligne Maginot in April 1940, was caught in the German attack in the Ardennes in May, withdrew to the Vosges, and capitulated on June 22, 1940. On June 21, Doblin had committed suicide in Housseras (a small village near to Epinal), at the moment where German troops came in sight of the place. In his last moments, he burned his mathematical notes.<br />The sealed envelope was opened in 2000, revealing that Döblin was ahead of his time in the development of the theory of Markov processes. In recognition of his results, Itō's lemma is now referred to as the Itō–Doblin Theorem.<br />His life was recently the subject of a movie by Agnes Handwerk and Harrie Willems, A Mathematician Rediscovered. *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtl0MDDabqvSxm8w_M4bFUq4ib11ug4B2XtkCz_P7VL2V547XH3LtHQ6rA6UI20maoAO0WWJ_Ca7Jzp0WKbVknxVJyjMGF9irojfvAd_oIztgKziVXMP-PZGypPsmeGccj9W7RL90KfIpO32lRUaAPyw4pbR6SKphi9mcfO4CqI0zp6cKoX-ew2xbqk8E/s400/WolfgangDoblin%20MFO9417.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="277" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtl0MDDabqvSxm8w_M4bFUq4ib11ug4B2XtkCz_P7VL2V547XH3LtHQ6rA6UI20maoAO0WWJ_Ca7Jzp0WKbVknxVJyjMGF9irojfvAd_oIztgKziVXMP-PZGypPsmeGccj9W7RL90KfIpO32lRUaAPyw4pbR6SKphi9mcfO4CqI0zp6cKoX-ew2xbqk8E/s320/WolfgangDoblin%20MFO9417.jpg" width="222" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><b>1972 </b>Kalpana Chawla (March 17, 1962 – February 1, 2003) was an American astronaut and the first Indian woman in space. She first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator. In 2003, Chawla was one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi26eG5cEaeYRNB1_JDUX5WBFaUVxotw1H9ew8W0hUC-oYa6yL3ok5qrLJfyLbhzKi-GvkusQBuy0A7vQyFBEQcsngTxCyU_T0iVSMW1eoJLgUxjd-Awqj21hI22vWEm0WzxsiHnKsoQMtu49s_qblds5lCZnDhZDbE3gKSCDOa6hdOzMS0F5CydGWvWhI/s412/Kalpana_Chawla,_NASA_photo_portrait_in_orange_suit.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi26eG5cEaeYRNB1_JDUX5WBFaUVxotw1H9ew8W0hUC-oYa6yL3ok5qrLJfyLbhzKi-GvkusQBuy0A7vQyFBEQcsngTxCyU_T0iVSMW1eoJLgUxjd-Awqj21hI22vWEm0WzxsiHnKsoQMtu49s_qblds5lCZnDhZDbE3gKSCDOa6hdOzMS0F5CydGWvWhI/s320/Kalpana_Chawla,_NASA_photo_portrait_in_orange_suit.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><br /><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span></div><b>1652</b> Benjamin Bramer (15 Feb 1588 in Felsberg, Germany - 17 March 1652 in Ziegenhain, Germany) was an architect who published work on the calculation of sines. He was tutored by Jost Bürgi in a wide range of subjects but it was mathematics that he loved and he passed this love on to Bramer. (Bramer married Bürgi's daughter) Bramer followed Alberti (1435), Dürer (1525) and Bürgi (1604) when in 1630 he constructed a device that enabled one to draw accurate geometric perspective. The instrument had been described in a 1617 publication Trigonometrica planorum mechanica oder Unterricht und Beschreibung eines neuen und sehr bequemen geometrischen Instrumentes zu allerhand Abmessung. Bramer designed several other mathematical instruments, for example a description of the pantograph appears in the same 1617 publication. The instrument is designed to copy a geometric shape and reproduce it at a reduced or enlarged scale. It consists of an assemblage of rigid bars adjustably joined by pin joints; as the point of one bar is moved over the outline to be duplicated, the motion is translated to a point on another bar, which makes the desired copy according to the predetermined scale. Bramer has not been recognised as the inventor of the pantograph, this distinction going to the Jesuit Christoph Scheiner who describes a similar instrument in his 1631 publication Pantographice seu acre delineandi res quaslibet by parallelogrammum linear seu cavum mechanicum, mobile. Although Scheiner's publication did much to spread knowledge of the pantograph, the instrument he describes is technically inferior to the earlier instrument as described by Bramer. *SAU</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJYW2_8GCESfJ3YmCuqNb7RmU1GXSEPoUjwibR8TMXteuZeKBf6sP-vKJ_otwU08bVx6lxlLPwjqnzlJ6hD53bFvm9u461rUhQhc9_WjyF25l3EX3AZ0XQWJ5BilA11nh8aMRmzC3MSM3NCqK99nBiM4fb1N_UqoLAn9rysSwFBvGbhxqKLDA6Wez-1vY/s326/bramer_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="276" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJYW2_8GCESfJ3YmCuqNb7RmU1GXSEPoUjwibR8TMXteuZeKBf6sP-vKJ_otwU08bVx6lxlLPwjqnzlJ6hD53bFvm9u461rUhQhc9_WjyF25l3EX3AZ0XQWJ5BilA11nh8aMRmzC3MSM3NCqK99nBiM4fb1N_UqoLAn9rysSwFBvGbhxqKLDA6Wez-1vY/s320/bramer_1.jpg" width="271" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><b>1767 </b>George Parker (born 1697, 17 Mar 1764) [2nd Earl of Macclesfield] English astronomer who was instrumental in changing the computation of current chronology, subsequently enacted as the British Calendar Act of 1751 which he co-authored and co-promoted. (Shortly thereafter, he was elected President of the Royal Society, 1752-1764). Since 1582, the new calendar of Pope Gregory XIII had been used in most of Europe. In England the new calendar was rejected as popish. By 1750, the old calendar became 11 days out of sequence with the position of the Earth in its orbit due to its lack of leap years. Parker was assisted in these calculations by his friend James Bradley, the astronomer royal, and received influential support from Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield. *TIS<br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><b>1771 </b>Chester Moor Hall, (Dec. 9, 1703, Leigh, Essex, Eng.— March 17, 1771, Sutton, Surrey), English jurist and mathematician who invented the achromatic lens, which he utilized in building the first refracting telescope free from chromatic aberration (colour distortion).<br />Convinced from study of the human eye that achromatic lenses were feasible, Hall experimented with different kinds of glass until he found (1729) a combination of crown glass and flint glass that met his requirements. In 1733 he built several telescopes with apertures of 2.5 inches (6.5 cm) and focal lengths of 20 inches (50 cm).*britannica.com<br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><b>1782</b> Daniel Bernoulli (29 January 1700 (8 Feb new style), 8 March 1782) was a Dutch-Swiss mathematician and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in probability and statistics. Bernoulli's work is still studied at length by many schools of science throughout the world. The son of Johann Bernoulli (one of the "early developers" of calculus), nephew of Jakob Bernoulli (who "was the first to discover the theory of probability"), and older brother of Johann II, He is said to have had a bad relationship with his father. Upon both of them entering and tying for first place in a scientific contest at the University of Paris, Johann, unable to bear the "shame" of being compared as Daniel's equal, banned Daniel from his house. Johann Bernoulli also plagiarized some key ideas from Daniel's book Hydrodynamica in his own book Hydraulica which he backdated to before Hydrodynamica. Despite Daniel's attempts at reconciliation, his father carried the grudge until his death.<br />He was a contemporary and close friend of Leonhard Euler. He went to St. Petersburg in 1724 as professor of mathematics, but was unhappy there, and a temporary illness in 1733 gave him an excuse for leaving. He returned to the University of Basel, where he successively held the chairs of medicine, metaphysics and natural philosophy until his death.<br />In May, 1750 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was also the author in 1738 of Specimen theoriae novae de mensura sortis (Exposition of a New Theory on the Measurement of Risk), in which the St. Petersburg paradox was the base of the economic theory of risk aversion, risk premium and utility.<br />One of the earliest attempts to analyze a statistical problem involving censored data was Bernoulli's 1766 analysis of smallpox morbidity and mortality data to demonstrate the efficacy of vaccination. He is the earliest writer who attempted to formulate a kinetic theory of gases, and he applied the idea to explain Boyle's law. He worked with Euler on elasticity and the development of the Euler-Bernoulli beam equation. *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4aZFwVRMLSK_r5gBE3pO7owRcZ_aKbakQnMp5Nf-TBvLkl-d_SOLKlAOXIZM-AJzFtAsqAruqZ7ML2TzTMdKF7dxWiFRDHDTNl5zL4PJI6aAxBAIHln-1LsSA_Qgdj6kRaiFv1iQaaY1fWweqs-rzc-GQW4A9NQ9_DRzfmfpbMTqo7-R4FNvp04nDgMg/s420/Daniel_Bernoulli%20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4aZFwVRMLSK_r5gBE3pO7owRcZ_aKbakQnMp5Nf-TBvLkl-d_SOLKlAOXIZM-AJzFtAsqAruqZ7ML2TzTMdKF7dxWiFRDHDTNl5zL4PJI6aAxBAIHln-1LsSA_Qgdj6kRaiFv1iQaaY1fWweqs-rzc-GQW4A9NQ9_DRzfmfpbMTqo7-R4FNvp04nDgMg/s320/Daniel_Bernoulli%20.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1846 </b>Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (22 Jul 1784, 17 Mar 1846 at age 61). He is noted for the special class of functions that have become an indispensable tool in applied mathematics. This, like all of his mathematical work, was motivated by his work in astronomy. *VFR In 1809, at the age of 26, Bessel was appointed director of Frederick William III of Prussia's new Königsberg Observatory and professor of astronomy, where he spent the rest of his career. His monumental task was determining the positions and proper motions for about 50,000 stars, which allowed the first accurate determination of interstellar distances. Bessel's work in determining the constants of precession, nutation and aberration won him further honors. Other than the sun, he was the first to measure the distance of a star, by parallax, of 61 Cygni (1838). In mathematical analysis, he is known for his Bessel function. *TIS</div><div>Bessel's equation arises when finding separable solutions to Laplace's equation and the Helmholtz equation in cylindrical or spherical coordinates. Bessel functions are therefore especially important for many problems of wave propagation and static potentials.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLALopYYkFc6Tlhg1ZKnIlH9IB8ezJj7ll5CWBWEqxdGxpDQiGliFuLXzXKFPhRz4N1V1dOuJeLQCipLr41wv95BWv1GKLpvjeB19agHgYsgDTNiHzMzvr3u098Ctxx-hb6Qon6BF5xpgc7tzeFEZrcki7pqlctl8LKrFlTKtrc3yRBVsVJcrF5XUfAY0/s395/Friedrich_Wilhelm_Bessel_(1839_painting).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLALopYYkFc6Tlhg1ZKnIlH9IB8ezJj7ll5CWBWEqxdGxpDQiGliFuLXzXKFPhRz4N1V1dOuJeLQCipLr41wv95BWv1GKLpvjeB19agHgYsgDTNiHzMzvr3u098Ctxx-hb6Qon6BF5xpgc7tzeFEZrcki7pqlctl8LKrFlTKtrc3yRBVsVJcrF5XUfAY0/s320/Friedrich_Wilhelm_Bessel_(1839_painting).jpg" width="263" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: right;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><b>1853 Christian Doppler</b> (29 Nov 1803; 17 Mar 1853) Austrian physicist who first described how the observed frequency of light and sound waves is affected by the relative motion of the source and the detector, known as the Doppler effect. In 1845, to test his hypothesis, Doppler used two sets of trumpeters: one set stationary at a train station and one set moving on Bert Nederan open train car, all holding the same note. As the train passed the station, it was obvious that the frequency of the notes from the two groups didn't match. Sound waves would have a higher frequency if the source was moving toward the observer and a lower frequency if the source was moving away from the observer. Edwin Hubble used the Doppler effect of light from distant stars to determine that the universe is expanding.*TIS</div><div>HT to Bert Nederbragt for reminding me that C. H. D Buys Ballot tested the Doppler effect for sound waves in 1845 by using a group of musicians playing a calibrated note on a train in the Utrecht-Amsterdam line. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbT6YSf3BKssz91xT1kiQ2YLNroScN14pHr7Lp1Gdu_gUAW380eCAn6VL_gCKuWpVqdMTB8nkU1U3ovsawcLg9SbW4kzEd-EmfNLDdxuMlHU67RdHif6T9ZE8xZGNRJBsCRKqIhyphenhyphenyMHqHPGWdpBhAYW85g5AA8acfwt8PYAQG6-D17gJhtxTQb5ybVn0k/s330/%20Doppler%20shift%20test%20'wall_formula'_in_the_city_of_Utrecht_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="330" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbT6YSf3BKssz91xT1kiQ2YLNroScN14pHr7Lp1Gdu_gUAW380eCAn6VL_gCKuWpVqdMTB8nkU1U3ovsawcLg9SbW4kzEd-EmfNLDdxuMlHU67RdHif6T9ZE8xZGNRJBsCRKqIhyphenhyphenyMHqHPGWdpBhAYW85g5AA8acfwt8PYAQG6-D17gJhtxTQb5ybVn0k/s320/%20Doppler%20shift%20test%20'wall_formula'_in_the_city_of_Utrecht_01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPBahc4KFwRePTZZXWW0oNY2FeTca61jcBAWUghihN6Q-2veGDnQm4JmYpu4lSpspUCSv19CVWG-ksO-J6w81NZrjT7zonywVHfZf6nmLjQZFrGl-0DJjEye4yTdBnNktkwFGCNynTJj0UD5KKDmYdHvYbBtwpM61qQv8PmE_HeKtg-kJlSxijlFw-_wo/s423/Christian_Doppler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPBahc4KFwRePTZZXWW0oNY2FeTca61jcBAWUghihN6Q-2veGDnQm4JmYpu4lSpspUCSv19CVWG-ksO-J6w81NZrjT7zonywVHfZf6nmLjQZFrGl-0DJjEye4yTdBnNktkwFGCNynTJj0UD5KKDmYdHvYbBtwpM61qQv8PmE_HeKtg-kJlSxijlFw-_wo/s320/Christian_Doppler.jpg" width="250" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><b>1922</b> Heinrich Suter (4 January 1848, Hedingen near Zurich, Switzerland – 17 March 1922) was a historian of science specializing in Islamic mathematics and astronomy.*Wik</div><div>... in 1900, Swiss historian of mathematics and astronomy Heinrich Suter published the bio-bibliographical survey Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke. Suter's book contained information on scholars not only in the Arab countries but in all the Islamic countries from the 8th to the 17th centuries. Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke contains information on approximately 500 scholars whose time of life was known and 100 with unknown dates. *MacTutor</div><div><br /></div><div><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><b>1956 </b>Irène Joliot-Curie (12 Sep 1897; 17 Mar 1956) French physicist and physical chemist, wife of Frédéric Joliot-Curie, who shared the 1935 Nobel Prize for Chemistry "in recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements." For example, in their joint research they discovered that aluminium atoms exposed to alpha rays transmuted to radioactive phosphorus atoms. She was the daughter of Nobel Prize winners Pierre and Marie Curie. From 1946, she was director of the Radium Institute, Paris, founded by her mother. She died of leukemia, like her mother, resulting from radiation exposure during research.*TIS</div><div>Irène and Marie Curie in 1925</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjglibZYzKtxVWWoNkcAIQQKrY0EAE-CgcVn9i0MJ5UZxmzJ_zUwgqw3RXlSTbhy9yuj1jhpAeBRBLt4NovETA8I3lm1pGZu4Gg_IJgmr42OG_6j_L24Cl7WCuwbKZgxt8f7EJHJHg44DUZuCfMtCFdUAvjn3CpKjbaEONN_5CUCJowXu94rI8MRr4bWs0/s378/Irene_and_Marie_Curie_1925.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjglibZYzKtxVWWoNkcAIQQKrY0EAE-CgcVn9i0MJ5UZxmzJ_zUwgqw3RXlSTbhy9yuj1jhpAeBRBLt4NovETA8I3lm1pGZu4Gg_IJgmr42OG_6j_L24Cl7WCuwbKZgxt8f7EJHJHg44DUZuCfMtCFdUAvjn3CpKjbaEONN_5CUCJowXu94rI8MRr4bWs0/s320/Irene_and_Marie_Curie_1925.jpg" width="279" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">1956 Henry Frederick Baker</span> FRS (3 July 1866 – 17 March 1956) was a British mathematician, working mainly in algebraic geometry, but also remembered for contributions to partial differential equations (related to what would become known as solitons), and Lie groups.<br />Baker was born in Cambridge, England and educated at The Perse School before winning a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge in October 1884. Baker graduated as Senior Wrangler in 1887, bracketed with 3 others.<br />Baker was elected Fellow of St John's in 1888 where he remained for 68 years.<br />In June, 1898 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1911, he gave the presidential address to the London Mathematical Society.<br />In January 1914 he was appointed Lowndean Professor of Astronomy. *Wik<br />In the 1920's and 30's before the war Baker's graduate students would meet at what they called Professor Baker’s "Tea Party". They met each Saturday to discuss the areas of research in which they were working. It was to one of these meetings that a young Donald Coxeter brought his "Aunt Alice", the 69 year old Alicia Boole to co-present on the subject of Polytopes in higher dimensions.</span></div><div><span>This is one of many fascinating people in the family of George Boole and <a href="https://pballew.blogspot.com/2023/08/those-amazing-boole-girls.html" target="_blank">"Those Amazing Boole Girls."</a></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTbQcO0-V9HMCfONr2f03uY2U5zMKwo4rPVgNdvVYXESvfZt_r-ncXNywe7qh7REqpaUq4TJ69gdEGPRisychoeq3AYG5wkwLwZh2j8odPjgGzidkkyLtiOEqqbpXNhAQlK8N-iSOP3aCnhTBu8auhUY5bzJyk7iSkipiX1Fuy3ndHgvOjVz9ocDiUZTY/s326/Henry_Frederick_Baker.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="274" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTbQcO0-V9HMCfONr2f03uY2U5zMKwo4rPVgNdvVYXESvfZt_r-ncXNywe7qh7REqpaUq4TJ69gdEGPRisychoeq3AYG5wkwLwZh2j8odPjgGzidkkyLtiOEqqbpXNhAQlK8N-iSOP3aCnhTBu8auhUY5bzJyk7iSkipiX1Fuy3ndHgvOjVz9ocDiUZTY/s320/Henry_Frederick_Baker.jpg" width="269" /></a></div><br /><span><br /></span><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><b>1962</b> Wilhelm Blaschke (13 Sep 1885; 17 Mar 1962) German mathematician whose major contributions to geometry concerned kinematics and differential geometry. Kinetic mapping (important later in the axiomatic foundations of various geometries) he both discovered and established it as a tool in kinematics. He also initiated topological differential geometry (the study of invariant differentiable mappings)*TIS<br /><hr style="font-weight: bold;" /><br /><br /><br /><b>Credits :</b><br /><b>*CHM=Computer History Museum</b><br /><b>*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts</b></div><div><b>*LH = Linda Hall Org<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar</b><br /><b>*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie</b><br /><b>*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History</b><br /><b>*TIA = Today in Astronomy</b><br /><b>*TIS= Today in Science History</b><br /><b>*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA</b><br /><b>*Wik = Wikipedia</b><br /><b>*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</b></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-40764580728387853302024-03-17T04:30:00.001+00:002024-03-17T04:30:00.254+00:00Billion, Centilion, Decillion, Million Math Terms History<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Billion,</span><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Centilion, Decillion, Billion seems to have been a French creation, and was originally bi-million. The term originally meant 10^12 or one million millions, and still has this meaning in many countries today. In the US and some other countries it is used for 10^9 or one </span></span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-weight: normal;">thousand</span><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> million. The table below compares the names as used in the US and in Germany:</span></span><br /><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Value -----German name--------US name</span></span><br /><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">10^6 ----- Million ---------- Million</span></span><br /><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">10^9 ------ Millard------------Billion</span></span><br /><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">10^12 ----- Billion -----------Trillion</span></span><br /><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">10^15------ Billiarde -------- Quadrillion</span></span></span></p><p style="color: blue; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;">Cajori attributes the first publication of the words above million to Nicholas Chuquet (1445-1488). Here is a quote from his <u>A History of Elementary Mathematics with Hints on Methods of Teaching</u>:</span></p><blockquote style="color: blue; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;">Their origin dates back almost to the time when the word million was first used. So far as known, they first occur in a manuscript work on arithmetic by that gifted French physician of Lyons, Nicolas Chuquet (1445- He employs the words byllion, tryllion, quadrillion, quyllion, sixlion, septyllion, octyllion, nonyllion, "<i>et ainsi des aultres se plus oultre on voulait proceder"</i> to denote the second, third, etc. powers of a million, i.e. (1,000,000)<sup>2</sup>, (1,000,OO0)<sup>3</sup>, etc. Evidently Chuquet had solved the difficult question of numeration. The new words used by him appear in 1520 in the printed work of La Roche. Thus the great honor of having simplified numeration of large numbers appears to belong to the French. In England and Germany the new nomenclature was not introduced until about a century and a half later. In England the words billion, trillion, etc., were new when Locke wrote, about 1687. In Germany these new terms appear for the first time in 1681 in a work by Heckenberg of Hanover, but they did not come into general use before the eighteenth century. About the middle of the seventeenth century it became the custom in France to divide numbers into periods of three digits, instead of six, and to assign to the word billion, in place of the old meaning, (1000,000)<sup>2</sup> or 10<sup>12</sup>, the new meaning of 10<sup>9</sup></span></blockquote><p style="color: blue; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"></p><p style="color: blue; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;">In <u>The Book of Numbers</u> by John Conway and Richard Guy (pp. 14-15) they write</span></p><blockquote style="color: blue; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;">These arithmeticians [Chuquet and de la Roche] used "illion" after the prefixes<br />b, tr, quadr, quint, sext, sept, oct and non to denote the<br />2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th powers of a million. But around the middle of the 17th century, some other French arithmeticians used them instead for the<br />3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th powers of a thousand. Although condemned by the greatest lexicographers as "erroneous" (Litr'e) and "an entire perversion of the original nomenclature of Chuquet and de la Roche" (Murray), the newer usage is now standard in the U.S., although the older one survives in Britain and is still standard in the continental countries (but the French spelling is nowadays "llon" rather than "llion".</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Because of continued conflict with England for the first fifty years of the new United States existence, it was much more willing to base the foundation for its numeration system on the method of the French, who had supported them in their revolution. In spite of this, "In many textbooks prior to the War of 1812 (eg. those by Consider and John Stery 1790, John Vinall 1792, and Johann Ritter 1807) if any numbers higher than 999,999,999 were discussed, the British system was used." [for example 1,000,000,000 was one-thousand million rather than one-billion ] {from Karen D. Michalowicz and Arthur C Howard in "Pedagogy in Text", from the NCTM's A History of School Mathemaitics} </span></span></h3><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><br /><div><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Million first appeared in a printed work in the Treviso arithmetic of 1478. Thereafter it found place in the works of most of the important popular Italian writers, such as Borghi (1484), Pellos (1492), and Pacioli (1494), but outside of Italy and France it was for a long time used only sparingly. Thus, Gemma Frisius (1540) used "thousand thousand" in his Latin editions, which were published in the North, while in the Italian translation (1567) the word millioni appears. Similarly, Clavius carried his German ideas along with him when he went to Rome, and when (1583) he wished to speak of a thousand thousand he almost apologized for using "million," referring to it as an Italian form which needed some explanation. </span></div></h3><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"> In Spain the word cuento was early used for 10^6, the word million being reserved for 10^12. When the latter word was adopted by mathematicians, it was slow in coming into general use.</span></h3><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">France early took the word "million" from Italy, as when Chuquet (1484) used it, being followed by De la Roche (1520), after which it became fairly common.</span></h3><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">England adopted the Italian word more readily than the other countries, probably owing to the influence of Recorde (c. 1542). It is interesting to see that Poland was also among the first to recognize its value, the word appearing in the arithmetic of Klos in 1538.</span></h3><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The French use of milliard, for 109, with billion as an alternative, is relatively late. The word appears at least as early as the beginning of the 16th century as the equivalent both of 109 and of 1012, the latter being the billion of England today. By the 17th century, however, it was used in Holland to mean 109, and no doubt it was about this time that the usage began to change in France. </span></span></h3><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: large; font-weight: 400;">As to the American usage, taking a billion to mean a thousand million and running the subsequent names by thousands, it should be said that this is due in part to French influence after the Revolutionary War, although our earliest native American arithmetic, the Greenwood book of 1729, gave the billion as 109, the trillion as 1012, and so on. Names for large numbers were the fashion in early days, Pike’s well-known arithmetic (1788), for example, proceeding to duodecillions before taking up addition.</span></h3><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;">Decillion occurs in English in 1847.</span></div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;">Centillionen is found in German in 1740 in Biblischer Geographus by Johann J. Schmidt: “Was wirds nun helfen, die Zahlen so zu häufen, daß man sie mit Centillionen aussprechen könnte; wer wird denn einen Verstand hergeben, der sie begreift?”</span></div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;">Centilion (spelled this way) is found in English in 1754 in The Gentleman’s Magazine.</span></div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"> Centillion is found in English in 1863 in The Normal: or, Methods of Teaching the Common Branches, Orthoepy, Orthography, Grammar, Geography, Arithmetic and Elocution by Alfred Holbrook</span></div></div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;">In Many South Asian numbering system, 10^9 is known as 100 crore or 1 arab. in Japanese 10,000 is a common base, and above this they normally use </span></div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;">10,000: ichi-man 「1万」</span></div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;">100,000: juu-man 「10万」</span></div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;">1,000,000: hyaku-man (one million) 「100万」</span></div><div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;">10,000,000: issen-man 「1000万」.</span></div><div><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Courier New; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">*(Wikipedia, Jeff Miller, PB notes)</span></span></h3></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-12649252770407980932024-03-16T04:00:00.002+00:002024-03-16T12:15:00.996+00:00On This Day in Math - March 16<p> </p><p><br /></p><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJWHs3QYrty-qHdHyUn5FSnBsjKRObtnEZNE_7JZmvVpBoRSzFUktHxosAdoguKqg-qij9eKeYLqp-u-O76Ilh0e3aORlUhBzcva0jUVeIVPmC_2Hy8o2UZNeLhJg2-6MBsRAVoG4yyJs/s1600/Ohm+Memorial.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJWHs3QYrty-qHdHyUn5FSnBsjKRObtnEZNE_7JZmvVpBoRSzFUktHxosAdoguKqg-qij9eKeYLqp-u-O76Ilh0e3aORlUhBzcva0jUVeIVPmC_2Hy8o2UZNeLhJg2-6MBsRAVoG4yyJs/s1600/Ohm+Memorial.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Memorial for Ohm </td><td class="tr-caption"></td><td class="tr-caption">,</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Whenever I meet in Laplace with the words 'Thus it plainly appears', I am sure that hours and perhaps days, of hard study will alone enable me to discover how it plainly appears.<br />~Nathaniel Bowditch<br /><br /><br /><br />The 75th day of the year; the aliquot divisors of 75 are 1,3,5,15, and 25. Their sum is a perfect square, 49. Their product is also a perfect square, 5625. (Can you find other numbers with this property?)<br /><br />75 is also the larger of the smallest pair of betrothed (quasi-amicable) numbers. 48 and 75 are a betrothed pair since the sum of the proper divisors of 48 is 76 and 75+1 = 76 and the sum of the proper divisors of 75 is 49, with 48+1=49. (There is only a single other pair of betrothed numbers that can be a year day)<br /><br />75 and 76 form the first pair of adjacent numbers in base ten which are NOT a palindrome in any base \( 2 \leq b \leq 10 \)<br /><br />2<sup>75</sup> + 75 is prime<br /><br />75 is a Keith # or repfigit (75 appears in a Fibonacci-like sequence created by its digits) 7, 5, 12, 17, 29, 46, 75 ... (75 is the sixth of seven year days which are repfigits. Can you find the others?)<br /><br /><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>1713 Saunderson to Jones (<span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px;">Nicholas </span><span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;">Saunderson</span><span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px;"> to William </span><span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;">Jones)</span>: “There has been nothing published here since my last to you, excepting a treatise, which is not worth mentioning, by one Mr. Green, fellow of Clare Hall of this university. If there had been anything in it instructive or diverting I should have sent it to you; but I can find nothing in it but ill manners and elaborate nonsense from one end to the other. The gentleman has been reputed mad for these two years last past, but never gave the world such ample testimony of it before.” [Rigaud, Correspondence of Scientific Men of the Seventeenth Century, I, *263] *VFR</div><div><br /></div><div>Jones who coined Pi, by Hogarth </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuBXkBqcE4NGdUcqau4OEJBvmOuU3H_76jw9a8WCMt214w2esrwgy-B6QOzDbXiSXMVjL1y5JKw7oqcKmaXutPXdpiTVDDXQYqIh4u75Kp389e0Zht57RDozYEGGJAZEMlrt3KKgNBiF-qte3b1Nb2aLJUfODmVz4c2YzNg6gFw57HI0Y756am4URQ5oA/s418/William_Jones_by_William_Hogarth.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="418" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuBXkBqcE4NGdUcqau4OEJBvmOuU3H_76jw9a8WCMt214w2esrwgy-B6QOzDbXiSXMVjL1y5JKw7oqcKmaXutPXdpiTVDDXQYqIh4u75Kp389e0Zht57RDozYEGGJAZEMlrt3KKgNBiF-qte3b1Nb2aLJUfODmVz4c2YzNg6gFw57HI0Y756am4URQ5oA/s320/William_Jones_by_William_Hogarth.jpg" width="253" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr />1763 Jerome Lalande writes in his diary about a visit to England, and "I went to see the Tower, and from there by water to Surrey Street to see Mr Short (James Short FRS was an optician who had been called to London to teach mathematics to William, Duke of Cumberland)<br />who spoke to me about the difficulty in giving his mirrors a parabolic figure. It is done only by guess-work." *Richard Watkins</div><div><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">Lalande was a French </span>astronomer<span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">, </span>freemason<span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> and writer. </span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">On 8 May and again on 10 May 1795 a star was observed and recorded at his observatory with uncertainty noted on its position with a colon, this notation could also indicate an observing error so it was not until the original records of the observatory were reviewed that it was established with certainty that the object was Neptune and the position error between the two nights was due to the planet's motion across the sky.</span></span></div><div><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2V0cQBf4-gwusU3ZVUru6hjtu6TVkr30jBFP_8Q_H7ZKBN4rTwGRejDdwjtca-4Myjp2YkxzPvg8y3IMvuQJpC3DaxFJNub_XdpfbNw68ni6mekVkYkI1yCMcChSXzOI7TpEOazwoRNooc2JlprZtnWXniYNikv-9ejChdRSr_uNS86R7U94TA1vOks/s253/jerome%20lalande.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="200" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2V0cQBf4-gwusU3ZVUru6hjtu6TVkr30jBFP_8Q_H7ZKBN4rTwGRejDdwjtca-4Myjp2YkxzPvg8y3IMvuQJpC3DaxFJNub_XdpfbNw68ni6mekVkYkI1yCMcChSXzOI7TpEOazwoRNooc2JlprZtnWXniYNikv-9ejChdRSr_uNS86R7U94TA1vOks/s1600/jerome%20lalande.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1802 The United States Military Academy at West Point established by act of congress. This school was the first engineering school in the U.S. Charles Davies, a noted math textbook writer, taught there.*VFR (The academy opened on July 4, 1802. Before 1812 it was conducted as an apprentice school for military engineers and, in effect, as the first U.S. school of engineering.)</div><div><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 12.376px;">Nininger Hall, part of the original Cadet Barracks</span></div><div><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 12.376px;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhb_X0qWfD-BttNMmKTjNsXGjE-H5FYJOcJXBGYsVf9tMEIHaRULbkLM7JTEALDL1G63aCaOMFHvKuQc7kYpCNjiwugSE6z2OVIILLkgGgnq8rGG6GqMTla2GoHy92wpgm5nNTneUoAKH3FMKTMCJVxwIQKiOlOhs8K8etqej_Amvi26ccKZ3g9Rvm5BI/s330/Nininger_Hall_west%20point.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="330" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhb_X0qWfD-BttNMmKTjNsXGjE-H5FYJOcJXBGYsVf9tMEIHaRULbkLM7JTEALDL1G63aCaOMFHvKuQc7kYpCNjiwugSE6z2OVIILLkgGgnq8rGG6GqMTla2GoHy92wpgm5nNTneUoAKH3FMKTMCJVxwIQKiOlOhs8K8etqej_Amvi26ccKZ3g9Rvm5BI/s320/Nininger_Hall_west%20point.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1830 The New York Stock Exchange had its slowest trading day, only 31 shares trading hands. *VFR<br /><hr /><b>1867</b> First publication of an article by Joseph Lister outlining the discovery of antiseptic surgery, in "The Lancet". The second appeared in July of the same year. </div><div>At the Dublin meeting of the British Medical Association in August 1867, Lister stated “previous to its introduction, the 2 large wards in which most of my cases of accident and of operation are treated were amongst the unhealthiest in the whole of surgical division at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary (…) but since the antiseptic treatment has been brought into full operation, (…) my wards (…) have completely changed their character; so that during the last 9 months not a single instance of pyaemia, hospital gangrene or erysipelas has occurred in them.” *Natl Lib of Medicine</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8ieTSnyIXlrzrUAVyxppuVZJ2978DPkMGaWSQ-Bp3s0Cud0GcC0OwTbLkqY4UdAB0Mh34oUXRsaRA-OzpzOj95mv9uVSYZA-wT7QEMxHqdZSZ0qP4KYr009JjG2Ld1E5Vbaj0a5MkUNB2ANY5E9-ZxnTvo3y6K6d-sWERuno4QvsxK5pkx_DgnlIfpEo/s281/lister.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="179" data-original-width="281" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8ieTSnyIXlrzrUAVyxppuVZJ2978DPkMGaWSQ-Bp3s0Cud0GcC0OwTbLkqY4UdAB0Mh34oUXRsaRA-OzpzOj95mv9uVSYZA-wT7QEMxHqdZSZ0qP4KYr009JjG2Ld1E5Vbaj0a5MkUNB2ANY5E9-ZxnTvo3y6K6d-sWERuno4QvsxK5pkx_DgnlIfpEo/s1600/lister.jpeg" width="281" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div>1916 On his seventieth birthday in 1916, Mittag-Leffler and his wife signed their last will and testament. They gave their entire fortune to found a Mathematical Institute which now bears their names. It is in their villa in Djursholm, near Stockholm, Sweden. A sumptuous volume giving a complete catalog of Mittag-Leffler’s library was also published at this time, and this library is now housed in the Institute. Naturally it is a favorite haunt of historians of mathematics. *VFR (See Births,1846 below)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukiHLO5VzY1jQv9CBYPtkg49gDjuA3XJf60V1XCRA60qRsKdSbS61juw-uG3N-TwVB_TiZID_3nZC4CRusRhC1gDlDrDxPlNwwjazVcoJIxeZ82-Hr5MJSjI1vftdzn1K9s606wdM13gKkjGoT76OCZaNv-eGsD9D9oZotF8GgzmtvHS5riHghCHvCkg/s680/mittag-leffler%20institute.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="680" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukiHLO5VzY1jQv9CBYPtkg49gDjuA3XJf60V1XCRA60qRsKdSbS61juw-uG3N-TwVB_TiZID_3nZC4CRusRhC1gDlDrDxPlNwwjazVcoJIxeZ82-Hr5MJSjI1vftdzn1K9s606wdM13gKkjGoT76OCZaNv-eGsD9D9oZotF8GgzmtvHS5riHghCHvCkg/s320/mittag-leffler%20institute.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div>1916 Srinivasa Ramanujan graduated from Cambridge with a Bachelor of Arts by Research (the degree was called a Ph.D. from 1920). He had been allowed to enroll in June 1914 despite not having the proper qualifications. Ramanujan's dissertation was on Highly composite numbers and consisted of seven of his papers published in England.</div><div><div>This paper, as it appeared originally, is not complete. Since the London Mathematical Society was in</div><div>some financial difficulty at that time, Ramanujan had to suppress part of what he had written in order</div><div>to save expense. </div></div><div>Highly composite numbers are sometimes used to search for primes, since the proof that primes are infinite uses a product of all "known" primes.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV1Gclp2VQtfQH1I_odHef1DZuHVbh3GKCxZpYoKfY__5VNqy10BG4sefAxxLjz9PULT-paFmlh0R1UrO-go_O-9aBEjj3wLMwzAr-GX36PMlQ92LlpV2cyMs7oS8MuxBrZfRe8u0d4y4DrD1UUz-I-DF3VEHsNP6TgPm0iiQwiX3xajUyPQEEMUBI/s363/Ramanujan_2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="363" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV1Gclp2VQtfQH1I_odHef1DZuHVbh3GKCxZpYoKfY__5VNqy10BG4sefAxxLjz9PULT-paFmlh0R1UrO-go_O-9aBEjj3wLMwzAr-GX36PMlQ92LlpV2cyMs7oS8MuxBrZfRe8u0d4y4DrD1UUz-I-DF3VEHsNP6TgPm0iiQwiX3xajUyPQEEMUBI/s320/Ramanujan_2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjAf1TKcijps-pm_-40_mXgDNR9xvlVC89HCQbJKFMYQgSD845PTZFSz3PT3f92BIp4ALT78ae3OrvZbZS6xvZzF1lfxJKuJzQKDjKlVr79PDwTx2N9KzTGw8Rftt-ikmrXwQihLa40Xw/s1600/Goddard+first+rocket.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjAf1TKcijps-pm_-40_mXgDNR9xvlVC89HCQbJKFMYQgSD845PTZFSz3PT3f92BIp4ALT78ae3OrvZbZS6xvZzF1lfxJKuJzQKDjKlVr79PDwTx2N9KzTGw8Rftt-ikmrXwQihLa40Xw/s320/Goddard+first+rocket.jpg" /></a></div>1926 Clark University Physics Professor, Robert H. Goddard, conducted the first successful open-air test of a liquid-fuel rocket. “The rocket soared only forty-one feet, hardly the ‘extreme altitudes’ Goddard had envisioned, yet the occasion was anologous to the first flight of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk nearly a quarter of a century earlier.” *William A. Koelsch, Clark University, 1887–1987<br />He thought stable flight could be obtained by mounting the rocket ahead of the fuel tank. The tank was shielded from the flame by a metal cone and was pulled behind the rocket by the lines for gasoline fuel and oxygen. The design worked, but did not produce the hoped-for stability. The rocket burned about 20 seconds before reaching sufficient thrust (or sufficiently lightening the fuel tank) for taking off. During that time it melted part of the nozzle. It took off to a height of 41-ft, leveled off and within 2.5 seconds hit the ground 184 feet away, averaging about 60 mph. The camera ran out of film, so no photographic record of that flight remains. *TIS<br /><hr /><b>1928</b> Chandrasekhara Raman presented the results from his Feb 28 ground breaking experiments in light scattering at a meeting of scientists in Bangalore on 16 March 1928. The results would lead to his wining the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. *Wik<br /><hr /><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkW8Rrp7NBujPmBvxcXw2Yyt4xjlypFP0dX2XGpKdNPwEZXHmg_Pb3_HxewoOoc4eXy92vVYJIQ3QOZyRA_crpVMFsCJgt0ZztXjzcoqpEqMLpDGXyqaWyppbzmOzteIBsLhIktAUD2fNA2v-AdzjXZ3M0mUO-OWPcbkDtcc0tlBd9n_BC9ay7o_P/s259/titan%20II.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="195" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkW8Rrp7NBujPmBvxcXw2Yyt4xjlypFP0dX2XGpKdNPwEZXHmg_Pb3_HxewoOoc4eXy92vVYJIQ3QOZyRA_crpVMFsCJgt0ZztXjzcoqpEqMLpDGXyqaWyppbzmOzteIBsLhIktAUD2fNA2v-AdzjXZ3M0mUO-OWPcbkDtcc0tlBd9n_BC9ay7o_P/s1600/titan%20II.jpeg" width="195" /></a></div><br />1962 </b>The first Titan II was launched on this day and the entire missile system met all of its test objectives. The Titan II was declared operational in 1963 under the numerical designation LGM-25C. A total of 54 Titan II missiles were deployed in six separate squadrons each responsible for nine missiles.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><hr /></b></div><div><b>1966 </b>Gemini 8 launched with Neil Armstrong and David R. Scott aboard, conducts the 1st docking of two spacecraft in orbit, flight aborted after critical system failure with the crew returned safely to Earth. Gemini 8 was the sixth crewed spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program, and was the 14th crewed American flight.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><hr /></b></div><div><b>1986</b> The Manchester Guardian Weekly announces that Colin Rourke of Warwick and his student Eduardo Rego of Oporto University in Portugal have solved the 82 year old Poincare conjecture which states that loops on spheres in n-dimensions can be shrunk to points. Obviously, Mr. Rego will get his Ph.D. *VFR The article in the Guardian was by Ian Stewart. In November 1986, Rourke was at the University of California, Berkeley, conducting a seminar to explain and defend his proof. By the end of the week, Rourke's audience, which included some of the world's top topologists, had pointed out a gap in his proof, one that Rourke could not fill. In the end, there was no valid proof. The problem was solved by the reclusive Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman in November of 2002</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNGXEJBAEMpJK-SB1Ga4Rxbg7_KZzBZ2FdGBINRruogrNu-n1weCXKcsyHqIge91B-Rnhn4ftiC7WDn2xuKJWKHLpuiMJicvNXJYmI_xk2g2BOdHlTxLKW_68XxMRePgEZ5lWLBhgri2JwsrlqEGeMHntgMfJftbYtnryKwTA0O0O1c7w4Scn5WZsAPIY/s240/perelman190.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="190" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNGXEJBAEMpJK-SB1Ga4Rxbg7_KZzBZ2FdGBINRruogrNu-n1weCXKcsyHqIge91B-Rnhn4ftiC7WDn2xuKJWKHLpuiMJicvNXJYmI_xk2g2BOdHlTxLKW_68XxMRePgEZ5lWLBhgri2JwsrlqEGeMHntgMfJftbYtnryKwTA0O0O1c7w4Scn5WZsAPIY/s1600/perelman190.jpeg" width="190" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1990 Internet Extends Beyond U.S. to Europe: The National Science Foundation announces it will extend its network with a high-speed data link to Europe. Five years earlier, the Internet in its modern form had started to develop rapidly thanks to the formation of the NSFNET, which linked five supercomputer centers in the United States. Later in 1990, Europe contributed to the growth of the Internet when CERN's Tim Berners-Lee developed HTML, the language used for the World Wide Web.*CHM<br /><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>1750 Caroline Lucretia Herschel (16 Mar 1750, 9 Jan 1848) German-born British astronomer, sister of Sir William Herschel, who assisted in his astronomical researches making calculations associated with his studies. In her own telescope observations, she found three nebulae (1783) and eight comets (1786-97). In 1787, King George III gave Caroline a salary of 50 pounds per year as assistant to William. She published the Index to Flamsteed's Observations of the Fixed Stars and a list of his mistakes in 1797. At the age of 10 she had been struck with typhus, which subsequently stunted her growth. She never grew taller than 4' 3" and remained frail throughout her life. *TIS<br />[The following inscription is engraved on Miss Herschel's tomb. It begins: "Hier ruhet die irdische Hülle von CAROLINA HERSCHEL, Geboren zu Hannover den 16ten Marz 1750, Gestorben, den 9ten Januar 1848." But, for the convenience of our young readers, we give it in English:—<br /><br />HERE RESTS THE EARTHLY CASE OF<br /><br />CAROLINE HERSCHEL.<br /><br />BORN AT HANOVER, MARCH 10, 1750.<br /><br />DIED JANUARY 9, 1848.<br /><br />"The eyes of her now glorified were, while here below, directed towards the starry heavens. Her own discoveries of comets, and her share in the immortal labours of her brother, William Herschel, bear witness of this to succeeding ages.<br /><br />"The Royal Irish Academy of Dublin, and the Royal Astronomical Society of London, enrolled her name among their members.<br /><br />"At the age of 97 years 10 months, she fell asleep in calm rest, and in the full possession of her faculties; following into a better life her father, Isaac Herschel, who lived to the age of 60 years, 2 months, 17 days, and has lain buried not far off since the 29th of March 1767."<br /><br />This epitaph was mainly written by Miss Herschel herself, and the allusion to her brother is characteristic.]<br />*from The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of the Herschels, by Anonymous</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizt8iYmvBMNTTzEZ6kaKTgim65h-8e1nCvO6BIBjm9NV2DOXqCqwVEsYgq64TSOkZ5NLqN0VGA0J7FftOA0smvJsUFWSPcvkRnQsprUjlwtShmxITemBVytxdNzs1PIrMseBdwl92uhY0d1LZBfjv81VDrsNGxPJbuVGMpkXY2guy2CokZJXsdM2_a/s333/c%20herschel%20tombstone.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizt8iYmvBMNTTzEZ6kaKTgim65h-8e1nCvO6BIBjm9NV2DOXqCqwVEsYgq64TSOkZ5NLqN0VGA0J7FftOA0smvJsUFWSPcvkRnQsprUjlwtShmxITemBVytxdNzs1PIrMseBdwl92uhY0d1LZBfjv81VDrsNGxPJbuVGMpkXY2guy2CokZJXsdM2_a/s320/c%20herschel%20tombstone.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTa8ARJ4FvX-ggh0OapmPW5_uWmw2evVeKMDa0Mb4fXE64bewiz_VQYKrdLe-k0-shMj1ztjWWcZgUi_EZ_4-8Vk3NE_JOO683fceeyJGyPwHtUrfL8T1cPA58GsxNlFuS_BovvCHZXJNjC4GN-4iX9VDAAFvEA4aY8-Deg5K0FfOcf9xNeErpuAxNyCc/s389/1829Caroline_Herschel.tif.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTa8ARJ4FvX-ggh0OapmPW5_uWmw2evVeKMDa0Mb4fXE64bewiz_VQYKrdLe-k0-shMj1ztjWWcZgUi_EZ_4-8Vk3NE_JOO683fceeyJGyPwHtUrfL8T1cPA58GsxNlFuS_BovvCHZXJNjC4GN-4iX9VDAAFvEA4aY8-Deg5K0FfOcf9xNeErpuAxNyCc/s320/1829Caroline_Herschel.tif.jpg" width="271" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1789 Georg Simon Ohm (16 Mar 1789; 6 Jul 1854 at age 65) German physicist (high school teacher) who showed by experiment (1825) that there are no “perfect” electrical conductors. All conductors have some resistance. He stated the famous Ohm's law (1826): “If the given temperature remains constant, the current flowing through certain conductors is proportional to the potential difference (voltage) across it.” or V=iR. *TIS </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaz8ptINcyn6etmhx6ogVKmLWaxB2n4zh7KQf8kKoUuJSDrIT6ikGzAsr0PY5OPd-uu5mzuwR-4Yl4-EilpTJeUIWPWOxqIy-aDlJOaZssZVdgKb06myUiJ1lu94RSVOXZeSkmPxHkDSSOcqCduqZUiYpGGoJWgMtC00UUICQEMa7daaZPIYu85drkGQs/s419/Georg_Simon_Ohm3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaz8ptINcyn6etmhx6ogVKmLWaxB2n4zh7KQf8kKoUuJSDrIT6ikGzAsr0PY5OPd-uu5mzuwR-4Yl4-EilpTJeUIWPWOxqIy-aDlJOaZssZVdgKb06myUiJ1lu94RSVOXZeSkmPxHkDSSOcqCduqZUiYpGGoJWgMtC00UUICQEMa7daaZPIYu85drkGQs/s320/Georg_Simon_Ohm3.jpg" width="252" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCPC5Ay9ZWTwnQrG7SfHYMWH4gRNsq8cFySgNAXQAxFg2QVWQiPY3fKGTaZQbUPxdv1kahNZmwaXoUq6K-zWh8MKQJjKCFFJvm6Xd_lok1gQ7DIANUbflqXgAlibC3DfHAtEV_rcRk8jLyH0CbYLzM8AlCDxhgZnTs4g1r7MXSL7djcgLeEWbYuVQ7beU/s265/ohm%20stamp.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="265" data-original-width="265" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCPC5Ay9ZWTwnQrG7SfHYMWH4gRNsq8cFySgNAXQAxFg2QVWQiPY3fKGTaZQbUPxdv1kahNZmwaXoUq6K-zWh8MKQJjKCFFJvm6Xd_lok1gQ7DIANUbflqXgAlibC3DfHAtEV_rcRk8jLyH0CbYLzM8AlCDxhgZnTs4g1r7MXSL7djcgLeEWbYuVQ7beU/s1600/ohm%20stamp.jpeg" width="265" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1821 Heinrich Eduard Heine (16 March 1821 in Berlin, Germany - 21 Oct 1881 in Halle, Germany) Heine is best remembered for the Heine-Borel theorem. He was responsible for the introduction of the idea of uniform continuity.*SAU<br /><hr />1846 Magnus Gösta Mittag-Leffler (16 Mar 1846; 7 Jul 1927 at age 81) Swedish mathematician who founded the international mathematical journal Acta Mathematica and whose contributions to mathematical research helped advance the Scandinavian school of mathematics. Mittag-Leffler made numerous contributions to mathematical analysis (concerned with limits and including calculus, analytic geometry and probability theory). He worked on the general theory of functions, concerning relationships between independent and dependent variables. His best known work concerned the analytic representation of a one-valued function, this work culminated in the Mittag-Leffler theorem. *TIS One of the stories that circulates from time to time about Mittag-Leffler and the fact that there is no Nobel Prize in mathematics is that Nobel disliked Mittag-Leffler for having an affair with Nobel's wife and so he did not create a prize in Mathematics. Only problem; Nobel never married, and there is little if any evidence that Mittag-Leffler ever met Nobel's mistress, Sophie Hess.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI7KfGIEEJrgBekY2kKD5kASTcxzTry0xw3wBSjIJgYdZGNB3ZP08-JfRCAHLp_qZf5A7EzoriBlgdSnaPvq8WIOrvZNJbX1j04Utoqu8DJrwY31AWtoCX5ebnLhqHd0asEHg0jnecKrYp1xBDYKlnNz6n1p5e8mctpU5JLujtNHe2F-0wo6jtq9wfSRU/s322/G%C3%B6sta_Mittag-Leffler_1904.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI7KfGIEEJrgBekY2kKD5kASTcxzTry0xw3wBSjIJgYdZGNB3ZP08-JfRCAHLp_qZf5A7EzoriBlgdSnaPvq8WIOrvZNJbX1j04Utoqu8DJrwY31AWtoCX5ebnLhqHd0asEHg0jnecKrYp1xBDYKlnNz6n1p5e8mctpU5JLujtNHe2F-0wo6jtq9wfSRU/s320/G%C3%B6sta_Mittag-Leffler_1904.JPG" width="248" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1853 Heinrich (Gustav Johannes) Kayser (16 Mar 1853, 14 Oct 1940) was a German physicist who discovered the presence of helium in the Earth's atmosphere. Prior to that scientists had detected helium only in the sun and in some minerals. Kayser's early research work was on the properties of sound. In collaboration with the physicist and mathematician Carl D.T. Runge, Kayser carefully mapped the spectra of a large number of elements. He wrote a handbook of spectroscopy (1901–12) and a treatise on the electron theory (1905).*TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQplPKv8FlBGv-zNVs3EqcE3KBpkgKnEQcxWAUr9ns4u_W3k5BBBCaK9MW0ag_WdRP_NIFBxgt-OQPF6BRulun4Oa4ruovjZLIca9A9ahGFD8SQ4vK-ADZVlh4BSeYBFJ3C9NKMDeSnDt1zdr55m0gl_qN39TAIBxX9Dbqq1Lw9zzPvgdyCWCFH4PNcVI/s298/Bild_Heinrich_Kayser.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="237" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQplPKv8FlBGv-zNVs3EqcE3KBpkgKnEQcxWAUr9ns4u_W3k5BBBCaK9MW0ag_WdRP_NIFBxgt-OQPF6BRulun4Oa4ruovjZLIca9A9ahGFD8SQ4vK-ADZVlh4BSeYBFJ3C9NKMDeSnDt1zdr55m0gl_qN39TAIBxX9Dbqq1Lw9zzPvgdyCWCFH4PNcVI/s1600/Bild_Heinrich_Kayser.jpg" width="237" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1915 Kunihiko Kodaira(16 Mar 1915; 26 Jul 1997 at age 82) Japanese mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1954 for his work in algebraic geometry and complex analysis. Kodaira's work includes applications of Hilbert space methods to differential equations which was an important topic in his early work and was largely the result of influence by Weyl. Through the influence of Hodge, he also worked on harmonic integrals and later he applied this work to problem in algebraic geometry. Another important area of Kodaira's work was to apply sheaves to algebraic geometry. In around 1960 he became involved in the classification of compact, complex analytic spaces. One of the themes running through much of his work is the Riemann-Roch theorem. He won the 1985 Wolf Prize. *TIS</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP100H1lD8kCcRyoQevn50ZCg7-MuVMDX8JSOggPbbR8ZR3aGse6qJlKi6okgbMV7Nml11MjbTaMGPN4KXLAhompIizq85Cf6yN-lHqtfN3egAUqPUv08WHGLHruGSkuUJ7FaGA7MF1gbqdCTnelogWenWmD-1Gyt1wdyqA1U8isURrJxIiVydIdDpBQQ/s400/Kodaira_Kunihiko.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="315" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP100H1lD8kCcRyoQevn50ZCg7-MuVMDX8JSOggPbbR8ZR3aGse6qJlKi6okgbMV7Nml11MjbTaMGPN4KXLAhompIizq85Cf6yN-lHqtfN3egAUqPUv08WHGLHruGSkuUJ7FaGA7MF1gbqdCTnelogWenWmD-1Gyt1wdyqA1U8isURrJxIiVydIdDpBQQ/s320/Kodaira_Kunihiko.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /><hr />1916 Frederick Reines (/ˈraɪnəs/ RY-nəs;[1] March 16, 1918 – August 26, 1998) was an American physicist. He was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics for his co-detection of the neutrino with Clyde Cowan in the neutrino experiment. He may be the only scientist in history "so intimately associated with the discovery of an elementary particle and the subsequent thorough investigation of its fundamental properties."</div><div><br /></div><div>A graduate of Stevens Institute of Technology and New York University, Reines joined the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory in 1944, working in the Theoretical Division in Richard Feynman's group. He became a group leader there in 1946. He participated in a number of nuclear tests, culminating in his becoming the director of the Operation Greenhouse test series in the Pacific in 1951.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the early 1950s, working in Hanford and Savannah River Sites, Reines and Cowan developed the equipment and procedures with which they first detected the supposedly undetectable neutrinos in June 1956. Reines dedicated the major part of his career to the study of the neutrino's properties and interactions, which work would influence study of the neutrino for many researchers to come. This included the detection of neutrinos created in the atmosphere by cosmic rays, and the 1987 detection of neutrinos emitted from Supernova SN1987A, which inaugurated the field of neutrino astronomy. *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnNOwJ9tb9gZf1RvYvCSBt_IcdhhlN9IFe7UDrFpZNnF0qFUAeF4IdGEEQbM0YKQ3KOjYxvnfndmscK_GsrHdOYkP8axXBSwT9rakP1plJdNXLfgg0q144JZriSfiCxe-O2dxL_Typ5rGFTc3AMX0lT7b0JHvJCxlrDCGpvSmUrQRGxk8eYxsyPmRfdms/s420/Frederick_Reines,_early_1950s.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnNOwJ9tb9gZf1RvYvCSBt_IcdhhlN9IFe7UDrFpZNnF0qFUAeF4IdGEEQbM0YKQ3KOjYxvnfndmscK_GsrHdOYkP8axXBSwT9rakP1plJdNXLfgg0q144JZriSfiCxe-O2dxL_Typ5rGFTc3AMX0lT7b0JHvJCxlrDCGpvSmUrQRGxk8eYxsyPmRfdms/s320/Frederick_Reines,_early_1950s.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div>1947 Dr. Keith Devlin (March 16, 1947, Kingston upon Hull, UK; ) is a co-founder and Executive Director of Stanford University's H-STAR institute, a co-founder of the Stanford Media X research network, and a Senior Researcher at CSLI. He is a World Economic Forum Fellow and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His current research is focused on the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences. He also works on the design of information/reasoning systems for intelligence analysis. Other research interests include: theory of information, models of reasoning, applications of mathematical techniques in the study of communication, and mathematical cognition. He has written 32 books and over 80 published research articles. Recipient of the Pythagoras Prize, the Peano Prize, the Carl Sagan Award, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. In 2003, he was recognized by the California State Assembly for his "innovative work and longtime service in the field of mathematics and its relation to logic and linguistics." He is "the Math Guy" on National Public Radio. *Stanford Edu</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1hOxOjc0CZyOPFq6fpYKtyxJk3S6pJjgQ-5uDCF5dyTS5WL2-hLbVY7s_MVoOq5YU7wyxwQX5UlRIwUaR658GUTtxXNVhiorHNJjgGeG7akE1MQYFo92Wd0GB9VWZT909qoCWXvk3DOEeZqW5b0l_FYU0M6lWZe5JZ0493eTX9OqJwq3k0AMyOukkVqc/s330/Keith_Devlin_WSF_2011.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="330" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1hOxOjc0CZyOPFq6fpYKtyxJk3S6pJjgQ-5uDCF5dyTS5WL2-hLbVY7s_MVoOq5YU7wyxwQX5UlRIwUaR658GUTtxXNVhiorHNJjgGeG7akE1MQYFo92Wd0GB9VWZT909qoCWXvk3DOEeZqW5b0l_FYU0M6lWZe5JZ0493eTX9OqJwq3k0AMyOukkVqc/s320/Keith_Devlin_WSF_2011.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1954 John E. Laird (March 16, 1954 Ann Arbor, Michigan - ) is a computer scientist who, with Paul Rosenbloom and Allen Newell, created the Soar cognitive architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. Laird is a Professor of the Computer Science and Engineering Division of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of the University of Michigan. He was the director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory there from 1994 to 1999. *Wik<br /><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://image2.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2006/71/1766_114227984804.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://image2.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2006/71/1766_114227984804.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Bowditch gravestone,Mount Auburn Cemetery<br />Cambridge<br />Middlesex County<br />Massachusetts, USA</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>1838 Nathaniel Bowditch (26 Mar 1773, 16 Mar 1838 at age 65) Self-educated American mathematician and astronomer. He learned Latin to study Newton's Principia and later other languages to study mathematics in these languages. Between 1795 and 1799 he made four sea voyages and in 1802 he was in command of a merchant ship. He was author of the best book on navigation of his time, New American Practical Navigator (1802), and his translation (assisted by Benjamin Peirce) of Laplace's Mécanique céleste gave him an international reputation. Bowditch was the discoverer of the Bowditch curves (more often called <a href="http://pballew.net/arithme6.html#lissajou" target="_blank">Lisajous figures</a> for their co-discoverer), which have important applications in astronomy and physics.*TIS Bowditch was a navigator on the Wilkes Expedition and an island in the Stork Archipelago in the South Pacific is named for him (and sometimes called Fakaofu)<br />(I can give no explanation for the discrepancy in the date of death on his tombstone.)<br /><hr />1841 Félix Savart (30 Jun 1791, 16 Mar 1841 at age 49)French physicist who researched various manifestations of vibration. With Jean-Baptiste Biot, he developed the Biot-Savart Law (1820) concerning the magnetic field intensity around a current-carrying wire. After earning a degree in medicine (1816), he took an interest in physics, beginning with a study of the violin to explain the contributions from its components to the sound from the strings. He presented a memoir on the subject to the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1819. He conducted extensive research in acoustics, the nodal patterns of vibrating systems (including air columns), and related enquiries into the elasticity of substances. He also investigated the voice and hearing. He devised a rotating toothed wheel to produce a sound of any frequency by a reed held against it, to measure high frequency hearing limits. *TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja77DYxSoSvP7kVVF3sH4JhMfP7ACNWLGw61YCj_QFf_h3t-Ogk4o6JfkSoncj7xD9XUQcOzfx5cBcchQGfvKPHqTRZ70Woa6m5bhJJqed0TXXYWNGQMOB56_uELGELGZ9RfS0oQYd5lv5gg60T_oiOPyMoxcfGSN1t3PbLFVwJxKrOKSe0TaO2yPioe4/s497/savart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja77DYxSoSvP7kVVF3sH4JhMfP7ACNWLGw61YCj_QFf_h3t-Ogk4o6JfkSoncj7xD9XUQcOzfx5cBcchQGfvKPHqTRZ70Woa6m5bhJJqed0TXXYWNGQMOB56_uELGELGZ9RfS0oQYd5lv5gg60T_oiOPyMoxcfGSN1t3PbLFVwJxKrOKSe0TaO2yPioe4/s320/savart.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1914 Edward Singleton Holden (November 5, 1846 – March 16, 1914) was an American astronomer. Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1846 to Jeremiah and Sarah Holden. From 1862-66, he attended Washington University in St. Louis, where he obtained a B.S. degree. He later trained at West Point in the class of 1870.In 1873 he became professor of mathematics at the US Naval Observatory, where he made a favorable impression on Simon Newcomb. He was director of Washburn Observatory at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1881 to 1885. He was elected a member of the American National Academy of Sciences in 1885.<br />On August 28, 1877, a few days after Asaph Hall discovered the moons of Mars Deimos and Phobos, he claimed to have found a third satellite of Mars. Further analysis showed large mistakes in his observations.<br />He was president of the University of California from 1885 until 1888, and the first director of the Lick Observatory from 1888 until the end of 1897. Meanhwile in 1893 while at the observatory he published a book on Mughal Emperors, The Mogul emperors of Hindustan, A.D. 1398- A.D. 1707. He resigned as a result of internal dissent over his management among his subordinates. While at the Lick Observatory, he was the founder of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and its first President (1889–1891).<br />In 1901 he became the librarian of the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he remained until his death.<br />His cousin, George Phillips Bond, was director of Harvard College Observatory.<br />He discovered a total of 22 NGC objects during his work at Washburn Observatory.<br />He wrote many books on popular science (and on other subjects, such as flags and heraldry), including science books intended for children. For example the book Real Things In Nature. A Reading Book of Science for American Boys and Girls published in 1916.*Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvXyaEgb2ckSbhastlS65BAJx9Cryp3J_sUGCo-apm-NIjP2eW2TLYhfCkX_YkxWAngjo4t6FhlU88NDRmlRBcgKoyD0jRhtqLJzxQ2JMIsey4Z5VnsVqVGbZlMnTXZ3aHdb1kwi4OYIpcAOvg8bH0TJPfToeRloFp7d-MFD3W3jK1D4CiXVVqL2uUj7M/s444/Edward_Singleton_Holden.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvXyaEgb2ckSbhastlS65BAJx9Cryp3J_sUGCo-apm-NIjP2eW2TLYhfCkX_YkxWAngjo4t6FhlU88NDRmlRBcgKoyD0jRhtqLJzxQ2JMIsey4Z5VnsVqVGbZlMnTXZ3aHdb1kwi4OYIpcAOvg8bH0TJPfToeRloFp7d-MFD3W3jK1D4CiXVVqL2uUj7M/s320/Edward_Singleton_Holden.jpg" width="238" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1922 George Bruce Halsted (23 Nov 1853 in Newark, New Jersey, USA - 16 March 1922 in New York, USA) His main interests were the foundations of geometry and he introduced non-euclidean geometry into the United States, both through his own research and writings as well as by his many important translations. Halsted gave commentaries on the work of Lobachevsky, Bolyai, Saccheri and Poincaré and made translations of their works into English. His work on the foundations of geometry led him to publish Demonstration of Descartes's theorem and Euler's theorem in the Annals of Mathematics in 1885. His other main interest was in mathematical education and, as a mathematics educator, he criticised the careless way that mathematics was presented in the textbooks of the time. He contributed over ninety article to the American Mathematical Monthly and wrote many biographies of mathematicians such as Lambert, Farkas Bolyai, Lobachevsky, De Morgan, Sylvester, Chebyshev, Cayley, Hoüel and Klein. *SAU</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfGcAzcgel10WKywbqq_4x8SOG18O3ch9Us-6E_mlM6nYMvsxUCPgrRBoB_bNRWZwxMZ7L6u1O-HZNGFDJboa0AveJXhSqJx7ou0EeopQdUBIfopOmDGtR_E94J_ZIliAMhAOUi2XvTtRX1Bek8YFkY__sep99PDMxAhvBWDb4oa1Nw4NyTvNWk0sJvio/s326/George_Bruce_Halsted.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="268" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfGcAzcgel10WKywbqq_4x8SOG18O3ch9Us-6E_mlM6nYMvsxUCPgrRBoB_bNRWZwxMZ7L6u1O-HZNGFDJboa0AveJXhSqJx7ou0EeopQdUBIfopOmDGtR_E94J_ZIliAMhAOUi2XvTtRX1Bek8YFkY__sep99PDMxAhvBWDb4oa1Nw4NyTvNWk0sJvio/s320/George_Bruce_Halsted.jpeg" width="263" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1933 Alfréd Haar (11 Oct 1885 in Budapest, Hungary - 16 March 1933 in Szeged, Hungary) was a Hungarian mathematician who is best remembered for his work on analysis on groups, introducing a measure on groups, now called the Haar measure. *SAU<br /><hr />1940 Sir Thomas Little Heath (5 October 1861 – 16 March 1940) was a British civil servant, mathematician, classical scholar, historian of ancient Greek mathematics, translator, and mountaineer. Heath translated works of Euclid of Alexandria, Apollonius of Perga, Aristarchus of Samos, and Archimedes of Syracuse into English.<br />He was distinguished for his work in Greek Mathematics and author several books on Greek mathematicians. It is primarily through Heath's translations that modern English-speaking readers are aware of what Archimedes did.<br />He died in Ashtead, Surrey. *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ1rwj6S6gVTmBxEgotulBX2BS1cu7sRt34RNEJdmMPe6_x4Tg8E_uJ4TQ0qpcM8iFuCXuywc2P-tPImbYc1EI_AkqRoD73e7HGRwAbvtubUA5WZFynrCQIXNG4xkG5RkN6nZw-GTkhWVQef4rfubtXSQbkW-DJFYr0FwuWclIWGkjMgofx8lXmx2i4yI/s120/greek%20mathematics%20heath.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="120" data-original-width="78" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ1rwj6S6gVTmBxEgotulBX2BS1cu7sRt34RNEJdmMPe6_x4Tg8E_uJ4TQ0qpcM8iFuCXuywc2P-tPImbYc1EI_AkqRoD73e7HGRwAbvtubUA5WZFynrCQIXNG4xkG5RkN6nZw-GTkhWVQef4rfubtXSQbkW-DJFYr0FwuWclIWGkjMgofx8lXmx2i4yI/w208-h320/greek%20mathematics%20heath.jpeg" width="208" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQVpEeeY5jyeM2v3dv2WhLGmKFvz0uh4KzREB-3soyBrr4gjKnKQcu8fNKecpOBIKmkzeylVQmMQF-eRoN_anBVPwCFVRUIRsTBBQ9_XCfrspE0uZZ82f7jstbyciVBscEm1AjYUP9o6wHheyabcVZIUNyH0dyW5DrBqi0Vtsp7UNh1xkyJJ8kifz8P94/s466/Thomas_Little_Heath.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQVpEeeY5jyeM2v3dv2WhLGmKFvz0uh4KzREB-3soyBrr4gjKnKQcu8fNKecpOBIKmkzeylVQmMQF-eRoN_anBVPwCFVRUIRsTBBQ9_XCfrspE0uZZ82f7jstbyciVBscEm1AjYUP9o6wHheyabcVZIUNyH0dyW5DrBqi0Vtsp7UNh1xkyJJ8kifz8P94/s320/Thomas_Little_Heath.jpg" width="227" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1941 Edward Lindsay Ince (30 Nov 1891 in Amblecote, Staffordshire, England<br />- 16 March 1941 in Edinburgh, Scotland) Ince graduated from Edinburgh and researched at Edinburgh and Cambridge. He worked at universities in Leeds, Liverpool, Cairo, Edinburgh and Imperial College London before moving back to Edinburgh as Head of Technical Mathematics. He worked on Special Functions. *SAU<br /><hr />1980 William Prager (May 23, 1903, Karlsruhe - 16 March 1980 in Zurich, Switzerland) was a German-born US applied mathematician. He was a lecturer at Darmstadt, a deputy director at University of Göttingen, professor at Karlsruhe, University of Istanbul, the University of California, San Diego and Brown University, where he advised Bernard Budiansky.<br />The Society of Engineering Science has awarded the Wiliam Prager Medal in Solid Mechanics since 1983 in his honor.*Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_pJj7w3MlltD29p1ckYGwDkeMpQVN-cuOlGqbu3V1k-4ItQzt6AwHSa6j169AKeWG1W4JXUqfKu32RsfrZcJ7NOUvaq0a8wMaUf28lXMOgMXZP4rADCx_czcs3HoR3vqNnWCeuibXq_ymq6QSrm4PFgDbPwVQ91zk-Yw8p0OsEhh6O4MkViBFB_bEvVA/s204/prager.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="204" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_pJj7w3MlltD29p1ckYGwDkeMpQVN-cuOlGqbu3V1k-4ItQzt6AwHSa6j169AKeWG1W4JXUqfKu32RsfrZcJ7NOUvaq0a8wMaUf28lXMOgMXZP4rADCx_czcs3HoR3vqNnWCeuibXq_ymq6QSrm4PFgDbPwVQ91zk-Yw8p0OsEhh6O4MkViBFB_bEvVA/s1600/prager.jpeg" width="204" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1992 Yves-André Rocard (22 May 1903 in Vannes, France - 16 March 1992 in Paris, France) French mathematician and physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb for France.</div><div><div>ysics at the École normale supérieure in Paris.</div><div><br /></div><div>As a member of a Resistance group during the Second World War he flew to the UK in a small plane as part of a dangerous mission and was able to provide British intelligence with invaluable information. There he met up with Charles de Gaulle who named him Director of Research in the Forces navales françaises libres (the Navy of Free France). He became particularly interested in the detection of solar radio emissions by British Radar, which were causing military problems by jamming detection during periods of high emission, and was able to create a new radio navigational beam station.</div><div><br /></div><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-19178492502131144992024-03-15T04:00:00.004+00:002024-03-15T21:25:20.856+00:00On This Day in Math - March 15<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Libro_argoli.jpg/220px-Libro_argoli.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Libro_argoli.jpg/220px-Libro_argoli.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">1659 title page of one of Argoli's books.*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /><br />...there is no study in the world which brings into more harmonious action all the faculties of the mind than [mathematics], ... or, like this, seems to raise them, by successive steps of initiation, to higher and higher states of conscious intellectual being ...<br />~James J Sylvester<br /><br /><br />The 74th day of the year.<br />74 is related to an open question in mathematics since 74<sup>2</sup> + 1 is prime. Hardy and Littlewood conjectured that asymptotic number of elements in this sequence, primes = n<sup>2</sup> + 1, not exceeding n is approximately \(c \frac {\sqrt{n}} {log(n)}\) for some constant c. There was a $1000 prize for best solution to an open sequence during 2015 and submitting it to OEIS, details <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hs-heilbronn.de%2F7116447%2FRiordan_5.pdf&ei=EbD3VN_tMoH7sASooICICw&usg=AFQjCNEBg-NKQtogeZj4s-FevdUTK4eyDQ&sig2=PTLraq2eidlM3PO8D5gjwA&bvm=bv.87519884,d.cWc&cad=rja" target="_blank">here</a><br /><br />74 is the sum of the squares of two consecutive prime numbers.<br />A hungry number is number in the form 2<sup>n</sup> that eats as much pi as possible, for example 2<sup>5</sup> is the smallest power of two that contains a 3. The smallest power that contains the first three digits of pi, 314 is 2<sup>7 4</sup><br />(eating e seems much harder for powers of 2) Teachers might have students try "eating pi" with other bases<br /><br />22796996699 is the 999799787th prime. Note that the sum of digits of the nth prime equals the sum of digits of n. The number 74 is the largest known digit sum with this property (as of August 2004). *Prime Curios<br /><b><br /></b></p><div><b>One of my new favorite expression of pi, \( \sqrt{\frac{6}{1^2}+\frac{6}{2^2}+\frac{6}{3^2}+...} \) *@MathType</b><br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><span face=""comic sans ms" , "georgia" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #fcfcfc; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span></div><b>44 </b>B.C. Julius Caesar assassinated on the Ides of March, a phrase which came to denote an ill omen. The word “ides” is from the Etruscan for one-half (it is the middle of the lunar month).<br /><hr /><b>1590 </b>On this day in 1590, François Viète cracked the code of a message from Philip II of Spain and sent it to Henry IV of France.</div><div>... when Philip, assuming that the cipher could not be broken, discovered that the French were aware of his military plans, he complained to the Pope that black magic was being employed against his country. *MacTutor</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJGw5dnJK0JPZrFEOiSNXQ9-nfiyUwAG_8c0AhmYPezg5f6R7Wtqm3PIRFJGZpICTj88NdOLA-I0-DW6fh9aJsuCJbK3VwAlnO1-lZg4qROAuFlqXb-2hOJqbwnWrgYTkL_QxI_e7kyP7P0a38-FamUiXXyim2QhOjZs_nlwv4BB6muhco2g8thdxXXM/s517/Francois_Viete.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJGw5dnJK0JPZrFEOiSNXQ9-nfiyUwAG_8c0AhmYPezg5f6R7Wtqm3PIRFJGZpICTj88NdOLA-I0-DW6fh9aJsuCJbK3VwAlnO1-lZg4qROAuFlqXb-2hOJqbwnWrgYTkL_QxI_e7kyP7P0a38-FamUiXXyim2QhOjZs_nlwv4BB6muhco2g8thdxXXM/s320/Francois_Viete.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><b><hr /></b></div><div><b>1689</b> Christiaan Huygens writes to his brother Constantijn, secretary to the Prince of Orange who is about to be crowned William III: ‘It is a shame that the Prince has so little fondness for studies and the sciences, otherwise I would have greater hope [of royal patronage].’ * @Hoooaw, Hugh Aldersey-Williams<br /><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiToTx1X2WXX76pfNsWm04xitwgXQ_cdbIsrncdMkNIynmlrLE5oaCPAA9vkMCQuWbjRIRzEGWlfuVs_3R5rrvOhJKRBXSuovjRbeOsYvpDkrymIvKGWbOhQBmGCopY0rMcnSpXN3wOJ2M/s1600/halley+stamp+observatory+in+St+helena.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiToTx1X2WXX76pfNsWm04xitwgXQ_cdbIsrncdMkNIynmlrLE5oaCPAA9vkMCQuWbjRIRzEGWlfuVs_3R5rrvOhJKRBXSuovjRbeOsYvpDkrymIvKGWbOhQBmGCopY0rMcnSpXN3wOJ2M/s200/halley+stamp+observatory+in+St+helena.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><b>1758</b> March 15th was the earliest date in the prediction of the return of Halley's comet by the team of Clairaut, La Lande and Lepaute. After incremental computations of the gravitational influences and motion of Jupiter and Saturn on the predicted return of Halley's comet, Alexis-Claude Clairaut presents the results to the Academies de Sciences. The computational work of the team of Clairaut, with La Lande and Nicole-Reine Lepaute, (having removed Saturn from the last few months calculations to speed the results) had predicted a window of arrival between March 15 and May 15 (1758).<br />The unruly comet reached perihelion on the 13th of March, 1759 *David A Grier, When Computers Were Human. </div><div>Addendum: The Renaissance Mathematicus writes about La a Landes support for female astronomers, "As a young man he{La Lande} assisted Alexis-Claude Clairaut in the recalculation of the orbit of Comet Halley. Lalande was ably assisted in this tedious but complex mathematical work by Nicole-Reine Lepaute (1723–1788). In his publication Clairaut did not acknowledge Lepaute’s contribution, which angered Lalande, who honoured her work so"</div><div> </div><div><hr /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOXdt3TqZdRDIq_1pPntuSR_FfHGt3DxW8pNUNZfnbdl2zX87YUYs7Uw-3D_uYZJIbN34sn5Yx9USoXEReLg6bcpEQAdqc-vgWlqafAlRPZrIhUifp6D25Bi3BBclb5KRsX6JVU7wnbT4cB9qzNuo28IG2NZjFG6zj9wGcKo5xjq5Q6oyx1iywvPpS/s400/Alais.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOXdt3TqZdRDIq_1pPntuSR_FfHGt3DxW8pNUNZfnbdl2zX87YUYs7Uw-3D_uYZJIbN34sn5Yx9USoXEReLg6bcpEQAdqc-vgWlqafAlRPZrIhUifp6D25Bi3BBclb5KRsX6JVU7wnbT4cB9qzNuo28IG2NZjFG6zj9wGcKo5xjq5Q6oyx1iywvPpS/s320/Alais.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*David Darling</td></tr></tbody></table><br />In <b>1806</b>, a 6-kg chondritemeteorite - carrying carbon-based, organic chemicals - was unequivocally identified for the first time. Its arrival on earth was noted at 5:30 pm, outside Alais, France. The organic chemicals it carried suggested the possibility of life on whatever body was the source, somewhere in the universe. According to the observations of Berzelius and a commission appointed by the French Academy it "emits a faint bituminous substance" when heated. Berzelius reported his analysis of the Alais meteorite in 1833 that destructive distillation yielded a blackish substance, indigenous water, carbon dioxide gas, a soluble salt containing ammonia, and a blackish-brown sublimate, which Berzelius confessed was unknown to him. *TIS<br /><hr />1871 James Clerk Maxwell in a letter to C. J. Monro comments on the fourth dimension, "The peculiarity of our space is that of its three dimensions, none is before or after another. As is x, so is y, and so is z."<br />Later in the same message he adds, "I am quite sure that the kind of continuity which has four dimensions all co-equal is not to be discovered by merely generalizing Cartesian space equations." Alfred M. Bork, The Fourth Dimensions in Nineteenth-Century Physics, Isis, Sept. 1964, pg 326-338</div><div>And yet, within two decades, the fourth power will be widely discussed.The fourth dimension in geometric thought became more popular after the publication of Flatland and more directly following the publication of work by Charles Hinton in 1888. According to OED, he first used the word tesseract in 1888 in his book A New Era of Thought. He also invented the words "kata" (from the Greek "down from") and "ana" (from the Greek "up toward") to describe the two opposing fourth-dimensional directions—the 4-D equivalents of left and right, forwards and backwards, and up and down. </div><div><br />Matt Parker's fun book on the Fourth Dimension</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga8uWrSNYW9buI8U85_uIJLLUcR7B7mJhnw0XDdSbajHwamglBmxWLGUuojNe55ZnYkY0-qJKc7g0XEuC8O4qKYoFXVrH9WQxWXGvknyG-wiakfnvUGsDapniS272X1s7X78YjQ7lWCPODu2X9h1QUVBfyrG4SNdU0gNrxUbygFJ-2sZJ8iEe1kmEerAg/s1348/matt%20parker%204d%20book.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1348" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga8uWrSNYW9buI8U85_uIJLLUcR7B7mJhnw0XDdSbajHwamglBmxWLGUuojNe55ZnYkY0-qJKc7g0XEuC8O4qKYoFXVrH9WQxWXGvknyG-wiakfnvUGsDapniS272X1s7X78YjQ7lWCPODu2X9h1QUVBfyrG4SNdU0gNrxUbygFJ-2sZJ8iEe1kmEerAg/s320/matt%20parker%204d%20book.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><br /><hr />1873 Lewis Carroll in a letter to fourteen year old <span class="T_text">Helen Fielden</span> offers a tempting geometric problem,<br /><blockquote>I don’t know if you’re fond of puzzles, or not. If you are, try this. If not, never mind. A gentlemen (a nobleman let us say, to make it more interesting) had a sitting-room with only one window in it — a square window, 3 feet high and 3 feet wide. Now, he had weak eyes, and the window gave too much light, so (don’t you like “so” in a story?) he sent for the builder, and told him to alter it, so as to give half the light. Only, he was to keep it square — he was to keep it 3 feet high — and he was to keep it 3 feet wide. How did he do it? Remember, he wasn’t allowed to use curtains, or shutters, or colored glass, or anything of that sort.<br /><br />I must tell you an awful story of my trying to set a puzzle to a little girl the other day. It was at a dinner party, at dessert. I had never seen her before, but, as she was sitting next me, I rashly proposed to her to try the puzzle (I daresay you know of it) of “the fox, the goose, and bag of corn.” And I got some biscuits to represent the fox and the other things. Her mother was sitting on the other side, and said, “Now you take pains, my dear, and do it right!” The consequences were awful! She shrieked out, “I can’t do it! I can’t do it! Oh, Mamma! Mamma!” threw herself into her mother’s lap, and went off into a fit of sobbing which lasted several minutes! That was a lesson to me about trying children with puzzles. I do hope the square window won’t produce any awful effect on you! I am.</blockquote><br />*Robin Wilson, Lewis Carroll in Numberland: His Fantastical Mathematical Logical Life (If the puzzle stumps you, I put a helpful hint at the bottom after credits.)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaoAvbROZM4DrDj-UGQtfn1yK3JHmQhnij8Mq-8ldcfWDsj0pedaVhp2o_rwE3k-nAQXC6i4DHJSz8AO8toh3Rm-sk6wfwfR515u1kfgVF15MDtUM5uMH9NspkgEzTXJLBnou4sg3F62HURz5Y5LvkFoQkzv547Yy8PwKuQ-ee6xd71cTailew1U1euVA/s350/lewis%20carroll%20in%20numberland.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="232" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaoAvbROZM4DrDj-UGQtfn1yK3JHmQhnij8Mq-8ldcfWDsj0pedaVhp2o_rwE3k-nAQXC6i4DHJSz8AO8toh3Rm-sk6wfwfR515u1kfgVF15MDtUM5uMH9NspkgEzTXJLBnou4sg3F62HURz5Y5LvkFoQkzv547Yy8PwKuQ-ee6xd71cTailew1U1euVA/s320/lewis%20carroll%20in%20numberland.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig0cRvJX79huDde0d_1Wj4IfatI10HDJPC2zk7zX4i-KKX9EPr9j3q0Qtpbp3dihloG4rUJOcfhu5d9kqhPcAka1-hm5M5D2zbfyfmEm1MPoxCE4IlsRtoFwOacUtMH5jJB3uYUQprvzNdKMEjZJZfu3hiafh-R42bgqhACK2RpKuEzrQOydzOlS5C/s283/escalator%20reno.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="178" data-original-width="283" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig0cRvJX79huDde0d_1Wj4IfatI10HDJPC2zk7zX4i-KKX9EPr9j3q0Qtpbp3dihloG4rUJOcfhu5d9kqhPcAka1-hm5M5D2zbfyfmEm1MPoxCE4IlsRtoFwOacUtMH5jJB3uYUQprvzNdKMEjZJZfu3hiafh-R42bgqhACK2RpKuEzrQOydzOlS5C/s1600/escalator%20reno.jpeg" width="283" /></a></div><br />1892 The earliest working type of escalator was patented in 1892 by Jesse W. Reno, and was actually introduced in 1896 as a novelty ride at Coney Island, a theme park in New York. Also during that decade George H. Wheeler patented a moving stairway with a moving handrail and flat steps that had to be boarded and exited from the side. Charles D. Seeberger bought Wheeler’s patent in 1898 and went to work at the Otis Elevator Company developing the first step-type moving stairway. It was Seeberger who created the name “escalator”, from the word scala (Latin for steps), and the word elevator, which was already in general use in the US by this time, and registered it as a trademark for a moving stairway.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>The first escalator-like machine appeared in the mid 19th century, two years after the first passenger elevator. In 1859, Nathan Ames of the state of Michigan in the United States invented something he called Revolving Stairs, enshrined in history as US patent number 25,076, and generally acknowledged as the world’s first escalator. But Ames was unable to put the invention into practical use; he died in 1860, and in fact the thing was never built. The installation design formed an equilateral triangle that required passengers to jump on the stairway at the base and jump off at the top. *Mitsubishi</div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /><b>1933</b> Carl Anderson's discovery of the positron was published. Anderson had observed a new kind of particle, which he named the positron. It was soon to be identified as the first antiparticle, the antielectron. Anderson’s detailed findings were published #OTD. Although the scientific community expressed skepticism, the positron fitted with Paul Dirac's prediction in 1931 of the antielectron.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9M23caFzBm92cJ5GGHtx2qvnP2Uxbd-T9W0diR3StTyvoqvPlW3gSFff_9Ihl9ZuOMUqQHAQsv-5-LdEYWB0wlvRGWO6nC7oCZExJmfaDBm2UhdhiKp4wJlECh0sILUwb1_S0_gAOX4Q/s720/positron+image.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="709" data-original-width="720" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9M23caFzBm92cJ5GGHtx2qvnP2Uxbd-T9W0diR3StTyvoqvPlW3gSFff_9Ihl9ZuOMUqQHAQsv-5-LdEYWB0wlvRGWO6nC7oCZExJmfaDBm2UhdhiKp4wJlECh0sILUwb1_S0_gAOX4Q/s320/positron+image.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">@NobelPrize<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />"Cloud chamber photograph by Anderson, the first positron ever observed. The deflection and direction of the particle's ion trail indicate it is a positron." *@NobelPrize<hr /><b>1933</b> Winston Churchill was very interested in science and wrote often and popularly on the subject. He chaired a conference in on the atomic discoveries in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. On this date his scientific friend, Frederick Lindemann said of him, "All the qualities … of the scientist are manifest in him. The readiness to face realities, even though they contradict a favourite hypothesis; the recognition that theories are made to fit facts, not facts to fit the theories; the interest in phenomena and the desire to explore them, and above all the underlying conviction that the world is not just a jumble of events but that there must be some higher unity." *Graham Farmelo, Churchill's Bomb</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLFJmObelZ7sKxrF4QIRnaQrZKP2jPY_D5sP_WCkxuXm_0LoCSBIy3eHD3VZpWGaZLwg1I1WJEwzk6KnZ2tguwPvIX2SA5Fx0xg-MxE9l50RxYgR3fJh8OPLXOTiIosso3fOaQN4G8o3sq70pEWKS-3Nl3AEd8UTvKm9-tXlGOhwsBAHhr3-Ci8-iLn4/s342/churchill's%20bomb.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="342" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLFJmObelZ7sKxrF4QIRnaQrZKP2jPY_D5sP_WCkxuXm_0LoCSBIy3eHD3VZpWGaZLwg1I1WJEwzk6KnZ2tguwPvIX2SA5Fx0xg-MxE9l50RxYgR3fJh8OPLXOTiIosso3fOaQN4G8o3sq70pEWKS-3Nl3AEd8UTvKm9-tXlGOhwsBAHhr3-Ci8-iLn4/s320/churchill's%20bomb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1955 John von Neumann sworn in as one of the first Atomic Energy Commissioners. In August he learned that he had bone cancer. *Goldstein, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann<br /><hr />1994 Aldus Corporation and Adobe Systems Inc. Merge:<br />Aldus Corporation and Adobe Systems Inc. announce they will merge. Aldus revolutionized desktop publishing (DTP) when founder Paul Brainerd released the PageMaker program in 1985. Computer Scientists John Warnock and Charles Geschke applied knowledge learned in their graduate work to similar products and founded Adobe in 1982.CHM<br /><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV5yd9hLRZ-FuUwVxC1dj5-bKqOBp9oLJ9IDPR2eu4Vn24Lbe4G6gTYeUWspiZHOCRYx4KRlwRB2aPzGSRvmuTvMjLYweHr8_ZvatcKPSWTzBP_vg4UunXiqe1B3rLRTBB5mrCrQ-k1H0/s1600/buzzards+hinkley+ohio.jpe" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV5yd9hLRZ-FuUwVxC1dj5-bKqOBp9oLJ9IDPR2eu4Vn24Lbe4G6gTYeUWspiZHOCRYx4KRlwRB2aPzGSRvmuTvMjLYweHr8_ZvatcKPSWTzBP_vg4UunXiqe1B3rLRTBB5mrCrQ-k1H0/s1600/buzzards+hinkley+ohio.jpe" /></a></div>2023 Every year on the Sunday on, or following March 15 since 1957, the city of Hinckley, Ohio has eagerly awaited the return of the buzzards at "Buzzards' Roost" at the Hinckley Reservation, part of the Cleveland Metroparks. *about.com Just as the swallows return to the Mission of Capistrano every year on March 19, St. Joseph’s Day, the buzzards return to Hinckley, Ohio, every year on March 15. Historical records dating to 1820 speak of the return of the buzzards. </div><div> If you are planning on going, don't miss the pancake breakfast/lunch at the elementary school.</div><div><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span></div>1570 Andrea Argoli a versatile Italian scholar. He was a jurist, mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, and medical writer.<br />He was professor of mathematics at the University of Rome La Sapienza, from 1622 to 1627, and then the University of Padua 1632 to 1657. His astrology pupils may have included Placido Titi, and Giambattista Zenno, astrologer to Wallenstein.*Wik<br />From 1622 to 1627 he held a chair of mathematics in Rome, but lost it because of his enthusiasm for astrology. *VFR<br /><hr />1713 Abbé Nicolas Louis de La Caille (15 Mar 1713; 21 Mar 1762 at age 48) was a French astronomer who named 15 of the 88 constellations in the sky. He spent 1750-1754 mapping the constellations visible from the Southern Hemisphere, as observed from the Cape of Good Hope, the southernmost part of Africa. In his years there, he was said to have observed over 10,000 stars using just his 1/2-inch refractor. He established the first southern star catalogue containing 9776 stars (Caelum Australe Stelliferum, published partly in 1763 and completely in 1847), and a catalogue of 42 nebulae in 1755 containing 33 true deep sky objects (26 his own discoveries).*TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7MHCTMwwENCALVWg5wSmsQPnQjGcdAfsGhMXmK8pk_YtdI8bPXx9ifyl6yjlBqZok1T_XJJyrO41ogih97pX2PopwuzlMcFu2d0RdoK8lhRBfs43EkUuB78whIo0VcvLyTnxGZfRaa3WG5-LA4EOqA_yDJEE_hy7-ogOOc6Mur42ZW2vzhe8XzilXGCo/s615/lacaille's%20planisphere.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="615" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7MHCTMwwENCALVWg5wSmsQPnQjGcdAfsGhMXmK8pk_YtdI8bPXx9ifyl6yjlBqZok1T_XJJyrO41ogih97pX2PopwuzlMcFu2d0RdoK8lhRBfs43EkUuB78whIo0VcvLyTnxGZfRaa3WG5-LA4EOqA_yDJEE_hy7-ogOOc6Mur42ZW2vzhe8XzilXGCo/s320/lacaille's%20planisphere.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWUUYuygWsHJ9g8qCqqtbc5GDvIHxVh1xSA3Spqu4vw0KPCjawbIVsDJNcm3r13tItH3fQguSGZ-bxxXTKYf28Znt6vay0E1rFNgT_hcYtketGW6txvyHUQdNpVOzDbLKk1Rcuj6glmjsmFAcD4ByrGjoTyqKH2uZWfOIAKQD-vtUEkmZRv60TrolZAu8/s478/Lacaille.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="375" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWUUYuygWsHJ9g8qCqqtbc5GDvIHxVh1xSA3Spqu4vw0KPCjawbIVsDJNcm3r13tItH3fQguSGZ-bxxXTKYf28Znt6vay0E1rFNgT_hcYtketGW6txvyHUQdNpVOzDbLKk1Rcuj6glmjsmFAcD4ByrGjoTyqKH2uZWfOIAKQD-vtUEkmZRv60TrolZAu8/s320/Lacaille.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_Fszjrrj62dLtjmjW41vdiT1MVD0eDjVFLCcz-ttNglFou4xaOcgKbaQoc29Dl99nbjxtJY0ODOUAwg4enWTUIue00VShE_qOgccwm9yHl-uefPEk0wsgt-AZWeVX-2SFtONPtO2JsxCaPFI2KkykAjjqQyXbQfsC8s9L4FHSXtTRQm4ky1-BoeH/s293/John_Snow_memorial_and_pub.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="220" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_Fszjrrj62dLtjmjW41vdiT1MVD0eDjVFLCcz-ttNglFou4xaOcgKbaQoc29Dl99nbjxtJY0ODOUAwg4enWTUIue00VShE_qOgccwm9yHl-uefPEk0wsgt-AZWeVX-2SFtONPtO2JsxCaPFI2KkykAjjqQyXbQfsC8s9L4FHSXtTRQm4ky1-BoeH/w150-h200/John_Snow_memorial_and_pub.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik </td></tr></tbody></table><br />1813 John Snow (15 March 1813 – 16 June 1858) was an English physician and a leader in the development of anesthesia and medical hygiene. He is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology, in part because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, London, in 1854, which he curtailed by removing the handle of a water pump. Snow's findings inspired the adoption of anesthesia as well as fundamental changes in the water and waste systems of London, which led to similar changes in other cities, and a significant improvement in general public health around the world. </div><div><br /></div><div>Image, John Snow memorial and public house on Broadwick Street, Soho</div><div><br /></div><div>The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World is a book by Steven Berlin Johnson. Highly Recommended</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDUBSiTWVavqSeTNbvz6psl2rRipxeJXkxN9iO00PXYNd_UFrfU4w-J_QRayCyTYLkp2lrpcIIs1LULWXgqNzLfb1BAf_oHiUx1aTgvp8doLqlGsot3skonck_FaVhGLX2DzbXpgqIfXfGTMsyuquCo45FvrGkdDBGHZnIJFms9qPoZzeN6w_0kyyHqhM/s449/Snow%20the%20ghost%20map%20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="344" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDUBSiTWVavqSeTNbvz6psl2rRipxeJXkxN9iO00PXYNd_UFrfU4w-J_QRayCyTYLkp2lrpcIIs1LULWXgqNzLfb1BAf_oHiUx1aTgvp8doLqlGsot3skonck_FaVhGLX2DzbXpgqIfXfGTMsyuquCo45FvrGkdDBGHZnIJFms9qPoZzeN6w_0kyyHqhM/s320/Snow%20the%20ghost%20map%20.jpg" width="245" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /><b>1837 Esprit Jouffret </b>(15 March 1837 – 6 November 1904) was a French artillery officer, insurance actuary and mathematician, author of Traité élémentaire de géométrie à quatre dimensions (Elementary Treatise on the Geometry of Four Dimensions, 1903), a popularization of Henri Poincaré's Science and Hypothesis in which Jouffret described hypercubes and other complex polyhedra in four dimensions and projected them onto the two-dimensional page.</div><div><br /></div><div>An illustration from Jouffret's Traité élémentaire de géométrie à quatre dimensions. The book, which influenced Picasso, was given to him by Princet.</div><div>Maurice Princet brought Traite to artist Pablo Picasso's attention. Picasso's sketchbooks for his 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon illustrate Jouffret's influence on the artist's work. *Wik </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizXVYAVSZoTo3RXvtvRbT8oepWK0KB8m9MvAjPQtR5LAU7oQDumhM26Firj9-6laNpujN6jnrMr4iJSIqHhjUnL_QoQRsSHE36FKrrvHn3vk9jM_vfgd3m8FJB5b6rLZwZ-H1liC54RI1abMtdQyJI0xkw0_HC79FCH8dIr47bpoYHND05zRYr_DTfd6c/s600/jouffret6.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="397" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizXVYAVSZoTo3RXvtvRbT8oepWK0KB8m9MvAjPQtR5LAU7oQDumhM26Firj9-6laNpujN6jnrMr4iJSIqHhjUnL_QoQRsSHE36FKrrvHn3vk9jM_vfgd3m8FJB5b6rLZwZ-H1liC54RI1abMtdQyJI0xkw0_HC79FCH8dIr47bpoYHND05zRYr_DTfd6c/s320/jouffret6.jpeg" width="212" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Linda Hall Org</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr />1855 Sir Charles Vernon Boys, FRS (15 Mar 1855; 30 Mar 1944 at age 88) English physicist and inventor of sensitive instruments. He graduated in mining and metallurgy, self-taught in a wide knowledge of geometrical methods. In 1881, he invented the integraph, a machine for drawing the antiderivative of a function. Boys is known particularly for his utilization of the torsion of quartz fibres in the measurement of minute forces, enabling him to elaborate (1895) on Henry Cavendish's experiment to improve the values obtained for the Newtonian gravitational constant. He also invented an improved automatic recording calorimeter for testing manufactured gas (1905) and high-speed cameras to photograph rapidly moving objects, such as bullets and lightning discharges. Upon retirement in 1939, he grew weeds.*TIS</div><br />A reproduction of his wonderful book, Soap-Bubbles: Their Colours and the Forces Which Mould Them : Being the Substance of Many Lectures Delivered to Juvenile and Popular Audiences with the Addition of Several New and Original Sections<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjubY2at1S-hoF9WxUvvJm6qlYyDlgMCRWH3rlcAVEsnrzTmrzgKxG6CVK_L-wZdzdL5G_9og5DrcY5oI-eULy_wBeIHG-RoYDwewZWq2NpaNBGaAn_TP01pZG5hyphenhypheniRuh9FLyu4-livEHdgKgUbxqfW4bJLJ62vNoq11pI0q02y9VJPAQurOPkDYrx7gIE/s350/Boys'%20soap%20bubbles.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="218" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjubY2at1S-hoF9WxUvvJm6qlYyDlgMCRWH3rlcAVEsnrzTmrzgKxG6CVK_L-wZdzdL5G_9og5DrcY5oI-eULy_wBeIHG-RoYDwewZWq2NpaNBGaAn_TP01pZG5hyphenhypheniRuh9FLyu4-livEHdgKgUbxqfW4bJLJ62vNoq11pI0q02y9VJPAQurOPkDYrx7gIE/s320/Boys'%20soap%20bubbles.jpeg" width="199" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi94jolPm0v_z5d67ajNWp9pFd_ZF2kcd_v0IiIAiQJNQYi7dAxyonnY9MCmZay-R9FJ2AHCcCIMMav6AUoLBFo83IP7XbYFY14UDb1wHf2BVNk5jEdCykvFfZusKuJ3SfqZht3_-lkbDBfb0_FwXU9r7kOPWywWYUvlXqPWLSZVcrm78elenXxXoN-Xu4/s452/CVBoys.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi94jolPm0v_z5d67ajNWp9pFd_ZF2kcd_v0IiIAiQJNQYi7dAxyonnY9MCmZay-R9FJ2AHCcCIMMav6AUoLBFo83IP7XbYFY14UDb1wHf2BVNk5jEdCykvFfZusKuJ3SfqZht3_-lkbDBfb0_FwXU9r7kOPWywWYUvlXqPWLSZVcrm78elenXxXoN-Xu4/s320/CVBoys.jpg" width="234" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><br /><hr />1860 Walter Frank Raphael Weldon DSc FRS (Highgate, London, 15 March 1860 – Oxford, 13 April 1906) generally called Raphael Weldon, was an English evolutionary biologist and a founder of biometry. He was the joint founding editor of Biometrika, with Francis Galton and Karl Pearson.*Wik Pearson said of him, "He was by nature a poet, and these give the best to science, for they give ideas." *SAU<br /><hr />1868 Grace Chisholm Young (née Chisholm; 15 March 1868 – 29 March 1944) was an English mathematician. She was educated at Girton College, Cambridge, England and continued her studies at Göttingen University in Germany, where in 1895 she became the first woman to receive a doctorate in any field in that country. Her early writings were published under the name of her husband, William Henry Young, and they collaborated on mathematical work throughout their lives. For her work on calculus (1914–16), she was awarded the Gamble Prize.<br />Her son, Laurence Chisholm Young, was also a prominent mathematician. One of her living granddaughters, Sylvia Wiegand (daughter of Laurence), is also a mathematician (<i>and a past president of the Association for Women in Mathematics.</i>)*Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloAF_6ADR90SRBITJtpuUPvFfHJZ01rO5bh8o8nEj_FilxRX1gttoKCZ3akgRLMA5YhKKHTfgzebasQ4uHQW2PZa7Am8SDMJA3bKyz0suKck5_6bcejvK196Y17AotiItK-6J9gmb4yyK1hxW1n8J0qb4M1zj1pcUYEfNmVcerUGfQr6VnbI1eMRvdN8/s196/grace%20%20young.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="136" data-original-width="196" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloAF_6ADR90SRBITJtpuUPvFfHJZ01rO5bh8o8nEj_FilxRX1gttoKCZ3akgRLMA5YhKKHTfgzebasQ4uHQW2PZa7Am8SDMJA3bKyz0suKck5_6bcejvK196Y17AotiItK-6J9gmb4yyK1hxW1n8J0qb4M1zj1pcUYEfNmVcerUGfQr6VnbI1eMRvdN8/w320-h222/grace%20%20young.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span></div>1897 James Joseph,(Sylvester) (3 Sep 1814; 15 Mar 1897) youngest child of Abraham Joseph, born in London. The eldest son, an actuary, eventually migrated to the U.S. where, for unknown reasons, he took the surname Sylvester. The rest of the family soon followed suit, so that is how James Joseph Sylvester got his name. *VFR British mathematician who, with Arthur Cayley, founded the theory of algebraic invariants, algebraic-equation coefficients that are unaltered when the coordinate axes are translated or rotated. Beginning in 1833, he studied at St John's College, Cambridge. However, at this time signing a religious oath to the Church of England was required to graduate. Being Jewish, he refused and so he did not graduate. He taught physics at the University of London (1838-41), one of the few places which did not bar him because of his religion. Sylvester did important work on matrix theory, in particular, to study higher dimensional geometry. In 1851 he discovered the discriminant of a cubic equation. Earlier in his life, he tutored Florence Nightingale.*TIS (<i>This idea of Sylvester tutoring Nightingale, to the best of my knowledge, originates from the Herbert Baker obituary. Karen Hunger Parshall, among others, has questioned the accuracy of this statement.</i>)<br />James Joseph Sylvester died, at age 83, after earlier suffering a paralytic stroke while working at his mathematics. *VFR<br />I came across a nice story about Sylvester on the wonderful <a href="http://www.cut-the-knot.org/" target="_blank">"Cut-the-Knot"</a> blog of Alexander Bogomolny. He writes, "Sylvester was one the greatest British mathematicians of the 19th century. He was known for his absentmindedness and poor memory; on one occasion he even denied the truth of one of his own theorems."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibgsrwXPx2ofVdwPgaMC4Y_1hJI1MLIA5s4GLSg2R5XjtrfbAyGJLo-udWhMwdPMoBNV3rutdweEBkhdQrgGOW_Ahyphenhyphenk9ZMGkFQOl9huDe220rYrkUV1-NjzAooWD-DAfApco0iQk2qUFQ8HG0d1GQ1uNrkL53N0yh-l-Z3NVioCldmIMIr3gsq-zhXmNQ/s307/James_Joseph_Sylvester.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="220" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibgsrwXPx2ofVdwPgaMC4Y_1hJI1MLIA5s4GLSg2R5XjtrfbAyGJLo-udWhMwdPMoBNV3rutdweEBkhdQrgGOW_Ahyphenhyphenk9ZMGkFQOl9huDe220rYrkUV1-NjzAooWD-DAfApco0iQk2qUFQ8HG0d1GQ1uNrkL53N0yh-l-Z3NVioCldmIMIr3gsq-zhXmNQ/s1600/James_Joseph_Sylvester.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1900 Elwin Bruno Christoffel (November 10, 1829 in Montjoie, now called Monschau – March 15, 1900 in Strasbourg) was a German mathematician and physicist. Christoffel worked on conformal maps, potential theory, invariant theory, tensor analysis, mathematical physics, geodesy, and shock waves. The Christoffel symbol, Riemann–Christoffel tensor, and Schwarz–Christoffel mapping are named after him. *Enotes.com<br /><hr />1960 Eduard Cech,(29 June 1893 in Stracov, Bohemia (now Czech Republic)- 15 March 1960 in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic)) Czech topologist. His research interests included projective differential geometry and topology. In 1921–1922 he collaborated with Guido Fubini in Turin. He died in Prague. *Wik<br /><hr /><b>1955 Michele Angelo Besso</b> (25 May 1873 Riesbach – 15 March 1955 Genoa) was a Swiss/Italian engineer of Jewish Italian (Sephardi) descent. He was a close friend of Albert Einstein during his years at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, today the ETH Zurich, and then at the patent office in Bern. Besso is credited with introducing Einstein to the works of Ernst Mach, the sceptical critic of physics who influenced Einstein's approach to the discipline. Einstein called Besso "the best sounding board in Europe" for scientific ideas.<br />In a letter of condolence to the Besso family Albert Einstein wrote his now famous quote "Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion" *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidNxWmi10JfSDrtuKr7bcuBydliIE95nxzmDD2QBtWGT28nZJFSPcEY16MyEvkwMDrHZc0ei12JngT1jrCJ3RioGrXwiuMIvu6MhgFV5hGJXgkm8npKBykTyjM5No-yMX4s64LQ0hnZ8-_oD-55U2msLUMsOzX_JZXmRTlSQWGoqXkalWgpQZlbMW_XnA/s438/Michele_Besso.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidNxWmi10JfSDrtuKr7bcuBydliIE95nxzmDD2QBtWGT28nZJFSPcEY16MyEvkwMDrHZc0ei12JngT1jrCJ3RioGrXwiuMIvu6MhgFV5hGJXgkm8npKBykTyjM5No-yMX4s64LQ0hnZ8-_oD-55U2msLUMsOzX_JZXmRTlSQWGoqXkalWgpQZlbMW_XnA/s320/Michele_Besso.jpg" width="241" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1962 Arthur Holly Compton (10 Sep 1892; 15 Mar 1962) American physicist and engineer. He was a joint winner, with C.T.R. Wilson of England, of the Nobel Prize for Physics (1927) for his discovery and explanation of the change in the wavelength of X rays when they collide with electrons in metals. This so-called Compton effect is caused by the transfer of energy from a photon to a single electron, then a quantum of radiation is re-emitted in a definite direction by the electron, which in so doing must recoil in a direction forming an acute angle with that of the incident radiation. During WW II, in 1941, he was appointed Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences Committee to Evaluate Use of Atomic Energy in War, assisting in the development of the atomic bomb.*TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjdqUB2CyHliQKto3UconEHkCFnwhyphenhyphenNSvMexHimHE-Yf7VoDB81SnOxkZn69BV4kkWB-STR7Jz-I-YfA3kLty8YRukddY-0JbuzJYO6anVEYFL3b4Y8LRRmzIcT9bqTDJf3febP-NKwTMOOS65W5R15fTQrqcKRzGHAOPYFN3k4JgazAi0kbyeervgyZY/s442/Arthur_Compton_1927.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjdqUB2CyHliQKto3UconEHkCFnwhyphenhyphenNSvMexHimHE-Yf7VoDB81SnOxkZn69BV4kkWB-STR7Jz-I-YfA3kLty8YRukddY-0JbuzJYO6anVEYFL3b4Y8LRRmzIcT9bqTDJf3febP-NKwTMOOS65W5R15fTQrqcKRzGHAOPYFN3k4JgazAi0kbyeervgyZY/s320/Arthur_Compton_1927.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1992 Deane Montgomery (2 Sept 1909 - 15 March 1992 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA) was a mathematician specializing in topology who was one of the contributors to the final resolution of Hilbert's fifth problem in the 1950s. He served as President of the American Mathematical Society from 1961 to 1962.<br />Born in the small town of Weaver, Minnesota, he received his B.S. from Hamline University in St. Paul, MN and his Masters and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1933; his dissertation advisor was Edward Chittenden.<br />In 1941 Montgomery was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1988, he was awarded the American Mathematical Society Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement.*Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoLLz1796g6QGguAVCUtO2xwfAbYQZW_kwUEfMfHWrs0TVb9wYzcFWrRIq2ucTO1A32k2jojpBtl1kLvq6hc3qtw5w5tjEPlEGlrrBEcxDlr_-YJiTccxOGHM8YvTy5KXsY9EgTM8A6XWEyka0cURqfLq0cwLtRSamZBb61pA-KGtTZJeXzVeIWTau1WE/s398/Deane_Montgomery.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoLLz1796g6QGguAVCUtO2xwfAbYQZW_kwUEfMfHWrs0TVb9wYzcFWrRIq2ucTO1A32k2jojpBtl1kLvq6hc3qtw5w5tjEPlEGlrrBEcxDlr_-YJiTccxOGHM8YvTy5KXsY9EgTM8A6XWEyka0cURqfLq0cwLtRSamZBb61pA-KGtTZJeXzVeIWTau1WE/s320/Deane_Montgomery.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />2004 William Hayward Pickering (24 Dec 1910; 15 Mar 2004) Engineer and physicist, head of the team that developed Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite. He collaborated with Neher and Robert Millikan on cosmic ray experiments in the 1930s, taught electronics in the 1930s, and was at Caltech during the war. He spent the rest of his career with the Jet Propusion Laboratory, becoming its Director (1954) with responsibility for the U.S. unmanned exploration of the planets and the solar system. Among these were the Mariner spacecraft to Venus and Mercury, and the Viking mission to Mars. The Voyager spacecraft yielded stunning photographs of the planets Jupiter and Saturn.*TIS</div><div>Photograph 11 of Mars surface, taken by Mariner 4, July 14, 1965, showing impact craters (Wikimedia commons)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW1KGIGpIc3WX3vfIhtdO1VvYinpfIdld_Wts7EjA_IU7rv1Zgqej5A755G32WDIjwqIuHGC6BCOJbsiR4IYsJFhESeaJLrsJkunMS46Jr2BPx0iCN69XgpYOS3RMxP3Bop_pZdA4jBfd5QDz9LqYFyAMwy5cYD2fY6yo8_2ml81eVH4uKKQVUVAcd6tA/s624/mars%20surface%20pickering5.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="624" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW1KGIGpIc3WX3vfIhtdO1VvYinpfIdld_Wts7EjA_IU7rv1Zgqej5A755G32WDIjwqIuHGC6BCOJbsiR4IYsJFhESeaJLrsJkunMS46Jr2BPx0iCN69XgpYOS3RMxP3Bop_pZdA4jBfd5QDz9LqYFyAMwy5cYD2fY6yo8_2ml81eVH4uKKQVUVAcd6tA/s320/mars%20surface%20pickering5.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQUHSYi9m2EaK93V_QbGfkGuqgK039motes5_usYx2_vmwkYQEaLaOnSPKFBUX4XXanZJJ-9fuJvIXrCAQ2UE0lKeSlPgVOeInTDXTbiXdPumNhe9GlIE0MmYj_HumSQYWPC_S0Y9oxpNzKazKyAdJLxGTrF2a3TmOlTgSVOVcK7jSmRYEegJJbTGm3x0/s527/pickering2%20time%20cover.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQUHSYi9m2EaK93V_QbGfkGuqgK039motes5_usYx2_vmwkYQEaLaOnSPKFBUX4XXanZJJ-9fuJvIXrCAQ2UE0lKeSlPgVOeInTDXTbiXdPumNhe9GlIE0MmYj_HumSQYWPC_S0Y9oxpNzKazKyAdJLxGTrF2a3TmOlTgSVOVcK7jSmRYEegJJbTGm3x0/s320/pickering2%20time%20cover.jpeg" width="243" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Vxey9_q55ojtGP4L7FwI3Cr_IQeJgcOBI9iNpWeF33EnGXuq_4bjkDhyg7sEf0sX99KGLnNQKdnubccU-srQYuknVEq4C0DfqW9LaJk5GuftPAbFjOlusS4LHD2iQBCdZ37iT4BH-S3pJKvuf3nwtesfUcyGU5s6QgMvytv65nH5j_ZK6GPmOlV6d4w/s466/Pickering_William_Henry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Vxey9_q55ojtGP4L7FwI3Cr_IQeJgcOBI9iNpWeF33EnGXuq_4bjkDhyg7sEf0sX99KGLnNQKdnubccU-srQYuknVEq4C0DfqW9LaJk5GuftPAbFjOlusS4LHD2iQBCdZ37iT4BH-S3pJKvuf3nwtesfUcyGU5s6QgMvytv65nH5j_ZK6GPmOlV6d4w/s320/Pickering_William_Henry.jpg" width="227" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr />2004 John A. Pople (31 Oct 1925; 15 Mar 2004) British mathematician and chemist who, (with Walter Kohn), received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on computational methodology to study the quantum mechanics of molecules, their properties and how they act together in chemical reactions. Using Schrödinger's fundamental laws of quantum mechanics, he developed a computer program which, when provided with particulars of a molecule or a chemical reaction, outputs a description of the properties of that molecule or how a chemical reaction may take place - often used to illustrate or explain the results of different kinds of experiment. Pople provided his GAUSSIAN computer program to researchers (first published in 1970). Further developed, it is now used by thousands of chemists the world over. *TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6YXt8M5DirloLDtecGeyvIfUEm4AimDoJW8M9SHTlacoVG0UqXUfukgNhuq6j5mX6WzEeG2P-zaXvsMYvAGxcUsXDi7zSwSMIAu4MoICNCFaPUviwJGDSVktw22ODckcqQm88nJTnBrar50y13uvxOdccMSYQ4EfkvWU4j3Nsvin2E1rdi-1HRVh1hR8/s99/John_Anthony_Pople.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="99" data-original-width="73" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6YXt8M5DirloLDtecGeyvIfUEm4AimDoJW8M9SHTlacoVG0UqXUfukgNhuq6j5mX6WzEeG2P-zaXvsMYvAGxcUsXDi7zSwSMIAu4MoICNCFaPUviwJGDSVktw22ODckcqQm88nJTnBrar50y13uvxOdccMSYQ4EfkvWU4j3Nsvin2E1rdi-1HRVh1hR8/w236-h320/John_Anthony_Pople.png" width="236" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />2006 George Whitelaw Mackey (February 1, 1916 in St. Louis, Missouri – March 15, 2006 in Belmont, Massachusetts) was an American mathematician.<br />Mackey's main areas of research were in the areas of representation theory, ergodic theory, and related parts of functional analysis. Earlier in his career Mackey did significant work in the duality theory of locally convex spaces, which provided tools for subsequent work in this area, including Alexander Grothendieck's work on topological tensor products.<br />He has written numerous survey articles connecting his research interests with a large body of mathematics and physics, particularly quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. He was among the first five recipients of William Lowell Putnam fellowships in 1938.*Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxTK4U0dETVAmyFfoS8sFcEbBq2VHwZYZiwE0kjFz2XNLK5cZWJvIQqIIpgaywrdIhJNt-W0HsTINKzghOy0eE4wlfrM4WzjoiZL1aQMRruiq5N4cfS12OTCvUxs4lPb6sTPxBqmaWGhnxzovUUMqE7wIJ26TDtH7HZk_ii6HeA6uZKlGkMH8uDrIvfY8/s236/GWMackey_c1980s.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="192" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxTK4U0dETVAmyFfoS8sFcEbBq2VHwZYZiwE0kjFz2XNLK5cZWJvIQqIIpgaywrdIhJNt-W0HsTINKzghOy0eE4wlfrM4WzjoiZL1aQMRruiq5N4cfS12OTCvUxs4lPb6sTPxBqmaWGhnxzovUUMqE7wIJ26TDtH7HZk_ii6HeA6uZKlGkMH8uDrIvfY8/s1600/GWMackey_c1980s.jpg" width="192" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><br /><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell<br /><br />(Hint for the Lewis Carroll puzzle, think of diamonds.) </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7qAaxLuYfXMEQ6mqpAGui3Ct8JNHsDTDcGh6z8_IZ1HeuuGXDANPVP8vEOLphZNWOwfmeTfQLsaRlEOs-hDzixr4PUZQ-eTDvQXGv6foj3UPlb9mbQ2FgNCDY8HdWBEX3bkHo_DqLUbmxYdOlXoDL6MyGBdxOHiyppcLhXf7pqMVO2EdnVusLlG0yeE/s350/Boys'%20soap%20bubbles.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="218" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7qAaxLuYfXMEQ6mqpAGui3Ct8JNHsDTDcGh6z8_IZ1HeuuGXDANPVP8vEOLphZNWOwfmeTfQLsaRlEOs-hDzixr4PUZQ-eTDvQXGv6foj3UPlb9mbQ2FgNCDY8HdWBEX3bkHo_DqLUbmxYdOlXoDL6MyGBdxOHiyppcLhXf7pqMVO2EdnVusLlG0yeE/s320/Boys'%20soap%20bubbles.jpeg" width="199" /></a></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-72019680354058735662024-03-14T05:00:00.011+00:002024-03-14T05:00:00.149+00:00On This Day in Math - March 14<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpXuI12laR7U6XIUJL4wmHy05v5-lHTi3mnJ36TXnvPXhy85hkIlN60r4l3plTO9fXnlNj_gPzKRVzSj542X-_If3KiyTyItc2vJJxlYiR5P5Vll6NRrKvXDtbyLGqp4My1PIG6au6bw4/s1600/X-man+Ethan+pi+day+shirts.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpXuI12laR7U6XIUJL4wmHy05v5-lHTi3mnJ36TXnvPXhy85hkIlN60r4l3plTO9fXnlNj_gPzKRVzSj542X-_If3KiyTyItc2vJJxlYiR5P5Vll6NRrKvXDtbyLGqp4My1PIG6au6bw4/s320/X-man+Ethan+pi+day+shirts.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Two of my favorite guys celebrate Pi-Day</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />"It is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry."<br />~Albert Einstein<br /><br /></p><p>The 73rd day of the year; 73 is the alphanumeric value of the word NUMBER: 14 + 21 + 13 + 2 + 5 + 18 = 73 *Tanya Khovanova, <a href="http://www.numbergossip.com/" target="_blank">Number Gossip</a>;<br /><br />73 is the largest prime day of the year so that you can append another digit and make another prime six times, 73,739, 7393, 73939, 739391, 7393913, 73939133.<br /><br />The 73rd day is Pi day in non-leap years, the string 73 appears at the 299th and 300th digits after the decimal point of Pi.<br /><br />Fans of the Big Bang Theory on TV know that Leonard refers to 73 as the "Chuck Norris of Numbers" After Sheldon points out that : 73 is the 21st prime, and it's mirror image 37 is the 12th prime. And 21 is the product of 7 and 3. This enigma is the only known such combination.<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RyFr279K9TE" width="420"></iframe><br /><br />Sheldon failed to mention that 73 is also the 37th odd number.<br /><br />And 73 is the smallest prime factor of a googol + 1 *Prime Curios<br /><br />A good time to introduce your student's to a nice way to find many digits of pi, pick ) pick a relatively close apppx of pi (I'll use 2.5) and call it x, then x+ sin(x) is a better approximation, and repeating continues to give more and more digits of pi up to limits of calculator For 2.5 we get 3.098 -> 3.14157 -> 3.141592654 . (student's might be challenged for why (and when) this works).<br /><br />And of course, for Pi Day, we need the world's most accurate Pi Chart<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9_CjFwdU89jC-LfR2U2iGEBxN9YrL63o9R-Qv0s-nKNc4MVuP6NOhWynfHCPIgBm9lNLW7nKs20CFEYGaDqheP4XFlC5r02tnm9hUnLoI9NJumV16I2BpdLk0rqiWw4ftXBz5Uxx_f2g/s1600/Worlds+most+accurate+pi+chart.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9_CjFwdU89jC-LfR2U2iGEBxN9YrL63o9R-Qv0s-nKNc4MVuP6NOhWynfHCPIgBm9lNLW7nKs20CFEYGaDqheP4XFlC5r02tnm9hUnLoI9NJumV16I2BpdLk0rqiWw4ftXBz5Uxx_f2g/s1600/Worlds+most+accurate+pi+chart.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /><br /><b>One of my new favorite expression of pi, \( \sqrt{\frac{6}{1^2}+\frac{6}{2^2}+\frac{6}{3^2}+...} \) *@MathType</b><br />More math facts for every year day <a href="https://mathdaypballew.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">here</a><br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span></div><p>1663 According to his own account, Otto von Guericke completes his book Experimenta Nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de Vacuo Spatio, detailing his experiments on vacuum and his discovery of electrostatic repulsion. *The Painter Flynn</p><p>Curious and inspired by the Copernican cosmology and hardly understanding new ideas of vast, endless, empty space where light would propagate, bodies of matter could move about unhindered, and sound cannot be detected, von Guericke set about replicating this nothing phenomenon on Earth. He built a vacuum pump, pumped air out of a two joined magdeburg hemispheres, attached a team of horses to each side, and had them pull. He demonstrated this again to the King of Prussia in 1663 and was awarded a lifetime pension. One of these dignitaries, the Archbishop Elector Johann Philipp von Schönborn, bought von Guericke's apparatus from him and had it sent to his Jesuit College at Würzburg. One of the professors at the College, Fr. Gaspar Schott, entered into friendly correspondence with von Guericke and thus it was that, at the age of 55, von Guericke's work was first published as an Appendix to a book by Fr. Schott – Mechanica Hydraulico-pneumatica – published in 1657.[12] This book came to the attention of Robert Boyle who, stimulated by it, embarked on his own experiments on air pressure and the vacuum, and in 1660 published New Experiments Physico-Mechanical touching the Spring of Air and its Effects. The following year this was translated into Latin and, made aware of it in correspondence with Fr. Schott, von Guericke acquired a copy.</p><p> He embarked upon his Magnum Opus, which as well as a detailed account of his experiments on the vacuum, contains his pioneering electrostatic experiments in which electrostatic repulsion was demonstrated for the first time and he sets out his theologically based view of the nature of space.*Wik </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9uotmqn9JoqO28no-igJFVpxbJTGFc2w3PDllU5Qbg3qzeXDoPLYUJ6YNLSDa5sQI5WngPvBs7jPihevv8NjsOs9y96TstegqO2F9aihCw4znPBTDm0-T1Gk48rnQTpgDP7ZJmhW2qWTlduRYC07lShyOYB0Cn_TZGFfWzaHmo0VL7sroVa_fo6iw/s1311/Von_Guericke-5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1311" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9uotmqn9JoqO28no-igJFVpxbJTGFc2w3PDllU5Qbg3qzeXDoPLYUJ6YNLSDa5sQI5WngPvBs7jPihevv8NjsOs9y96TstegqO2F9aihCw4znPBTDm0-T1Gk48rnQTpgDP7ZJmhW2qWTlduRYC07lShyOYB0Cn_TZGFfWzaHmo0VL7sroVa_fo6iw/w390-h640/Von_Guericke-5.jpg" width="390" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgAyGh6NpY9nAUwWRnWhrCchhU2UZ1v0d_TsKn2QVjXWjXulDGUQEo_ZOqxHUfckDW0J1nILeHL7bH7v3Y7RuAIdgejISuD9NIrqWtvCkPQBUXZWaHD-2POYwrsgobd1fad0qWSuTMNmR5Zic3KMGKHmvOIBMFwSxZqc4nsksLDfxrwttmwIsP1BDeJkg/s227/guericke%20vacuum.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="227" data-original-width="222" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgAyGh6NpY9nAUwWRnWhrCchhU2UZ1v0d_TsKn2QVjXWjXulDGUQEo_ZOqxHUfckDW0J1nILeHL7bH7v3Y7RuAIdgejISuD9NIrqWtvCkPQBUXZWaHD-2POYwrsgobd1fad0qWSuTMNmR5Zic3KMGKHmvOIBMFwSxZqc4nsksLDfxrwttmwIsP1BDeJkg/w313-h320/guericke%20vacuum.jpeg" width="313" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p></p><hr /><p></p><p>1664 Isaac Barrow delivered his “Prefatory Oration” as the first Lucasion Professor at Cambridge. It lasted two hours, and contained the following plea for students to come to his office: “If it be then your Pleasure, ye Lovers of Study, come always; be not restrained through any Fear, or retarded too much by Modesty, what you may do by your Right, you shall make me do willingly, nay gladly and joyfully. Ask your Questions, make your Enquiries, bid and command; you shall neither find me adverse nor refractory to your Commands, but officious and obedient. If you meet with any Obstacles or Difficulties, or are retarded with any Doubts while you are walking in the cumbersome Road of this Study of Mathematics, I beg you to impart them, and I shall endeavor to remove every Hindrance out of your Way to the best of my Knowledge and Ability.” In closing and referring to himself he states that “An accomplished mathematician, is a most wretched orator.” * The Prefactory Oration' (address to the University of Cambridge upon being elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, 14 Mar 1664)<br /></p><hr /><p>1667/8 Pepys records in his diary that he saw Sir. Samuel Morland’s adding machine for pounds, shillings and pence. Samuel Pepys also wrote in his diary, that the machine of Morland is <i>very pretty, but not very useful</i>, while the famous scientist Robert Hooke, for example, found the machines <i>very silly</i>. One reason for the calculators poor reception was likely due to the lack of a carry.<br /></p><p>Morland was well regarded in his own time as a hydraulic engineer, a precursor to James Watt. His Steam Theory was not well known because it was published in French. Morland had bee hired by Louis XIV to advise on the giant waterworks at Versaille.He was also reported to have had an interest in flight, and possessed a set of feathered wings to fly with. He had also made a geared trigonometric machine a few years earlier.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP8RndYGtnQRcovhx4VPL0ldxcj4ApqUmc_3SLxWSlIE7Z7aqs4PaANHGujWaIHekevGVRemL0YzNbtJqJSep5u6caYknEP5eRV-6wQ0amt3nkv3oFBewhx5ARsH7pW2mtOQSP1uHi26M/s1600/Morland_adder.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP8RndYGtnQRcovhx4VPL0ldxcj4ApqUmc_3SLxWSlIE7Z7aqs4PaANHGujWaIHekevGVRemL0YzNbtJqJSep5u6caYknEP5eRV-6wQ0amt3nkv3oFBewhx5ARsH7pW2mtOQSP1uHi26M/s320/Morland_adder.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">*http://history-computer.com</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1671 (OS)- 1672</b> John Collins writes to James Gregory telling him that Collins had informed Wallis of Sluse's intention to write up his methods for maxima and minima and that Wallis responded by stating his intent to write up his own notions on the subject. *PB notes</p><hr /><p><b>1818</b> John Adams writes to Thomas Jefferson about David Rittenhouse and his Orrery, he says:<br />"Rittenhouse was a virtuous and amiable man, an exquisite mechanician, master of the astronomy known in his time, an expert mathematician, a patient calculator of numbers." U Penn Library website<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRkLVm3RPDgJbVLsB5M5LrZBdiG7_wQskWoh-UJm_rdxhxg-VuWCI7mHOdj4cjFjCJV9X_R41AZKO6II_aX2mpqSKutYW8BGEKJNvnjO4tx5PWIi_KJbnd1kDoV89hSPxHgSN17cLHj2Nuyhj18VU7EDumGnMhB1Y3kVa_vHZu8sAyAGcb9Fu4ExjZmic/s320/rittenhouse%20orrery.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="320" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRkLVm3RPDgJbVLsB5M5LrZBdiG7_wQskWoh-UJm_rdxhxg-VuWCI7mHOdj4cjFjCJV9X_R41AZKO6II_aX2mpqSKutYW8BGEKJNvnjO4tx5PWIi_KJbnd1kDoV89hSPxHgSN17cLHj2Nuyhj18VU7EDumGnMhB1Y3kVa_vHZu8sAyAGcb9Fu4ExjZmic/s1600/rittenhouse%20orrery.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>In <b>1839</b>, Sir John Herschel referred to "photography" in a lecture to the Royal Society—possibly the first use of the word. Following Fox Talbot's publication of his invention of what became known as the Calotype process, a number of scientific men made their own investigations, including not only Herschel but also Berard, Robert Hunt and Draper. Herschel used the name Chrysotype (from the Greek word for gold) for his process. It used paper washed in a solution of ammonio-citrate of iron and brought out the image with a solution of soda or chloride of gold, or with nitrate of silver, and fixing it in the first case by washing it with iodide of potassium and in the second, with hyposulphite of soda. It had technical difficulties in controlling the contrast, colour and fogging of the image. *TIS<br />Appropriately, it was an astronomer who coined the term photography, but the question is, which one. Some credit Johann Heinrich von Madler for combining “photo” (from the Greek word for “light”) and “graphy” (“to write”). *APS.org Madler's claim rests on a paper supposedly written on 25 February 1839 in the German newspaper <i>Vossische Zeitung.</i> Many still credit Sir John Herschel both for coining the word and for introducing it to the public. His uses of it in private correspondence prior to 25 February 1839 and at his Royal Society lecture on the subject in London on 14 March 1839 have long been amply documented and accepted as settled facts.<br /></p><p><br /></p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwaXpj-3BikRjqvYM5of1X1KQmqDuiKONvPM97eQcoRfu_FcCaqitqRyFL7FbSFxpJFsoSuo7R5XIOv_rZvEIsPv_vFqg9aiYSBrYp450EYGB541VT7MZEehOkAz9HToWy1DRmi1RXmiZq3TSceh3FS5StRHBdJKXtI987BnFyEi-tNGzKWul4HMpp1Dw/s422/Sir_John%20Herschel._Mezzotint_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwaXpj-3BikRjqvYM5of1X1KQmqDuiKONvPM97eQcoRfu_FcCaqitqRyFL7FbSFxpJFsoSuo7R5XIOv_rZvEIsPv_vFqg9aiYSBrYp450EYGB541VT7MZEehOkAz9HToWy1DRmi1RXmiZq3TSceh3FS5StRHBdJKXtI987BnFyEi-tNGzKWul4HMpp1Dw/s320/Sir_John%20Herschel._Mezzotint_.jpg" width="250" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1926</b> Erwin Schrödinger's "Quantisierung als Eigenwertproblem," the first of six remarkable papers laying out his wave formulation of quantum<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkxykmDfDn_D51u4906dEOGR5qJCL5FNuSBQLwbhyiHypzg6uFhtjus0VhmWOl_oRFwcooNUyu_7afpovUgTJvEMizF6HLaWyf9pdLBzw4OZFeuforQN9WOVHWYrYHpMwJZndqxfXXN8Y/s1600/schrodinger+grave+marker.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkxykmDfDn_D51u4906dEOGR5qJCL5FNuSBQLwbhyiHypzg6uFhtjus0VhmWOl_oRFwcooNUyu_7afpovUgTJvEMizF6HLaWyf9pdLBzw4OZFeuforQN9WOVHWYrYHpMwJZndqxfXXN8Y/s320/schrodinger+grave+marker.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>mechanics, was published in Annalen der Physik *Robert McNees@mcnees The equation is on his grave marker. You may be surprised, as I was, by the little dot over the Psi symbol. That is Newton's dot or "little pricks" as he called them to mark the fluxion, his word for derivative. Since this stone was probably done near or after his death in 1961 (both he and his wife died that year), it made me wonder if he still used that in 1926 when he wrote the paper.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1909 Robert Serber, the Manhattan Project physicist who gave FatMan & LittleBoy their codenames & introduced new arrivals to nuclear fission in a series of lectures (The LosAlamos Primer), </p><p>*B H Gross </p><p></p><hr /><p></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiWCqnt799qx5RVyXKLFspz8Oao-191mu-HkA5DRR0Pu3ZuSB9eiFFqW6ukmWAZfE8VD56beODHFSb-i1i0c74Dr9_1ixPsG5Lgp4U-v1IO4GcWfM-nB_SIn3pvTkeyb2GefMWsBL-dC4/s1600/Namer+of+pluto.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiWCqnt799qx5RVyXKLFspz8Oao-191mu-HkA5DRR0Pu3ZuSB9eiFFqW6ukmWAZfE8VD56beODHFSb-i1i0c74Dr9_1ixPsG5Lgp4U-v1IO4GcWfM-nB_SIn3pvTkeyb2GefMWsBL-dC4/s200/Namer+of+pluto.png" /></a><b>1930</b> At breakfast in the family home in Oxford, 11-year-old Venetia Burney suggested a name for a newly discovered planet that her grandfather read about in his Times of London edition. Venetia’s grandfather, the retired head of the historic Bodleian Library at Oxford University, passed the idea along to an astronomer friend of his, who telegraphed his colleagues at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. They voted unanimously in favor of the name. Pluto, the solar system’s ninth planet, was born. Read more at *<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/15/how-a-precocious-11-year-old-girl-gave-pluto-its-name/?postshare=5001436974619784" target="_blank">Washington Post</a>. In 1877, Venetia's grandfather's brother, Henry, a housemaster at Eton, had successfully proposed that the two dwarf moons of Mars be named Phobos and Deimos, two attendants of the Roman war god, whose names mean fear and terror.<br /></p><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.cherrystonestamps.com/_thumb.asp?filename=90029&dw=200&dh=180" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://www.cherrystonestamps.com/_thumb.asp?filename=90029&dw=200&dh=180" width="156" /></a></div><p>1934 France issued a stamp for the centenary of the death of Joseph Jacquard (1752–1834), inventor of an improved loom for figured weaving. The punched cards that he invented provided the model for computer cards. [Scott #295] *VFR<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p><hr /><p><br />1951 Kurt G¨odel shared the first Einstein award with Julian Schwinger. *VFR<br /></p><hr /><p>1955 Bell Labs Announces TRADIC "Giant Brain":<br />AT&T Bell Laboratories announces the completion of the first fully transistorized computer, TRADIC. TRADIC contained nearly 800 transistors, which replaced the standard vacuum tube and allowed the machine to operate on fewer than 100 watts -- or one-twentieth the power required by a comparable vacuum tube computer.*CHM<br /></p><p><br /></p><hr /><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRbPQwLUsmKloc9s-gD_1UC_AVw83pSmRjwDjGW5CqxIbVSgrc9" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRbPQwLUsmKloc9s-gD_1UC_AVw83pSmRjwDjGW5CqxIbVSgrc9" width="200" /></a></div><p>1962 Norway issued a pair of stamps commemorating the centenary of the birth of Vilhelm Bjerknes (1862–1951), physicist, meterologist, and mathematician. [Scott #403–4] *VFR<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p><hr /><p>1988 The earliest known official or large-scale celebration of Pi Day was organized by Larry Shaw in 1988 at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where Shaw worked as a physicist, with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, then consuming fruit pies. March 14 was selected because the numerical date (3.14) represents the first three digits of pi, and it also happens to be Albert Einstein’s birthday.</p><p>The Exploratorium continues to hold Pi Day celebrations.</p><p>On March 12, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution (HRES 224), recognizing March 14, 2009, as National Pi Day *Wik<br /></p><p>In 2019, International Mathematics Day was recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) during its general conference.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgON2weQbO2X7c3kiX3ORfmvyPvQtLc2W33DJyulA5ZMSaKy2eXNKPSDj7e_aG5KZP528po4V3gxVkrD4e4SpCS0hmCosssNRAoGSTrtgM7WCL-OXKeIfL5jJ4huwDcZpmRpj1cz7OAAW5JeXy2qvLVtI48ph5e_fTmhqkPfKX5pm4Q4hywOHCNUryqLmY/s343/playing%20with%20math%202024.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="147" data-original-width="343" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgON2weQbO2X7c3kiX3ORfmvyPvQtLc2W33DJyulA5ZMSaKy2eXNKPSDj7e_aG5KZP528po4V3gxVkrD4e4SpCS0hmCosssNRAoGSTrtgM7WCL-OXKeIfL5jJ4huwDcZpmRpj1cz7OAAW5JeXy2qvLVtI48ph5e_fTmhqkPfKX5pm4Q4hywOHCNUryqLmY/s320/playing%20with%20math%202024.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>The theme for International Day of Mathematics 2024 is "Playing with Mathematics." </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAecDzfkxNBYqQgRqOpFT_RHMlCgZBvb7XT0KVjdrZBE6pxiVfsOG70mr9MNQmN697kaFyowBHkh2jvV0M34DyR-xBCK2MLPIc2XrqX1EH-y14gmymcHV472nBOUSfdYllJq3EXKLkoT3iBFPRK27SMCGgTOtHOJ0Cqi_8EI2wdPjBEfjyXyFNeW36/s300/larry%20shaw.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAecDzfkxNBYqQgRqOpFT_RHMlCgZBvb7XT0KVjdrZBE6pxiVfsOG70mr9MNQmN697kaFyowBHkh2jvV0M34DyR-xBCK2MLPIc2XrqX1EH-y14gmymcHV472nBOUSfdYllJq3EXKLkoT3iBFPRK27SMCGgTOtHOJ0Cqi_8EI2wdPjBEfjyXyFNeW36/s1600/larry%20shaw.jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Larry Shaw leading Pi Day Parade</td></tr></tbody></table><hr /><p>1995 On Tuesday, March 14, Speaking at the string theory conference at University of Southern California , Edward Witten made the surprising suggestion that the five existing string theories were in fact not distinct theories, but different limits of a single theory which he called M-theory. Witten's proposal was based on the observation that the five string theories can be mapped to one another by certain rules called dualities and are identified by these dualities. "E. Witten: Some problems of strong and weak coupling" *Wik<br /></p><hr /><p>2012 Judge rules you can't copyright Pi... The story stripped from Devlin's Angle by Keith Devlin:<br /></p><blockquote>The story begins on Pi Day (March 14, or 3.14) 2011, when New Scientist posted a video by a musician called Michael John Blake, in which he played a piano rendering of the first 31 decimal places of pi, played at a tempo of 157 beats per minute (314 divided by two).<br /><br />The video immediately went viral, but a few hours later, YouTube was contacted by a lawyer representing jazz musician Lars Erickson, who claimed that Blake's work sounded very similar to his 1992 composition "Pi Symphony", which he had registered with the US copyright office. With a claim of copyright infringement, YouTube removed the video. But Blake decided to lodge an appeal.<br />...<br />One year later, on March 14 of this year, US district court judge Michael H. Simon, deliberately choosing to announce his decision on Pi Day, dismissed Erickson’s claim of copyright infringement. "Pi is a non-copyrightable fact, and the transcription of pi to music is a non-copyrightable idea," Simon wrote in his legal opinion.</blockquote><p>So Sing it People "3 . 1 4 1 5 9 2 6 5 3 5 8 9 7 9 3 2 3 8 4 6 2 6 4 3 3 8 3 2 7 9" </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFJ0vTGGCvHdgUT-yLfXVYAsspxrJ_LMooMQqfjrmLj4hIBY2vd-TAd2URRzyJB86MjDITL3ZzkgU7Ki4PQnWfKs5-6uwLzrSYdF6BxxvmlNZOL7q0USDOSdDmJvhOUm3x7-COxYmbpT_dcHDPnexD6O20lU9e98lhCsMeQ__dTt7huXoFdyHH8R29/s478/music.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="478" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFJ0vTGGCvHdgUT-yLfXVYAsspxrJ_LMooMQqfjrmLj4hIBY2vd-TAd2URRzyJB86MjDITL3ZzkgU7Ki4PQnWfKs5-6uwLzrSYdF6BxxvmlNZOL7q0USDOSdDmJvhOUm3x7-COxYmbpT_dcHDPnexD6O20lU9e98lhCsMeQ__dTt7huXoFdyHH8R29/s320/music.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><br />2015 Pi day on this day will have a special moment (or two such moments for folks with 12 hour clocks), at 9:26:53 of 3/14/15. Approximating \( \pi \approx 3.14159265 \)</p><p>The string 2024 occurs at position 14590. This string occurs 19859 times in the first 200M digits of Pi.</p><p>counting from the first digit after the decimal point. The 3. is not counted. </p><p>The string 24 occurs at position 292.</p><p><br /></p><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn38dmIA6VtLA3De2VB_BYm35tqivtymjZKwwCKzUBnNjlEB9QlW2F0dWMwVf73DhNjPThF99HiYktf6ZtdPKjipOpzjcF-VdnMepyEslettyzoj2pxQ4EEXBW9Uy_6pXGsLOPqj3iJAg/s1600/Hanson+writing+ball.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn38dmIA6VtLA3De2VB_BYm35tqivtymjZKwwCKzUBnNjlEB9QlW2F0dWMwVf73DhNjPThF99HiYktf6ZtdPKjipOpzjcF-VdnMepyEslettyzoj2pxQ4EEXBW9Uy_6pXGsLOPqj3iJAg/s320/Hanson+writing+ball.jpg" /></a></div><p><b>2015</b> This day is the planned first day issue of a Danish stamp showing the popular Hanson writing ball from 1878. The writing ball was invented in 1865 by the reverend Rasmus Malling-Hansen (1835–1890) principal of the Royal Institute for the Deaf-Mutes in Copenhagen. The machine included an electromagnetic escapement for the Ball, thus making Malling-Hansen's machine the first electric typewriter. It was exhibited at a great industrial exhibition in Copenhagen in 1873, at the world exhibition in Vienna in 1873, and at the Paris exhibition or Exposition Universelle. All through the 1870s it won several awards. It was sold in many countries in Europe, and it is known that it was still in use in offices in London as late as 1909. *Wik<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p><hr /><p>2016 Sphere packing for eight dimensions is solved by Maryna Viazovska. In 1611, Kepler conjectured that here was no way to pack spheres more densly than the way we would normally stack oranges or cannonballs, with every triangle of three supporting another nestled above (and below) tangent to all of the first three. By 1831 Gauss had managed to prove the conjecture for 3d. In her paper Viazovska proved no packing of unit balls in Euclidean space R<sup>8</sup> has density greater than that of the E8-lattice packing. One week later, (March 21) building on her work, with collaboration of four others, they were able to prove that the Leech lattice is the densest packing of congruent spheres in twenty-four dimensions, and that it is the unique optimal periodic packing. *arxiv.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwyCApJIJt4TtgoeQqQRFy_b0L88oHMlIPfsiCv1tiTwOQCC67X5y7WSyWaqc449JJLQzSHsjKOw9npsufr8eiG-w7wQRRhp5lRkCyimxbUEkwOJLc-tlFXwREtmJ3yeQXIfo_NCrYftERlmCfCOKmGUC16e4Tam0xITA_tQmuiM1iFi9YQEjWJx0oPqw/s228/viazovska.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="158" data-original-width="228" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwyCApJIJt4TtgoeQqQRFy_b0L88oHMlIPfsiCv1tiTwOQCC67X5y7WSyWaqc449JJLQzSHsjKOw9npsufr8eiG-w7wQRRhp5lRkCyimxbUEkwOJLc-tlFXwREtmJ3yeQXIfo_NCrYftERlmCfCOKmGUC16e4Tam0xITA_tQmuiM1iFi9YQEjWJx0oPqw/s1600/viazovska.jpeg" width="228" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>2018 </b>NASA twin study finds that Scott Kelly is no longer identical to his twin brother after one year in space, 7% of his genes altered. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-wGRj4Hij9oLaaMMXobXuupyKhQytpNKV5BYbLe-KHfLSi5j5G7sDuUT82vFxEDxrEA2t0ESdNgtHCWZjUckDN6cvypRT0XPMG6bB0WMh_D6TDXig5tnt6mwRiIkL_66RxobDjtf1QoKxPcn1UC5lMf-tcK-FR-CYYA2ya_Nm3_Bl2S0Yxr99dA7/s225/scott-kelly.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="180" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-wGRj4Hij9oLaaMMXobXuupyKhQytpNKV5BYbLe-KHfLSi5j5G7sDuUT82vFxEDxrEA2t0ESdNgtHCWZjUckDN6cvypRT0XPMG6bB0WMh_D6TDXig5tnt6mwRiIkL_66RxobDjtf1QoKxPcn1UC5lMf-tcK-FR-CYYA2ya_Nm3_Bl2S0Yxr99dA7/s1600/scott-kelly.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*OnThisDay.com</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span></div><p><b>1692 Pieter van Musschenbroek </b>(14 Mar 1692; 19 Sep 1761 at age 69) Dutch mathematician and physicist who invented the Leyden jar, the first effective device for storing static electricity. He grew up in a family that manufactured scientific instruments such as telescopes, microscopes and air pumps. Before Musschenbroek's invention, static electricity had been produced by Guericke using a sulphur ball, with minor effects. In Jan 1746, Musschenbroek placed water in a metal container suspended on silk cords, and led a brass wire through a cork into the water. He built up a charge in the water. When an unwary assistant touched the metal container and the brass wire, the discharge from this apparatus delivered a substantial shock of static electricity. The Leyden name is linked to the discovery having being made at the University of Leiden. *TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbuoA8p_-03Ke51tjozx9wlVHniZ-jOiY3233Sex8OWv3u-JMQy-p5wA_RIIp1JGnBNLbtr3a9ZXHVb584pg70IXeEfSSt4a_0mSL-3YChb08LNbNvRWUw_wsJvDm27P8WfauPRVSu1j43VNw5fMUBtj30hQNACRPe9f1Y2W4xaWjy3uCvB62waUaTTQw/s259/leydan%20jar.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="259" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbuoA8p_-03Ke51tjozx9wlVHniZ-jOiY3233Sex8OWv3u-JMQy-p5wA_RIIp1JGnBNLbtr3a9ZXHVb584pg70IXeEfSSt4a_0mSL-3YChb08LNbNvRWUw_wsJvDm27P8WfauPRVSu1j43VNw5fMUBtj30hQNACRPe9f1Y2W4xaWjy3uCvB62waUaTTQw/s1600/leydan%20jar.png" width="259" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><div><hr /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>1811 Andrew Hart </b>(<span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";">14 March 1811</span> , 13 Apr 1890) <span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";">was an </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Irish mathematician</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Times New Roman;"><b> </b>and Vice-Provost of Trinity College Dublin</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";">who wrote on geometry</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-weight: bold;">. </span></div></div><div>Hart obtained much reputation as a mathematician, and published useful treatises on hydrostatics and mechanics. Between 1849 and 1861 he contributed valuable papers to the Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal, to the 'Proceedings of the Irish Academy,' and to the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, chiefly on the subject of geodesic lines and on curves.</div><div><div>Hart's most important contribution was contained in his paper Extension of Terquem's theorem respecting the circle which bisects three sides of a triangle (1861). Hart wrote this paper after carrying out an investigation suggested by William Rowan Hamilton in a letter to Hart. In addition, Hart corresponded with George Salmon on the same topic. This paper contains the result which became known as Hart's Theorem, which is a generalization of Feuerbach's Theorem. Hart's Theorem states:</div><div><br /></div><div>Taking any three of the eight circles which touch three others, a circle can be described to touch these three, and to touch a fourth circle of the eight touching circles.</div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaIdikyMMx3P7-VEk8-rSESBA39Edojl92nLTskILs6GJbPTII1v9vJ1r0aZpS-i8uDAFItD7e3RZqPUrNPd_7ulOxMjPMkcRzciDHhIbYNj9asymPGMW8H4OG-ltP31lH7vpoCo0dzwN-IYvDIWbfakjak4ik4ubjrBWZJleorQrAX54WOMClvxo-e6U/s446/Andrew_Searle_Hart%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaIdikyMMx3P7-VEk8-rSESBA39Edojl92nLTskILs6GJbPTII1v9vJ1r0aZpS-i8uDAFItD7e3RZqPUrNPd_7ulOxMjPMkcRzciDHhIbYNj9asymPGMW8H4OG-ltP31lH7vpoCo0dzwN-IYvDIWbfakjak4ik4ubjrBWZJleorQrAX54WOMClvxo-e6U/s320/Andrew_Searle_Hart%201.jpg" width="237" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcagIMumOCPW4RlJsvFey3MALLVzIYUw18xUEbvLyYefwGH92xOg7rIKdpN_MdzmgCxBESYzID4-VSOPZ8O7MSEVTumdmgg9lTjRThnycY3ebb3uB1HVhCthTeVfZkIU67DdoPHXGpCuJaJbOgmDff1kVfevkun5HiYAhFjUSn2NbejOgjRWvMa74KUPI/s468/mechanics%20Andrew_Searle_Hart%201.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcagIMumOCPW4RlJsvFey3MALLVzIYUw18xUEbvLyYefwGH92xOg7rIKdpN_MdzmgCxBESYzID4-VSOPZ8O7MSEVTumdmgg9lTjRThnycY3ebb3uB1HVhCthTeVfZkIU67DdoPHXGpCuJaJbOgmDff1kVfevkun5HiYAhFjUSn2NbejOgjRWvMa74KUPI/s320/mechanics%20Andrew_Searle_Hart%201.png" width="226" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></div><div><br /></div><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRnXIpCjtOalC8H123b7RWY0xYB_WnjEcasTFTlqCx-cCTT7c0VV5C6Ct9UtAKISvOEWDjQcxMRivHBxrqnWfRBQ_WiA0zgKAo0q7-obkQMFgXwNMWJRz5L1IxBJ98_tm_CsBsgntSiU/s1600/schiaparelli+mars+map.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRnXIpCjtOalC8H123b7RWY0xYB_WnjEcasTFTlqCx-cCTT7c0VV5C6Ct9UtAKISvOEWDjQcxMRivHBxrqnWfRBQ_WiA0zgKAo0q7-obkQMFgXwNMWJRz5L1IxBJ98_tm_CsBsgntSiU/s320/schiaparelli+mars+map.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><b>1835 Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli</b> (14 Mar 1835; 4 Jul 1910 at age 75) Italian astronomer who is remembered for his observations of Mars over seven oppositions and named the "seas" and "continents". In 1877, he saw on the surface of the planet Mars the markings that he called canali (channels), later misinterpreted as "canals." He made extensive studies, both observational and theoretical, of comets, determining from the shapes of their tails that there was a repulsive force from the sun. He showed that meteor swarms travel through space in cometary orbits. He explained the regular meteor showers as the result of the dissolution of comets and proved it for the Perseids. He suggested that Mercury and Venus rotate on their axes, discovered the asteroid Hesperia (1861) and was a major observer of double stars. *TIS<br /></p><hr /><p><b>1838 Rev U Jessee Kniseley</b> (March 14, 1838 - May 19, 1881) was born in New Philadelphia, Ohio March 14 1838 He was a self made man and in a very great measure self educated. The degree of MA was conferred on him by Marietta College and that of PhD by Wittenberg College in which latter institution he had formerly been a classical and theological student. He also attended Jefferson College Pa but was not a graduate of any college. He was chosen President and Professor of Mathematics of Luther College, an institution of ephemeral existence. Rev Dr Knisely was a Lutheran preacher of marked ability and great eloquence and for fourteen years previous to his death he was the loved pastor of the church of that denomination at Newcomerstown. He was a very fine mathematician and excelled especially in the solution of algebraic and geometrical problems The elegant solution of a Diophantine problem on pp 105 and 106 of the Mathematical Visitor Vol I No 4 and of the celebrated Malfatti's Problem pp 189 and 190 of No 6 are admirable samples of his superior skill in these departments of analysis. Rev Dr Knisely was also a master of language and the author of several works. Copies of his Parser's Manual and Arithmetical Questions for the Recreation of the Teacher and the Discipline of the Pupil are possessed by the writer. It is stated in the Tuscarawas Chronicle from which the substance of a portion of this notice is taken that he was also author of Kniseley's Arithmetic and Mrs Knisely states that he had in preparation a work on the Calculus, but of these works the writer knows nothing. His last work was the revision of Ray's Higher Arithmetic and the Key which he completed but a short time before his death. He died May 19, 1881 at the age of 43 years 2 months and 5 days The disease that caused his death was a general prostration of the nervous system. *Artemas Martin, Mathematical Visitor January 1882<br /></p><hr /><p><b>1862 Vilhelm F(riman) K(oren) Bjerknes</b> (14 Mar 1862; 9 Apr 1951 at age 89) was a Norwegian meteorologist and physicist, one of the founders of the modern science of weather forecasting. As a young boy, Bjerknes assisted his father, Carl Bjerknes (a professor of mathematics) in carrying out experiments to verify the theoretical predictions that resulted from his father's hydrodynamic research. After graduating from university, Bjerknes moved on to his own work applying hydrodynamic and thermodynamic theories to atmospheric and hydrospheric conditions in order to predict future weather conditions. His work in meteorology and on electric waves was important in the early development of wireless telegraphy. He evolved a theory of cyclones known as the polar front theory with his son Jakob. *TIS<br /></p><p>Vilhelm Bjerknes with his brother Ernst Wilhelm Bjerknes (left) and his sister-in-law, Norway's first female professor, Kristine Bonnevie at her cabin Snefugl (snowbird?) at Mysuseter circa 1946, </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxv5mQy8mT_aRsN3R0Ef-MA-QhmuYAOtvUzfz_KbaF4479cXUJliccVGdQht4NOijDrp0LrX-JhgvjgaQQ2UJy4x_OS7OiQOAv0ZCK4ysCCXOiBr3Z42mHvhwoG5gGz7N1AIN1UgnNCnPCrOGKUdXFKY7F6UPRqgXx-NaBkWRMeTDR55Yth2HNTB34xUw/s502/Vilhelm%20bjerknes%20at_Snowbird.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxv5mQy8mT_aRsN3R0Ef-MA-QhmuYAOtvUzfz_KbaF4479cXUJliccVGdQht4NOijDrp0LrX-JhgvjgaQQ2UJy4x_OS7OiQOAv0ZCK4ysCCXOiBr3Z42mHvhwoG5gGz7N1AIN1UgnNCnPCrOGKUdXFKY7F6UPRqgXx-NaBkWRMeTDR55Yth2HNTB34xUw/s320/Vilhelm%20bjerknes%20at_Snowbird.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnL4HcIwbp97aN4jgLkI_DR4olytJfO-Ylarq97uzDTJRUVwlZ6YybmZzzyTEhBKcdNP4YxZuUMoYIkm2g7mEQnuvAiJJfPu980ozvzEYjHS2M8xScAfPxduYN5gq4mxHKCBMsOApx0dWPJsR56StdwjWkP2vPkqyirIe4xeq6AaDW4l-_9KxQOSQbrQM/s436/Vilhelm_Bjerknes_Bust_01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnL4HcIwbp97aN4jgLkI_DR4olytJfO-Ylarq97uzDTJRUVwlZ6YybmZzzyTEhBKcdNP4YxZuUMoYIkm2g7mEQnuvAiJJfPu980ozvzEYjHS2M8xScAfPxduYN5gq4mxHKCBMsOApx0dWPJsR56StdwjWkP2vPkqyirIe4xeq6AaDW4l-_9KxQOSQbrQM/s320/Vilhelm_Bjerknes_Bust_01.jpg" width="242" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1864 József Kürschák</b> (14 March 1864 – 26 March 1933) was a Hungarian mathematician noted for his work on trigonometry and for his creation of the theory of valuations. He proved that every valued field can be embedded into a complete valued field which is algebraically closed. In 1918 he proved that the sum of reciprocals of consecutive natural numbers is never an integer. Extending Hilbert's argument, he proved that everything that can be constructed using a ruler and a compass, can be constructed by using a ruler and the ability of copying a fixed segment. He was elected a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1897. *Wik<br /></p><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1N13fSmhDOh4Fm3CdrgLdAB9deFTBzOzHDgc4yD_o9PCkNZcUaF1ed5vyBbTW-MDJjwndXN5MJRftyr_ePZdh8ZOSW6HJXa7gO5oa1mVwGs7lim4f0ez8v1Yb500Fc4uOM-1wV3P-SoM/s1600/Einstein+first+day+cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="800" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1N13fSmhDOh4Fm3CdrgLdAB9deFTBzOzHDgc4yD_o9PCkNZcUaF1ed5vyBbTW-MDJjwndXN5MJRftyr_ePZdh8ZOSW6HJXa7gO5oa1mVwGs7lim4f0ez8v1Yb500Fc4uOM-1wV3P-SoM/s400/Einstein+first+day+cover.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><b>1879 Albert Einstein</b> (14 Mar 1879; 18 Apr 1955 at age 76) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. Recognized in his own time as one of the most creative intellects in human history, in the first 15 years of the 20th century Einstein advanced a series of theories that proposed entirely new ways of thinking about space, time, and gravitation. His theories of relativity and gravitation were a profound advance over the old Newtonian physics and revolutionized scientific and philosophic inquiry.*TIS<br /></p><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.zeuscat.com/andrew/chaos/sierpinski.clear.gif" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://www.zeuscat.com/andrew/chaos/sierpinski.clear.gif" width="200" /></a></div><p><b><br /></b><b>1882 WacLlaw Sierpinski</b> (14 March 1882 in Warsaw, - 21 Oct 1969 in Warsaw) His grave carries—according to his wish—the inscription: Investigator of infinity. [Kuratowski, A Half Century of Polish Mathematics, p. 173; Works, p. 14] *VFR Sierpinski's most important work is in the area of set theory, point set topology and number theory. In set theory he made important contributions to the axiom of choice and to the continuum hypothesis. *SAU He is also remembered for his Sierpinski gasket or Triangle<br /><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1889 Oscar Chisini</b> (March 14, 1889 – April 10, 1967) was an Italian mathematician. He introduced the Chisini mean in 1929. In 1929 he founded the Institute of Mathematics (Istituto di Matematica) at the University of Milan, along with Gian Antonio Maggi and Giulio Vivanti. He then held the position of chairman of the Institute from the early 1930s until 1959.The Chisini conjecture in algebraic geometry is a uniqueness question for morphisms of generic smooth projective surfaces, branched on a cuspidal curve. A special case is the question of the uniqueness of the covering of the projective plane, branched over a generic curve of degree at least five. *Wik<br /></p><p>In mathematics, a function f of n variables x1, ..., xn leads to a Chisini mean M if, for every vector ⟨x1, ..., xn⟩, there exists a unique M such that</p><p>f(M,M, ..., M) = f(x1,x2, ..., xn).</p><p>The arithmetic, harmonic, geometric, generalised, Heronian and quadratic means are all Chisini means, as are their weighted variants.</p><p>While Oscar Chisini was arguably the first to deal with "substitution means" in some depth in 1929, the idea of defining a mean as above is quite old, appearing (for example) in early works of Augustus De Morgan.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4DAqnckWW3Gcr8bNYCThZB0dBo8EKxOJgUU81hHhUrrLzoFPo3-FWgjzopNDcEddH8corqko-jpB7IOvTOTYv-XqSDtCnoLj_Y92N9xV_DnK5Nr7a0mvU00SAaZccIER9_a32DXax4WkoN0FJJ0U9oyQ-eU7z4dNoji6njFDgRsELKLYS23y1_PV83fE/s326/Oscar_Chisini.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="235" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4DAqnckWW3Gcr8bNYCThZB0dBo8EKxOJgUU81hHhUrrLzoFPo3-FWgjzopNDcEddH8corqko-jpB7IOvTOTYv-XqSDtCnoLj_Y92N9xV_DnK5Nr7a0mvU00SAaZccIER9_a32DXax4WkoN0FJJ0U9oyQ-eU7z4dNoji6njFDgRsELKLYS23y1_PV83fE/s320/Oscar_Chisini.jpg" width="231" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1911 Akira Yoshizawa</b> (吉澤 章 Yoshizawa Akira; 14 March 1911 – 14 March 2005) was a Japanese origamist, considered to be the grandmaster of origami. He is credited with raising origami from a craft to a living art. According to his own estimation made in 1989, he created more than 50,000 models, of which only a few hundred designs were presented as diagrams in his 18 books. Yoshizawa acted as an international cultural ambassador for Japan throughout his career. In 1983, Emperor Hirohito awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun, 5th class, one of the highest honors bestowed in Japan.<br />In March 1998, Yoshizawa was invited to exhibit his origami in the Louvre Museum. Although he had previously disliked his contemporaries, he was not opposed to having his photo taken with them. Many of his patterns had been diagrammed by his professional rivals, which angered Yoshizawa when he was younger.[citation needed] However, as he had aged, he found that he now enjoyed the company of his peers.<br />Yoshizawa died on 14 March 2005 in a hospital in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo due to complications of pneumonia on his 94th birthday *Wik Some of his work is shown in this video:<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ruZJZf8_y3Y" width="560"></iframe><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1927 Marcel Berger</b> (14 April 1927 – 15 October 2016) was a French mathematician, doyen of French differential geometry, and a former director of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS), France. Formerly residing in Le Castera in Lasseube, Berger was instrumental in Mikhail Gromov's accepting positions both at the University of Paris and at the IHÉS. His contributions to geometry were both broad and deep. The classification of Riemannian holonomy groups provided by his thesis has had a lasting impact on areas ranging from theoretical physics to algebraic<br />geometry. *Wik *AMS<br /></p><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span></div><p><b>1874 Johann Heinrich von Mädler</b> (29 May 1794, 14 Mar 1874 at age 79) German astronomer who (with Wilhelm Beer) published the most complete map of the Moon of the time, Mappa Selenographica, 4 vol. (1834-36). It was the first lunar map to be divided into quadrants, and it remained unsurpassed in its detail until J.F. Julius Schmidt's map of 1878. Mädler and Beer also published the first systematic chart of the surface features of the planet Mars (1830). *TIS<br /></p><hr /><p><b>1973 Howard Hathaway Aiken</b> (9 Mar 1900; 14 Mar 1973 at age 72) American mathematician who invented the Harvard Mark I, forerunner of the modern electronic digital computer. While a graduate student and instructor Harvard University, Aiken's research had led to a system of differential equations which could only be solved using numerical techniques, for which he began planning large computer. His idea was to use an adaptation of Hollerith's punched card machine. When eventually built, (1943) it weighed 35 tons, had 500 miles of wire and could compute to 23 significant figures. There were 72 storage registers and central units to perform multiplication and division. It was controlled by a sequence of instructions on punched paper tapes, and used punched cards to enter data and give output from the machine. *TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh66ageoIAbKqlHWmnRWHtL1x3jjE5nQEhJjx-kV9i0475lp_EP-pDnbQbThq106RMW5pJ8JBhvEy9P89epu0txDXNwlo4aJ-4x2yr4LormM0XQL67X-Z2D1dBFoilpfb2OuBrKRdxUA7y7l_cy7PoMR0CCeDUTMWdOWP4DBSPmwv_bajHRbSeapUMaEL0/s258/aiken%20and%20mark%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="258" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh66ageoIAbKqlHWmnRWHtL1x3jjE5nQEhJjx-kV9i0475lp_EP-pDnbQbThq106RMW5pJ8JBhvEy9P89epu0txDXNwlo4aJ-4x2yr4LormM0XQL67X-Z2D1dBFoilpfb2OuBrKRdxUA7y7l_cy7PoMR0CCeDUTMWdOWP4DBSPmwv_bajHRbSeapUMaEL0/s1600/aiken%20and%20mark%201.jpeg" width="258" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>2005 Akira Yoshizawa</b> (吉澤 章 Yoshizawa Akira; 14 March 1911 – 14 March 2005) (See birth in 1911 above)<br /></p><hr /><p><b>2018 Stephen W. Hawking</b> (8 Jan 1942, 14 Mar 2018 )English theoretical physicist who is one of the world's leaders in his field. His principal areas of research are theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University (formerly held by Sir Isaac Newton). Afflicted with Lou Gehrig's disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; ALS), Hawking is confined to a wheelchair and is unable to speak without the aid of a computer voice synthesizer. However, despite his challenges, he has utilized his intelligence, knowledge and abilities to make remarkable contributions to the field of cosmology (the study of the universe as a whole). *TIS Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death, and died on the birth anniversary of Albert Einstein.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbKvpz5T6Vh9524czR4KdZ9Z90QMvvktyPJy2OzBdWQ1PH3zRi0euhICZHyi7Y4AbYhLERb4B3Z0Qu_dhx75EIiHut1hbI7_kKC0POz9FptcgisRYdNSVRB__FhhnTHbXlwrnh30oyiC5Q724xDRu3OAvgECKw1iJWm4u2EIR-BGs5qJeqZjB585BYTVc/s318/hawking.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="318" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbKvpz5T6Vh9524czR4KdZ9Z90QMvvktyPJy2OzBdWQ1PH3zRi0euhICZHyi7Y4AbYhLERb4B3Z0Qu_dhx75EIiHut1hbI7_kKC0POz9FptcgisRYdNSVRB__FhhnTHbXlwrnh30oyiC5Q724xDRu3OAvgECKw1iJWm4u2EIR-BGs5qJeqZjB585BYTVc/s1600/hawking.jpeg" width="318" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-14273865572314731292024-03-13T05:00:00.004+00:002024-03-13T05:00:00.148+00:00On This Day in Math - March 13<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaLPzFsNGdJHRV0SkwO5evtJUzJnbMBzwSdm4YsqMDvuxtJACdKk3K5GiEtvIZsJq7_ZdERuP1ltVvswlfr_EnwgbQpaqVJYHrkbRwDHKOehMw8paKIakumgUeHMcP11qnXaMta8Nrrto/s1600/Rue_descartes.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaLPzFsNGdJHRV0SkwO5evtJUzJnbMBzwSdm4YsqMDvuxtJACdKk3K5GiEtvIZsJq7_ZdERuP1ltVvswlfr_EnwgbQpaqVJYHrkbRwDHKOehMw8paKIakumgUeHMcP11qnXaMta8Nrrto/s320/Rue_descartes.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Many Paris Street signs are named for Mathematicians *The n-Category Cafe</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p><br /><br />It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.<br />~Richard Feynman<br /><br />The 72nd day of the year; 72 is a <a href="http://pballew.net/arithme2.html#pronic" target="_blank">pronic</a>, heteromecic, or oblong number (and sometimes pronic is spelled promic). They are numbers that are the product of two consecutive integers<br />Oblong numbers have the property that if they are used in infinite nested radicals, they produce an integer, \(\sqrt(72+\sqrt(72+\sqrt(72+...))) = 9 \)</p><div><br /></div><div>Newton categorized 72 cubic curves in 1710.<br /><br />72 is the smallest number whose fifth power is the sum of five smaller fifth powers: \(19^5 + 43^5 + 46^5 + 47^5 + 67^5 = 72^5\).<div><br />The rule of 72 was once a commonly used approximation in banking and finance for the time it took an investment to double at r%. For a 5% investment, the approximate period would be 72/5 = 14.4 years. The rule applies to compound interest. The rule is based on an approximation of ln(2) = .693.. </div><div><br /></div><div>In typography, point sizes are measured in 1/72 of an inch, 72-point characters are 1 inch tall. <br /><br />72 is the smallest number that can be expressed as the difference of the squares of consecutive primes in two distinct ways: {19<sup>2</sup> - 17<sup>2</sup>} and {11<sup>2</sup> - 7<sup>2</sup>}</div><div><br /></div><div>The number of integers less than 72 and relatively prime to it is 24. The same is true for the numbers 78, 84, and 90. This is the smallest set of four numbers in arithmetic sequence with the same value of Euler's phi function or totient function. The next string of four begins at 216. It also has an arithmetic difference of 6, and the repeated totient is (wait for it....) 72<br /><br />More math facts for every year date<a href="https://mathdaypballew.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"> here</a>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span><br /><b><br /></b></div><div><b>1634 </b>First meeting of what would become the Academie Francaise in Paris at the house of Valentin Conrart.</div><div>The Académie had its origins in an informal literary group deriving from the salons held at the Hôtel de Rambouillet during the late 1620s and early 1630s. The group began meeting at Valentin Conrart's house, seeking informality. There were then nine members. Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister of France, made himself protector of the group, and in anticipation of the formal creation of the academy, new members were appointed in 1634. On 22 February 1635, at Richelieu's urging, King Louis XIII granted letters patent formally establishing the council.</div><div>On 22 February 1635, at Richelieu's urging, King Louis XIII granted letters patent formally establishing the council.</div><div> Cardinal Richelieu</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-MKm3TUsIt6c9jEWHs_GsUJGZ4z5faN-4uRQKyjmCXSj4x8At2s-RlQz4CkAUOQPKpNwltW7W1STeQdjDxqYvRK2w4OmwMMSqlkr7_UfTbrvCnXBBZ_b5bOFWZnT6HAk4HOf-oHhMO2pODIGq7FhmoWqiE2HoiL2Sr32IDfAlyA0WG75l4J31RpaPim0/s380/Cardinal_de_Richelieu.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-MKm3TUsIt6c9jEWHs_GsUJGZ4z5faN-4uRQKyjmCXSj4x8At2s-RlQz4CkAUOQPKpNwltW7W1STeQdjDxqYvRK2w4OmwMMSqlkr7_UfTbrvCnXBBZ_b5bOFWZnT6HAk4HOf-oHhMO2pODIGq7FhmoWqiE2HoiL2Sr32IDfAlyA0WG75l4J31RpaPim0/s320/Cardinal_de_Richelieu.jpg" width="215" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><hr /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzDdnTwpSMwx9E0Jh3blffIj3T8JWqp4_rrwJm9AfNsnxdU1dgzK6X8VhfDLMzIsPN2QpA4ZIklHxnotLJTqfBs5qr_7CokFS9Eiod7tMeZXAFpODReRQBeuJQ6JkizvQVEcr_GcE3gmc/s1600/harvard+statue+and+plague.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzDdnTwpSMwx9E0Jh3blffIj3T8JWqp4_rrwJm9AfNsnxdU1dgzK6X8VhfDLMzIsPN2QpA4ZIklHxnotLJTqfBs5qr_7CokFS9Eiod7tMeZXAFpODReRQBeuJQ6JkizvQVEcr_GcE3gmc/s320/harvard+statue+and+plague.jpg" /></a><br /></div><b>1639</b> Harvard University named after its London born clergyman founder John Harvard. Harvard was founded in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, making it the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Initially called "New College" or "the college at New Towne", the institution was renamed Harvard College on March 13, 1639. It was named after John Harvard, a young English clergyman from Southwark, London, an alumnus of the University of Cambridge (after which Cambridge, Massachusetts is named), who bequeathed the College his library of four hundred books and £779 pounds sterling, which was half of his estate. *Wik<br /><br /><br /><br /><hr />1641 Vincenzo Renieri wrote to Galileo describing certain experiments on falling bodies, including dropping weights from the Tower in Pisa. In his trial a lead weight and a wooden one, of equal sizes, were dropped but in his trial they arrived three cubits apart. He asked Galileo if he had an explanation. At this time Galileo was already old and blind, and his assistant was Viviani. “Thus Vincenzo Viviani’s account of the results of Galileo’s experiments that involved dropping different weights from the top of the bell tower of Pisa seems to be completely unfounded.” <br /><hr /><b>1781</b> Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus at 10:30 PM.(The first planet discovered by a telescope) During his search for double stars Herschel noticed an object appearing as a nonstellar disk. Herschel originally thought it was a comet or a star. He made many more observations of it, and afterwards Russian Academician Anders Lexell computed the orbit and found it to be probably planetary. Herschel determined in agreement that it must be a planet beyond the orbit of Saturn. He called the new planet the 'Georgian star' (Georgium sidus) after King George III, which also brought him favor; the name didn't stick, however. In France, where reference to the British king was to be avoided if possible, the planet was known as 'Herschel' until the name 'Uranus' was universally adopted. </div><div>It is the only one of the eight planets whose English name derives from a figure of Greek mythology.</div><div>In 1789, Herschel discovered a new moon of Saturn: Mimas, only 250 miles (400 km) in diameter.</div><div>*Wik</div><div>William and Caroline Herschel polishing a telescope lens (probably a mirror); 1896 lithograph</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjao8vcwEFt4g3b89AhE8Dh9bnBplUuJkK0k8n7rJopY5ARy-fV4WeOzgb9FohYuE79WX1qIVQ1O21Iw1WiO8I_EB9IAA5PAIFdOu48QGveGmdBXVYh66VfKKl836Ln1rE7vmDxOfC396qqMOMzVs5zugQEkkq95SB0L4MjydEufVvGU6oAZquXVw0Dfjg/s479/Sir_William_Herschel_and_Caroline_Herschel..jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjao8vcwEFt4g3b89AhE8Dh9bnBplUuJkK0k8n7rJopY5ARy-fV4WeOzgb9FohYuE79WX1qIVQ1O21Iw1WiO8I_EB9IAA5PAIFdOu48QGveGmdBXVYh66VfKKl836Ln1rE7vmDxOfC396qqMOMzVs5zugQEkkq95SB0L4MjydEufVvGU6oAZquXVw0Dfjg/s320/Sir_William_Herschel_and_Caroline_Herschel..jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmHNi1GuZBm8xC0N1VPcRPjJ_QFla6Cyrdg4DN1gnRADJxqdwUbidP8-Eu0c_IyX_M969Cch6CmghCvBTIHzPKJ8Kt-xGsYMMG4g1y6m70Y2iDhb-ROVBp6lDAnYDngqqFmFFEp1ZXKxrwLUALPHuKman7RJ4vp2O4SkjAbIpFtcSKLydSlF2R5Ajztnc/s404/William_Herschel01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmHNi1GuZBm8xC0N1VPcRPjJ_QFla6Cyrdg4DN1gnRADJxqdwUbidP8-Eu0c_IyX_M969Cch6CmghCvBTIHzPKJ8Kt-xGsYMMG4g1y6m70Y2iDhb-ROVBp6lDAnYDngqqFmFFEp1ZXKxrwLUALPHuKman7RJ4vp2O4SkjAbIpFtcSKLydSlF2R5Ajztnc/s320/William_Herschel01.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div><div>During<b> 183</b>9, William Robert Grove developed a novel form of electric cell, the Grove cell, which used zinc and platinum electrodes exposed to two acids and separated by a porous ceramic pot. Grove announced the latter development to the Académie des Sciences in Paris in 1839. In 1840 Grove invented one of the first incandescent electric lights, which was later perfected by Thomas Edison.</div><div><br /></div><div>Later that year, he gave another account of his development at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Birmingham, where it aroused the interest of Michael Faraday. On Faraday's invitation Grove presented his discoveries at the prestigious Royal Institution Friday Discourse on 13 March 1840</div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieWq-qmU8yo3ltvhmfYQ2svD6h0KGp_cqI8oGFB9CHyFrk3ZukWFRoCDyyz3bU-j_2Ait17qb9G5KPJwF9KlcMdTOPZ1Mv26zCBO3mCIacdOBdvDCcqvQoNoGkdE9FeWS3dqCfy5KzciC0NVnUNo_dazKVBY6TjkwohZ0UGewhHAyT7XEgFgVX-5SuhEg/s392/1839_William_Grove_Fuel_Cell.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="344" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieWq-qmU8yo3ltvhmfYQ2svD6h0KGp_cqI8oGFB9CHyFrk3ZukWFRoCDyyz3bU-j_2Ait17qb9G5KPJwF9KlcMdTOPZ1Mv26zCBO3mCIacdOBdvDCcqvQoNoGkdE9FeWS3dqCfy5KzciC0NVnUNo_dazKVBY6TjkwohZ0UGewhHAyT7XEgFgVX-5SuhEg/s320/1839_William_Grove_Fuel_Cell.jpg" width="281" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGAEfFO97pPuxuB5sGMuREAOjoGGe85HWNebOKzRcLqL_yMkhfockQhr2udRl0r7e5xx2ZJEChN2kYggXc1TlxP39rDRpUB9Q7VFcYGFzjmVkaY7hlonSO-kTAT8ofBfc_0_63FQZlt3s/s1600/Pigs+in+Clover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGAEfFO97pPuxuB5sGMuREAOjoGGe85HWNebOKzRcLqL_yMkhfockQhr2udRl0r7e5xx2ZJEChN2kYggXc1TlxP39rDRpUB9Q7VFcYGFzjmVkaY7hlonSO-kTAT8ofBfc_0_63FQZlt3s/s320/Pigs+in+Clover.jpg" /></a></div><b>1889</b> New York Tribune carries report of Senate sidelined by new game, Pigs in Clover, invented by Charles Martin Crandall. :<br /><blockquote>Senator William M. Evarts purchased one from a street fakir in order to get rid of him. He took the puzzle home and worked it for hours. The following morning he brought it with him into senate chambers where Senator George Graham Vest stopped by Evarts' desk, borrowed the puzzle and took it to a cloak room. Soon thereafter he was joined by Senators James L. Pugh, James B. Eustis, Edward C. Walthall and John E. Kenna. A page was sent out to buy five of the puzzles and upon his return, the group engaged in a "pig driving contest". About 30 minutes later, Senator Vest announced his accomplishment of driving the last pig in the pen. A few days later a political cartoon in the March 17, 1889 issue of the New York World lampooned President Benjamin Harrison's advisors and cabinet members showing the group sitting around playing the game. The caption read "Will Mr. Harrison be able to get all these hungry pigs in the official pen?" </blockquote>*Antique Toy Collectors of America *Wik<br /><hr />1925 The Butler Act, a law in Tennessee prohibiting the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution passed the state senate on March 13, and was signed into law by Governor Austin Peay (for whom the university in Clarksville, Tennessee is named) on March 21. The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law:<br /><blockquote>That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the Story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.</blockquote>It would remain the law in Tennessee until repealed on September 1, 1967. *Wik</div><div>This led to the famous Scope's Monkey Trial. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi23sCysSIIcRO34FXhYqG1wmyzKcClz56yX6my1l_rrdZfIRIJR3G5mOa4Z86BuBImhHVzxChCz4w2oDYDj4b1r4Yca_Ranczxe8vnm_E088RO9rR5Zq6plJlsmGi5sKJJnTr7KtM-2_GsT735FU-H5o_HuO6fiSHqei1Nw5kx454PeShNeFsBhZQy07g/s234/John_t_scopes.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="234" data-original-width="180" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi23sCysSIIcRO34FXhYqG1wmyzKcClz56yX6my1l_rrdZfIRIJR3G5mOa4Z86BuBImhHVzxChCz4w2oDYDj4b1r4Yca_Ranczxe8vnm_E088RO9rR5Zq6plJlsmGi5sKJJnTr7KtM-2_GsT735FU-H5o_HuO6fiSHqei1Nw5kx454PeShNeFsBhZQy07g/s1600/John_t_scopes.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John T Scopes<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><hr /><b>1926</b> Erwin Schrodinger's "Quantisierung als Eigenwertproblem ," the first of six remarkable papers laying out his wave formulation of quantum mechanics, was published in Annalen der PHysik *Robert McNess@mcnees<br /><hr /><h>In <b>1930</b>, the discovery of a ninth planet was announced by Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory. It is only one-tenth as large as Earth and four thousand million miles away. The planet was named Pluto on 24 May 1930.*TIS The discovery made headlines across the globe. The Lowell Observatory, which had the right to name the new object, received over 1,000 suggestions from all over the world, ranging from Atlas to Zymal.<br />The name Pluto was proposed by Venetia Burney (1918–2009), an eleven-year-old schoolgirl in Oxford, England. Venetia was interested in classical mythology as well as astronomy, and considered the name, a name for the god of the underworld, appropriate for such a presumably dark and cold world. She suggested it in a conversation with her grandfather Falconer Madan, a former librarian at the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library. Madan passed the name to Professor Herbert Hall Turner, who then cabled it to colleagues in the United States.*Wik<br /></h><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdwliS6zS1Fh2Q6ePFXymwGPQNMuJfHO4zjvvAt8yvscxcnLj3Z5KZqE3KMFnmQ62vewv745cwgpnFsddIElp4Musmx4mtgtPr0GJZNAg1rCWzRLFZGgZA8VGfmV6HaC4EnvYEBFVZ2ek/s1600/Pluto+headline+NY+Times.jpe" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdwliS6zS1Fh2Q6ePFXymwGPQNMuJfHO4zjvvAt8yvscxcnLj3Z5KZqE3KMFnmQ62vewv745cwgpnFsddIElp4Musmx4mtgtPr0GJZNAg1rCWzRLFZGgZA8VGfmV6HaC4EnvYEBFVZ2ek/s400/Pluto+headline+NY+Times.jpe" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><hr /><div><b>1969</b> Apollo 9 returns to Earth after completing tests on the lunar module to be used in Apollo 11 landing on the moon. Having completed all their primary objectives successfully, the crew returned to Earth on 13 March, splashing down east of the Bahamas in the Atlantic Ocean. The mission paved the way for Apollo 10 in May 1969, which would send a crew to lunar orbit for a final landing rehearsal ahead of Apollo 11. The mission had began on March 3. </div><hr /><div><b>1970</b> Digital Equipment Corp introduces PDP-11 minicomputer. The PDP-11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of all models were sold, making it one of DEC's most successful product lines. The PDP-11 is considered by some experts to be the most popular minicomputer. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-COr2fbuXveDEnYK50Jd99o2s1wZlATIjkBoXv1_o6zqyH_hjxXXT-HeaFkOayvEWSP1kE9VkXPVHNmvYR5Y2FRWap8zXEESfS4JSHgakF0AMI0pQmGvntdBldzaNeN8bfngWtpLxeBPwaLK_15zL6VqzJvkd6YGs828zKpH1vBM3FdTgmGaASNm7/s293/Pdp-11-40.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="220" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-COr2fbuXveDEnYK50Jd99o2s1wZlATIjkBoXv1_o6zqyH_hjxXXT-HeaFkOayvEWSP1kE9VkXPVHNmvYR5Y2FRWap8zXEESfS4JSHgakF0AMI0pQmGvntdBldzaNeN8bfngWtpLxeBPwaLK_15zL6VqzJvkd6YGs828zKpH1vBM3FdTgmGaASNm7/s1600/Pdp-11-40.jpg" width="220" /></a>*</td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">PDP-11 Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><hr /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOOwNjWekNSLGzxUVf5Hes6ReTfQ4SuMVoK3zbR7JUb6EN4LWNDaAHJZwGG7fVi_LnIQaHKpWbX3pLgWLjvp7IX_l5oqwwT6LbK8H6AE6iw6t5DdxcHAdCkG3nPlddxnU8ghm5pRX_jI/s1600/perihelion_comet_halley.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOOwNjWekNSLGzxUVf5Hes6ReTfQ4SuMVoK3zbR7JUb6EN4LWNDaAHJZwGG7fVi_LnIQaHKpWbX3pLgWLjvp7IX_l5oqwwT6LbK8H6AE6iw6t5DdxcHAdCkG3nPlddxnU8ghm5pRX_jI/s200/perihelion_comet_halley.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Halley's Comet, March 8, 1986</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>1986 Halley’s comet returns, as he predicted in 1682. The comet last reached perihelion on 9 February 1986, and will next reach it again on 28 July 2061 *Wik Halley's prediction that it would return in 1758 was incorrect, and observations and calculations led to a another prediction and perihelion to occur on April 13, 1759, but appeared a month early on March 13. It was sighted on the year he predicted 25 December, when it was observed by German farmer, and armature astronomer, Johan Palitsch. *HT to @RMathematicus<br /><br /><hr />1986 Microsoft Goes Public Ten years after the company's founding, Microsoft Corporation stock goes public at \($21\) per share. *CHM Allowing for stock splits and reinvestment of dividends, each \($21\) share then would be worth \($9239 \)today (<i>price may be somewhat dated</i>). (I know, you thought computers were just a fad, too.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFZLbaGfOPd5rOVrpe0DkO8zP8RAD3011xa3OySSx9iqnwU5nEN8wKT0f7WhfRyE25JIqTcHaicxTAVuw2YdV8gSCYFbP5ZT_XPOhhO77b57-5kMy1R8GBP-Qmw8DG5NqBBUy87qAjsFngWkoyo3GLgsdaqCPLwa8sGNgCYrfZrin5i07gsabjMTxlacE/s750/gates%20march-13-fortune.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFZLbaGfOPd5rOVrpe0DkO8zP8RAD3011xa3OySSx9iqnwU5nEN8wKT0f7WhfRyE25JIqTcHaicxTAVuw2YdV8gSCYFbP5ZT_XPOhhO77b57-5kMy1R8GBP-Qmw8DG5NqBBUy87qAjsFngWkoyo3GLgsdaqCPLwa8sGNgCYrfZrin5i07gsabjMTxlacE/s320/gates%20march-13-fortune.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1997 </b>Phoenix lights seen at night over Phoenix, Arizona by hundreds of people, and by millions on television. Now a hotly debated controversy.The Phoenix Lights (sometimes called the "Lights Over Phoenix") were a series of widely sighted unidentified flying objects observed in the skies over the southwestern states of Arizona and Nevada on March 13, 1997.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ZpWBMzxkRiiBiZ8K_22udCt699WIMOGJzE9975YRfP3UCSAJpgMfHGxLt920i95zss1UUgK9ktvAcuPcEV4onarRanMfSfqNcXPGztRB1sjMkZq1iyQtG8Swd5bdDv4f82BmJNWqzhuMcVZYJTqm0ZdzYOYjsFHkloGw7T3hz5sgHwXoAZzUzf3R/s225/PhoenixLights1997model.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="225" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ZpWBMzxkRiiBiZ8K_22udCt699WIMOGJzE9975YRfP3UCSAJpgMfHGxLt920i95zss1UUgK9ktvAcuPcEV4onarRanMfSfqNcXPGztRB1sjMkZq1iyQtG8Swd5bdDv4f82BmJNWqzhuMcVZYJTqm0ZdzYOYjsFHkloGw7T3hz5sgHwXoAZzUzf3R/s1600/PhoenixLights1997model.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>Lights of varying descriptions were seen by thousands of people between 7:30 pm and 10:30 pm MST, in a space of about 300 miles (480 km), from the Nevada line, through Phoenix, to the edge of Tucson. Some witnesses described seeing what appeared to be a huge carpenter's square-shaped UFO containing five spherical lights. There were two distinct events involved in the incident: a triangular formation of lights seen to pass over the state, and a series of stationary lights seen in the Phoenix area. Both sightings were due to aircraft participating in Operation Snowbird, a pilot training program of the Air National Guard based in Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. *Wik </div><div>====================================================================</div><div><b>2003</b> The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old footprints of an upright-walking human have been found in Italy. </div><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit3NDpdfJun0Ld6AqPOhUTVu9orjNThZuLTokfQYiehbLGGa_56kkKk1j7F5kV_yCLSsMvXJYDakxXvVmgTLMTeDG3-zIGS0HakLwx2m3x_mtLKaSjAXuvAaTWGFYsG31hchwTo0lHZUziup1j8Lc_btHGbn-XkgcCxDT2y_Y5Tu-8HS0B-Tsf7CEj/s203/foot_print_nature_a203.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="152" data-original-width="203" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit3NDpdfJun0Ld6AqPOhUTVu9orjNThZuLTokfQYiehbLGGa_56kkKk1j7F5kV_yCLSsMvXJYDakxXvVmgTLMTeDG3-zIGS0HakLwx2m3x_mtLKaSjAXuvAaTWGFYsG31hchwTo0lHZUziup1j8Lc_btHGbn-XkgcCxDT2y_Y5Tu-8HS0B-Tsf7CEj/s1600/foot_print_nature_a203.jpg" width="203" /></a></div>"Italian scientists, who identified three separate fossilised trackways, say the people that made them walked on two feet using their hands only to steady themselves on a difficult descent.</div><div>"They're the oldest footprints to be found of the genus Homo, the group that we belong to," the researchers told the BBC.</div><div>Commentators say the prints were probably made by Homo heidelbergensis, a forerunner of Neanderthals, that dominated Europe at this time." *BBCNews</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><b>1585 </b>Federico Cesi (13 Mar 1585 OR 26 Feb (sources differ, but Thony Christie did some research to suggest the Feb date is the correct one); 1 Aug 1630 at age 45) Italian scientist who founded the Accademia dei Lincei (1603, Academy of Linceans or Lynxes), often cited as the first modern scientific society, and of which Galileo was the sixth member (1611). Cesi first announced the word telescope for Galileo's instrument. At an early age, while being privately educated, Cesi became interested in natural history and that believed it should be studied directly, not philosophically. The name of the Academy, which he founded at age 18, was taken from Lynceus of Greek mythology, the animal Lynx with sharp sight. He devoted the rest of his life to recording, illustrating and an early classification of nature, especially botany. The Academy was dissolved when its funding by Cesi ceased upon his sudden death(at age 45). *TIS It was revived in its currently well known form of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, by the Vatican, Pope Pius IX in 1847.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI4gUkJ7aCJbUfH2HcetAQVKqaaqsAWo8_dWRThfRl8_zjF921jroZmc3R8-atvp1hX_PSOYjSFMYnkdj9g795v6dszn1f3cy08Gi6RcWWTiSAgaITBX8sTDQIyrHUNx-HjSEzwOY3C62pFne0J9nRx75bYpfyX56LJfI6KhAUP1mQM3vQJRa0Arg5hxc/s130/cesi%20lynx%20soc.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="130" data-original-width="92" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI4gUkJ7aCJbUfH2HcetAQVKqaaqsAWo8_dWRThfRl8_zjF921jroZmc3R8-atvp1hX_PSOYjSFMYnkdj9g795v6dszn1f3cy08Gi6RcWWTiSAgaITBX8sTDQIyrHUNx-HjSEzwOY3C62pFne0J9nRx75bYpfyX56LJfI6KhAUP1mQM3vQJRa0Arg5hxc/w283-h400/cesi%20lynx%20soc.jpeg" width="283" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3kUbYHj9E7rdEMX2Tt0rtdo44NCCACSc_o-uGeTKizyF-VbgUfzzAY4OTydjWdm8zvzl4L0YlMzbtyEsUNvdws1gCJcO6xZC7ISscXfSZNQy1Ow7H1JcFSe7XpjJyqpoD4CByeX0Ai2fC-2y3Guxi6jtPuZ47JLZSTYOAL0oPOpzVF3EyWMynHwBod_E/s375/Federico_Angelo%20Cesi.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="245" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3kUbYHj9E7rdEMX2Tt0rtdo44NCCACSc_o-uGeTKizyF-VbgUfzzAY4OTydjWdm8zvzl4L0YlMzbtyEsUNvdws1gCJcO6xZC7ISscXfSZNQy1Ow7H1JcFSe7XpjJyqpoD4CByeX0Ai2fC-2y3Guxi6jtPuZ47JLZSTYOAL0oPOpzVF3EyWMynHwBod_E/w261-h400/Federico_Angelo%20Cesi.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><br /><hr />1733 Joseph Priestley (13 Mar 1733, 6 Feb 1804) English chemist, clergyman and political theorist who discovered the element oxygen. His early scientific interest was electricity, but he is remembered for his later work in chemistry, especially gases. He investigated the "fixed air" (carbon dioxide) found in a layer above the liquid in beer brewery fermentation vats. Although known by different names at the time, he also discovered sulphur dioxide, ammonia, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and silicon fluoride. Priestley is remembered for his invention of a way of making soda-water (1772), the pneumatic trough, and recognizing that green plants in light released oxygen. His political opinions and support of the French Revolution, were unpopular. After his home and laboratory were set afire (1791), he sailed for America, arriving at New York on 4 Jun 1794 *TIS<br />The book below gives a wonderful history of scientific cooperation in this period. "This 18th century group of science fans and practitioners centred around Charles Darwin’s maternal and paternal grandfathers, Josiah Wedgwood and Erasmus Darwin, met monthly at full moon to facilitate the members journey home in the dark. Apart from Priestley, Darwin and Wedgwood notable other members, some corresponding, were Boulton and Watt of steam engine fame, Benjamin Franklin, James Hutton, Joseph Banks, William Herschel and a host of other scientific worthies." *Thony Christie, <a href="https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/the-lunatic-who-invented-fizzy-pop/">The lunatic who invented fizzy pop</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgej0Tpb5SFvGzd89PE9PXUUimXU8FBzCSSAvXFe96eGl9WOLvt37EtUg6m1YohuC5xj2kXUYlQWqSSIne70LmfU-CVkZuSHlF5UPRGP7pBoZkIrQkTJquotguimhYDNmHpuhzUv7JVHpiVbLyCuNHW0gjB-Kkzkxuv8o86N66ipsroPSSgr49aynRWQFI/s350/The%20Lunar%20Men%20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="223" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgej0Tpb5SFvGzd89PE9PXUUimXU8FBzCSSAvXFe96eGl9WOLvt37EtUg6m1YohuC5xj2kXUYlQWqSSIne70LmfU-CVkZuSHlF5UPRGP7pBoZkIrQkTJquotguimhYDNmHpuhzUv7JVHpiVbLyCuNHW0gjB-Kkzkxuv8o86N66ipsroPSSgr49aynRWQFI/s320/The%20Lunar%20Men%20.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><br /><hr />1842 Joseph Valentin Boussinesq (13 March 1842 – 19 February 1929) was a French mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to the theory of hydrodynamics, vibration, light, and heat.<br />In 1897 he published Théorie de l' écoulement tourbillonnant et tumultueux des liquides, a work that greatly contributed to the study of turbulence and hydrodynamics.*Wik<br /><hr />1855 Percival Lowell (13 Mar 1855, 12 Nov 1916) American astronomer who predicted the existence of the planet Pluto and initiated the search that ended in its discovery. Lowell was also passionately committed to finding proof of intelligent life on Mars. In 1894, he founded the Lowell Observatory, atop Mars Hill, at Flagstaff as Arizona's first astronomical observatory. Studying Mars, Lowell drew in intricate detail, the network of several hundred fine, straight lines and their intersection in a number of "oases." Lowell concluded that the bright areas were deserts and the dark ones were patches of vegetation. He believed further, that water from the melting polar cap flowed down the canals toward the equatorial region to revive the vegetation. *TIS</div><div>The image of Mars below may seem incredibly clear for a telescope photo. The oddity is that the images are photographs of a Martian globe, rather than the planet itself, a globe that was evidently made by Lowell or the Observatory staff, depicting a Mars covered with canals.</div><div>Percival built an observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, solely for the purpose of observing Mars. He equipped it with the best of telescopes, began a regular observing program, and was soon convinced that the canals were real, and that Martians had built them long ago to bring water from the polar ice caps to a dying planet. He published three books on Mars between 1895 and 1908. *Linda Hall Org</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj51VaKQeBwN3x0YUJegmT7p7Nz48hwmKctgowMklMh-Lu-HNAtUC2MgpvKLrlOPTFVtATlINUZl2gBFYdWu4jKLpJyWG8IcLfTSRtVoTAlBZDKlTuPo44FRrd6uQSZHeSKyvFbgefbGkORUYbaVAtUWedmkZEqyAiJFFX-XFs1-9XGJfnhlvsRLl86kc/s800/lowell%20mars%20canal%20globe.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj51VaKQeBwN3x0YUJegmT7p7Nz48hwmKctgowMklMh-Lu-HNAtUC2MgpvKLrlOPTFVtATlINUZl2gBFYdWu4jKLpJyWG8IcLfTSRtVoTAlBZDKlTuPo44FRrd6uQSZHeSKyvFbgefbGkORUYbaVAtUWedmkZEqyAiJFFX-XFs1-9XGJfnhlvsRLl86kc/s320/lowell%20mars%20canal%20globe.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2tlEyWbHt3a00ucbRpmYdXN4o6qHkKeXdhVTdHGBciAobZllvGJ3RiIx0YT1iDtlT6CMjx3w2xemu_GRZBLmJNNGM5f-hJHzP_G_mBCN8P1nWulIvOilmFRbf_z8CRAE-EqY314mrKIArc_EmzWlv7C1KZ4wjITIe6EqCEcH168Zhw3o4XbR2CxHXL2s/s440/Lowell_Observatory%20Clark_telescope.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2tlEyWbHt3a00ucbRpmYdXN4o6qHkKeXdhVTdHGBciAobZllvGJ3RiIx0YT1iDtlT6CMjx3w2xemu_GRZBLmJNNGM5f-hJHzP_G_mBCN8P1nWulIvOilmFRbf_z8CRAE-EqY314mrKIArc_EmzWlv7C1KZ4wjITIe6EqCEcH168Zhw3o4XbR2CxHXL2s/s320/Lowell_Observatory%20Clark_telescope.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1866 Dayton Clarence Miller (13 Mar 1866, 22 Feb 1941 at age 74)American physicist. Author of The Science of Musical Sounds (1916). Miller's collection of nearly 1,650 flutes and other instruments, and other materials mostly related to the flute, is now at the Library of Congress. To provide a mechanical means of recording sound waves photographically, he invented the phonodeik (1908).( The Phonodeik converts sound waves into visual images. The name, from "to show sound" was suggested by Edward W. Morley. Before electronic oscilloscopes, this device was used for analyzing sounds waves. The Phonodeik can be modified to project sound waves on a screen for public demonstration.*Wik) He became expert in architectural acoustics. During WW I, he was consulted concerning using his photodeik to help locate enemy guns. Miller spent considerable research effort on repeating the Michelson and Morley experiment, proposed by Maxwell, to detect a stationary aether. He spent some time working with Morley (1902-4), then more time at Mt. Wilson, recording results favoring the presence of the aether.*TIS</div><div>Based on an error analysis, Miller's critics argued that he overestimated the precision of his results, and that his measurements were actually perfectly consistent with a fringe difference of zero—the null result that every other experiment was recording. However, Miller continued to defend his results, claiming that the probable reason for the so-called null results were that they were not being done at high locations (such as mountain tops), where the ether wind (drift) was supposedly much higher due to less ether drag. During his trials, however, Miller developed the most sensitive interferometer in the world at that time.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuNhkii5yL22-OPiAh0vgrXoDzyBhR7NRnlbO7nLKAv-YYFTxoeYIVg-782hNUqcOX-KfJfV-iu5IkMqG57eNk6Q0Z0XzK4onF-TvcK21nwT_0v-8Qn5SOQOG1O6fqhqyww2zFqNHaaNqawVwqMawXxnmyZ_RBaphw6M35vhyhAxc9Ww0Rp76pbmgXxjg/s435/Dayton_Miller_1921.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuNhkii5yL22-OPiAh0vgrXoDzyBhR7NRnlbO7nLKAv-YYFTxoeYIVg-782hNUqcOX-KfJfV-iu5IkMqG57eNk6Q0Z0XzK4onF-TvcK21nwT_0v-8Qn5SOQOG1O6fqhqyww2zFqNHaaNqawVwqMawXxnmyZ_RBaphw6M35vhyhAxc9Ww0Rp76pbmgXxjg/s320/Dayton_Miller_1921.jpg" width="243" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr />1899 John Hasbrouck Van Vleck (13 Mar 1899, 27 Oct 1980) was an American physicist and mathematician who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1977 with Philip W. Anderson and Sir Nevill F. Mott. The prize honoured Van Vleck's contributions to the understanding of the behaviour of electrons in magnetic, noncrystalline solid materials. In about 1930, he introduced the contribution of the second-order Zeeman effect into the theory of the paramagnetic susceptibility for the ions of the elements samarium and europium, thus bringing calculations into agreement with experimental results. Hans Bethe's theoretical work (c.1929), was extended by Van Vleck to develop the ligand, or crystal, field theory of molecular bonding. He also studied the theory for the nature of the chemical bond, especially as related to its magnetic properties, and contributed to theory of the spectra of free molecules.*TIS</div><div>Van Vleck (left) receives the Lorentz Medal from Hendrik Brugt Gerhard Casimir at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil4nsZdsARUKqu97XYIL2QsPbx6TYZoZe7MxS92Kx2CyGLPC63iaofiegB77e0fO8yMZljgS2Z85Rzjrwu0zrjkCei_-B8abITDzDYlnDnAj6CCzlGIvMuLLS_bMZZ4LR5_McAbQrKP_V8WJc0BUMsNFNjFyC_MscGFPC-hVS19zASoAHcIX-VDzVP-3o/s330/JH_van_Vleck_1974.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="330" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil4nsZdsARUKqu97XYIL2QsPbx6TYZoZe7MxS92Kx2CyGLPC63iaofiegB77e0fO8yMZljgS2Z85Rzjrwu0zrjkCei_-B8abITDzDYlnDnAj6CCzlGIvMuLLS_bMZZ4LR5_McAbQrKP_V8WJc0BUMsNFNjFyC_MscGFPC-hVS19zASoAHcIX-VDzVP-3o/s320/JH_van_Vleck_1974.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr />1925 John Torrence Tate Jr. (March 13, 1925, ) is an American mathematician, distinguished for many fundamental contributions in algebraic number theory, arithmetic geometry and related areas in algebraic geometry. Tate has been described as "one of the seminal mathematicians for the past half-century" by William Beckner, Chairman of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Texas.*Wik</div><div>In 2010 the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, of which he was a member,[14] awarded him the Abel Prize, citing "his vast and lasting impact on the theory of numbers". According to a release by the Abel Prize committee, "Many of the major lines of research in algebraic number theory and arithmetic geometry are only possible because of the incisive contributions and illuminating insights of John Tate. He has truly left a conspicuous imprint on modern mathematics."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizYX6iaJQM75632QalNDkG5kXkDZvtel6MbvbfF0dYE_DTyNZimgotiU1Mwp_jlsOzLDsdkg2EjhH-8Zm4v7JwPEVlYDzC4VbAxC7irX3Y1KynmunlpGbwOIkxkO11msFC-Cx9MwcRfChiFEYFGfY9yFnN6-yfoW678NEYeBIJBTiqwwEMSWVqkfYtEuo/s330/John_Tate.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="222" data-original-width="330" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizYX6iaJQM75632QalNDkG5kXkDZvtel6MbvbfF0dYE_DTyNZimgotiU1Mwp_jlsOzLDsdkg2EjhH-8Zm4v7JwPEVlYDzC4VbAxC7irX3Y1KynmunlpGbwOIkxkO11msFC-Cx9MwcRfChiFEYFGfY9yFnN6-yfoW678NEYeBIJBTiqwwEMSWVqkfYtEuo/s320/John_Tate.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1928 Paulo Ribenboim (March 13, 1928, )is a mathematician who specializes in number theory. Ribenboim was born in Recife, Brazil, and has lived in Canada since 1962.He has authored 13 books and 120 articles. Ribenboim has been a professor of mathematics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and is now a professor emeritus.*Wik<br /><hr style="height: 5px;" /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span></div>1833 Daniel Friedrich Hecht (8 July 1777 in Sosa – 13 March 1833 in Saxony) was a German mathematician. He was a mine manager, then a teacher and finally a professor of mathematics. He is most notable for writing high school textbooks on maths and geometry. *Wik<br /><hr />1884 Siegfried Heinrich Aronhold (16 July 1819 Angerburg, East Prussia – 13 March 1884, Berlin, Germany) was a German mathematician who worked on invariant theory and introduced the symbolic method.*Wik<br /><hr />1933 Robert Thorburn Ayton Innes (10 Nov 1861; 13 Mar 1933) was a Scottish astronomer who discovered Proxima Centauri (1915), the closest star to earth after the Sun. Invited by David Gill to the Cape Observatory, South Africa (1894), he became a successful binary star observer with the 7-inch refractor (1628 discoveries). His most famous discovery, Proxima Centauri is a faint star near the binary star Alpha Centauri, which is so far south it is<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRD1GU-qjbgwh8tC0AafZHC-Elhkxf-yX0P7chxDr8dUJacTOYzxO8lArBuGcQ7saeMR45BpgavBbcG1lpKvk6vHO7lfKUClzbMNMel8Wss1xCNzzN67wnshfuILe_gTy-U-sVtHAE_Y/s1600/Comet_1910_A1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRD1GU-qjbgwh8tC0AafZHC-Elhkxf-yX0P7chxDr8dUJacTOYzxO8lArBuGcQ7saeMR45BpgavBbcG1lpKvk6vHO7lfKUClzbMNMel8Wss1xCNzzN67wnshfuILe_gTy-U-sVtHAE_Y/s320/Comet_1910_A1.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Lowell Observatory</td></tr></tbody></table>not visible from most of the northern hemisphere. He was also one of the first to see the Daylight Comet of 1910, though this comet was found independently by so many people in the Southern Hemisphere that no single "original" discoverer could be named. Innes recorded it on 17 Jan 1910. *TIS<br /><br /><br /><br /><hr /><br /><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-53996500158165723272024-03-12T05:30:00.001+00:002024-03-12T05:30:00.126+00:00Math and Politics, A drama in three acts<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Politics and math</span></p><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I received a nice e-mail from Dan MacKinnon, a Canadian math/computer teacher (who writes a </span><a href="http://www.mathrecreation.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">nice recreational math blog</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">) after my <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_120851556">blog about Karl Marx and Mathematics. </a></span><br /><a href="http://pballew.blogspot.com/2011/01/mathematics-of-karl-marx.html"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He wrote:</span></a><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I enjoyed your short post on Karl Marx's mathematics.</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I first heard about Marx's mathematical work when I was a student at Dalhousie University in Halifax. While I was there, I heard a story that that back in 1970 a prof there was pushed out by the admin because he was using Marx's stuff as the basis for a course he was teaching on Real Analysis. I wish I knew the whole story - what made it more interesting was that the prof was F.W. Lawvere (pretty famous Category Theorist) and he was pushed out during the October Crisis (a terrorist incident in Montreal, 1970), which was used as a pretext to get rid of a number of radicals and undesirables in a lot of Canadian institutions. [</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">MY INSERT- I</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"> have found </span><a href="http://www.ask.com/wiki/F._W._Lawvere#Work"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">online </span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">that “Dalhousie University in 1969 set up a group of 15 Killam-supported researchers with Lawvere at the head; but in 1971 it terminated the group. Lawvere was controversial for his political opinions, for example, his opposition to the 1970 use of the</span><a href="http://www.ask.com/wiki/War_Measures_Act?qsrc=3044"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="color: #0055cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">War Measures Act</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">, and for teaching the history of mathematics without permission. (?</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">boy they could lock me up any day</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">?) But in 1995 Dalhousie hosted the celebration of 50 years of category theory with Lawvere and Saunders Mac Lane present.” Not sure how long it took to be “pushed out”.]</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">In connection with this this story, I was told that politics and mathematics go together surprisingly often. In the early days of Category Theory, this area of mathematics was perceived as "leftist" - even Saunders Mac Lane's famous book, "Categories for the Working Mathematician" used "working" with a slightly political nuance. I was also told that while category theorists were perceived as progressives, set-theorists were perceived as reactionaries. I have no idea whether or not these supposed political distinctions among mathematicians is true today, or if they were ever true.</span><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">I got a note from Dan McKinnon after I had written this commenting on another reader, Kevin's, comment that, "</span></span><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline;"> I think the early term was "general abstract nonsense" which may still apply in my limited understanding." Prof. McKinnon's response was, " ..</span>my understanding is that many Category Theorists don't mind the term "abstract nonsense" and have appropriated it somewhat. While at the chalkboard and carrying out some "routine" diagram pasting they'll say "and now by the usual abstract nonsense we get the result..."</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Mathematicians getting in trouble because of their political/religious views is not a new idea... as I found in this old cut from the introduction to a geometry textbook.. In this case, one might suggest that bad politics lead to good math. </span></span></span><br /><img height="430" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/9VpOdY3np75xaxKPy1GVXU59SGkxrW4ehdQhwJLVYUnQq5jWXqk9XJInR3dj3Q8-hxQvoYrQIRQQPdg6uDJEQAOA3RHJaAQbbMlR1IbPVAVe6H5UrnI" width="523" /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">And one of my favorite math stories is from George Gamow's autobiography and is about the Nobel Laureate, Igor Tamm.</span><img height="40" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/5kpGyh0sDJTSc6CYmn8aPQ8tsazY90fOa-uQYAwqHSh4YWAeYStd_ZwifBFtXovwn8jfB8teOrTp-wGRnkjwq-n7S0Eq7dh87khEbdQnhzBy_zSLRg" width="37" /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><blockquote> "Here is a story told to me by one of my friends who was at that time</blockquote></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">a young professor of physics in Odessa. His name was Igor Tamm (Nobel</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Prize laureate in Physics, 1958). Once when he arrived in a neighboring</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">village, at that period when Odessa was occupied by the Reds, and was</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">negotiating with a villager as to how many chickens he could get for</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">half a dozen silver spoons, the village was captured by one of the</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Makhno bands, who were roaming the country, harassing the Reds. Seeing</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">his city clothes (or what was left of them), the capturers [sic]</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">brought him to the Ataman, a bearded fellow in a tall black fur</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">hat with machine-gun cartridge ribbons crossed on his broad chest and</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">a couple of hand grenades hanging on the belt.</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">'You son-of-a-bitch, you Communist agitator, undermining our Mother</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Ukraine! The punishment is death.'</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">'But no,' answered Tamm, 'I am a professor at the University of Odessa</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">and have come here only to get some food.'</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">'Rubbish!' retorted the leader. 'What kind of professor are you ?'</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">'I teach mathematics.'</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">'Mathematics?' said the Ataman. 'All right! Then give me an estimate of</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">the error one makes by cutting off Maclaurin's series at the nth term.</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Do this, and you will go free. Fail, and you will be shot!'</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Tamm could not believe his ears, since this problem belongs to a rather</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">special branch of higher mathematics. With a shaking hand, and under</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">the muzzle of the gun, he managed to work out the solution and handed</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">it to the Ataman.</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">'Correct!' said the Ataman. 'Now I see that you really are a professor.</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Go home!'</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Who was this man? No one will ever know. If he was not killed later, he</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">may well be lecturing now on higher mathematics in some Ukrainian</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">university."</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I tell this story every other year or so to my physics students when</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">they cannot be bothered to remember the form of the remainder in Taylor</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">expansions...."</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">-----------------------</span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I imagine that as long as you do math, or teach math in a public environment, we will be subject to political influences. I’m not sure it is always bad..... but....</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-41863085049145235092024-03-12T05:00:00.006+00:002024-03-12T19:32:35.028+00:00On This Day in Math - March 12<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Sidereus_Nuncius_1610.Galileo.jpg/250px-Sidereus_Nuncius_1610.Galileo.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="371" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Sidereus_Nuncius_1610.Galileo.jpg/250px-Sidereus_Nuncius_1610.Galileo.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><h1 class="firstHeading" id="firstHeading"><span dir="auto"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Sidereus Nuncius *Wik</span></span><i><br /></i></span></h1></td></tr></tbody></table><p>If my impressions are correct, our educational planing mill cuts down all the knots of genius, and reduces the best of the men who go through it to much the same standard.<br />~Simon Newcomb,<br /><br /><br />The 71st day of the year;71<sup>2 </sup>= 5041 = 7! +1! *<a href="http://primes.utm.edu/" target="_blank">Prime Curios</a><br /> 4! +1, and 5!+1 are also squares but not the factorial of the digits. Whether there is a larger value of n for which n! + 1 is a perfect square is still an open question, called the Brocard problem after Henri Brocard who asked it in 1876. It has been proven that no other numbers exist less than 10<sup>9</sup>. <a href="http://amzn.to/1U4MdXf">*Professor Stewart's Incredible Numbers</a> </p><div>And from Pickover, 71 is the largest known prime, p, such that p<sup>2</sup> is the sum of distinct factorials.<br /><br /><i>and too good to leave out</i>, 71 is the only two-digit number n such that (n<sup>n</sup>-n!)/n is prime. *Tanya Khovanova, Number Gossip (<i>Be the first on your block to find a three digit example.</i>)<br /><br />71<sup>3</sup>=357,911 where the digits are the odd numbers 3 to 11 in order * @Mario_Livio<br /><br />71<sup>3</sup> is also the only cube of a 2-digit number that ends in 11. There is only one 1digit cubed that ends in 1, and only one three digit cubed that ends in 111(<i>Don't just sit there children, go find them</i>!). Could there be a four digit cube that ends in 1111<br /><br />71 is the largest prime p that humans will ever discover such that 2<sup>p</sup> doesn't contain the digit 9. *Cliff Pickover (I do wonder how they go about proving such facts.)<br /><br /><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>1610 Galileo dedicates his Sidereus nuncius to Grandduke Cosmos II. According to Albert Van Helden in his introduction to his translation, "The Dedicatory letter of Sidereus nuncius is dated 12 March 1610, and on the next day Galileo sent an advance, unbound copy, accompanied by a letter, to the Tuscan court."<br />Thony Christie sent this translation from page 33 of the same book, "Written in Padua on the fourth day before the Ides of March 1610. Your Highnesses's most loyal servant, Galileo Galilei." Laura Snyder points out that this was, " the first book featuring drawings based on observations with a telescope."</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4sqGamtSJ57Jo0HCegxlfTEzfWaWVymxUq6gHK9PEQeIA9qtdEKa1sBSWBXJnCqxjRQU8SfNw850unnJMRo0Y--gmqSTOmebme7cYfzz_XCZoOE4xJ1uxalmdCHysXOpq0EK0Q0QIUCwZ7eV-ClYhi-3tyefppWQxod1ZxEFICSnLUPZ_0mvDADki/s277/Galileo's_sketches_of_the_moon.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="200" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4sqGamtSJ57Jo0HCegxlfTEzfWaWVymxUq6gHK9PEQeIA9qtdEKa1sBSWBXJnCqxjRQU8SfNw850unnJMRo0Y--gmqSTOmebme7cYfzz_XCZoOE4xJ1uxalmdCHysXOpq0EK0Q0QIUCwZ7eV-ClYhi-3tyefppWQxod1ZxEFICSnLUPZ_0mvDADki/s1600/Galileo's_sketches_of_the_moon.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /><hr />1615 Castelli reported to Galileo that the Archbishop of Pisa had demanded he relinquish the letter Galileo had sent him which were the foundation of a heresy charge to the church office by Nicolo Lorini. Galileo had tried to influence Cardinal Ballarmine with a modification of the original he had sent via Peiro Dini in February. *Brody & Brody, The Science Class You Wish You Had<br /><hr />1763 Jerome Lelande records a visit with Jean-Charles Borda in Dunkirk while on his way to visit England. "Mr Borda, came to dine with me at Mr Tully’s, the Irish doctor in Dunkirk, who told me he had very carefully observed the relationship of the moon with diseases.<br />From the top of the tower in Dunkirk you can see the Thames. There is a telescope at the top.<br />Mr Borda experiments on the resistance of air and water. He found it as the square of the speed, but not as the square of the sine of the angle of incidence; this varies a lot according to the shape of the bodies. (in 1762 he showed that a spherical projectile experiences only half the air resistance of a cylindrical object of the same diameter.) *Richard Watkins </div><div>Borda formulated a ranked preferential voting system that is referred to as the Borda count. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ5L19Yi_qNKqRjcm8cBAoyPi4pfEQa9PTLb1AfgExKOdIMBXIJf2FTQlQLo-CNgetV193DAfyRfdweAmyYuR-uiabAnrkVvxVtZyJhp14PQct_WdbcTepZdOJpk0sG-3B4OamLnyeZdlGc4dt7a11ypZdIka6moBs74kriFxoA2e-F_t2FziGIrMRMcg/s244/Jean_Charles_Borda%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="244" data-original-width="182" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ5L19Yi_qNKqRjcm8cBAoyPi4pfEQa9PTLb1AfgExKOdIMBXIJf2FTQlQLo-CNgetV193DAfyRfdweAmyYuR-uiabAnrkVvxVtZyJhp14PQct_WdbcTepZdOJpk0sG-3B4OamLnyeZdlGc4dt7a11ypZdIka6moBs74kriFxoA2e-F_t2FziGIrMRMcg/s1600/Jean_Charles_Borda%20(1).jpg" width="182" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1832</b> Faraday wrote a secret letter predicting the existence of electromagnetic waves. Faraday submitted his letter to the Secretary of the Royal Society of London where it lay for over a century in a strong box. The letter only came to light when it was opened by Sir William Bragg on June 24, 1937.<br /><blockquote>Royal Institution March 12, 1832<br />Certain of the results of the investigations which are embodied in the two papers entitled ‘Experimental Researches in Electricity’ lately read to the Royal Society, and the views arising therefrom, in connexion with other views and experiments lead me to believe that magnetic action is progressive, and requires time, i.e. that when a magnet acts upon a distant magnet or piece of iron, the influencing cause (which I may for the moment call magnetism) proceeds gradually from the magnetic bodies, and requires time for its transmission, which will probably be found to be very sensible.<br />I think also, that I see reason for supposing that electric induction (of tension) is also performed in a similar progressive way. I am inclined to compare the diffusion of magnetic forces from a magnetic pole to the vibrations upon the surface of disturbed water, or those of air in the phenomenon of sound; i.e. I am inclined to think the vibratory theory will apply to these phenomena as it does to sound, and most probably to light. By analogy, I think it may possibly apply to the phenomenon of induction of electricity of tension also. These views I wish to work out experimentally; but as much of my time is engaged in the duties of my office, and as the experiments will therefore be prolonged, and may in their course be subject to the observation of others, I wish, by depositing this paper in the care of the Royal Society, to take possession as it were of a certain date; and so have right, if they are confirmed by experiment, to claim credit for the views at that date; at which time as far as I know, no one is conscious of or can claim them but myself.<br />M. Faraday<br /></blockquote>As many know, although the letter was not opened, in a lecture on 10 April, 1846, Faraday would comment on these ideas while covering for the very shy Charles Wheatstone who was scheduled to give a talk on his chronoscope. At the end of the short notes of Wheatstone, Faraday filled the time with his recollections of the ideas of the electromagnetic field. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV75z8GJXi9MY9fMkanTcOsvjbEYDkaYOzR_k5Qrrpqg_zs3IqFafIqKNOfC1WjvMcWOmJ9ULUateTGvhR7nj4KWKGVnwbIdoUJ5LmCmwBukgjCxyXmksrLK_ZJldXHrupM7yhLh75uwraRopegaAFpJh9h6oTkvzY3EhGmK6MIZ8AzQN8NExEGAGgn98/s436/Michael_Faraday.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV75z8GJXi9MY9fMkanTcOsvjbEYDkaYOzR_k5Qrrpqg_zs3IqFafIqKNOfC1WjvMcWOmJ9ULUateTGvhR7nj4KWKGVnwbIdoUJ5LmCmwBukgjCxyXmksrLK_ZJldXHrupM7yhLh75uwraRopegaAFpJh9h6oTkvzY3EhGmK6MIZ8AzQN8NExEGAGgn98/s320/Michael_Faraday.jpg" width="242" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><div><b>1883</b> Professor George Chrystal gave an address on "Present Fields of Mathematical Research" to the first regular meeting of hte Edinburgh Mathematical Society. *Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, Volumes 1-4<br /><hr /><b><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj398KCogW9CX48wxM5rIKe8qb423dQUo4JgOc_dsdTMLIhnpqQv1dMO-c8lx7Xqow_WmjhhwVWVOQMfYxyOPPtvv2nvrkew0bi_S0eAnCedXJ8VuRG5JFEKuE8315cTwBuQuh5v3QO0FFDtGkoBPx6qHlbfABBVr_Xowc7coc1G4nRZj2wRX58Xo0c/s331/Agnes_Pockels_ca1892.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="331" data-original-width="220" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj398KCogW9CX48wxM5rIKe8qb423dQUo4JgOc_dsdTMLIhnpqQv1dMO-c8lx7Xqow_WmjhhwVWVOQMfYxyOPPtvv2nvrkew0bi_S0eAnCedXJ8VuRG5JFEKuE8315cTwBuQuh5v3QO0FFDtGkoBPx6qHlbfABBVr_Xowc7coc1G4nRZj2wRX58Xo0c/w133-h200/Agnes_Pockels_ca1892.jpg" width="133" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 12.3704px; text-align: left;">Pockels circa 1892 *Wik</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />1891</b> The journal, Nature, published what must have been one of it's most unusual articles. It was an unsolicited letter from a German hausfrau Miss Agnes Pockels to John William Strutt, aka Lord Rayleigh.<br />Miss Pockels wrote:<br /><blockquote>My lord,<br />Will you kindly excuse my venturing to trouble you with a German letter on a scientific subject? Having heard of the fruitful researches carried on by you last year on the hitherto little understood properties of water surfaces, I thought it might interest you to know of my own observations on the subject For various reasons I am not in a position to publish them in scientific periodicals, and I therefore adopt this means of communicating to you the most important of them. First, I will describe a simple method, which I have employed for several years, for increasing or diminishing the surface of a liquid in any proportion, by which its purity may be altered at pleasure. … …</blockquote>The letter went on to describe many of the results of Strutt's own experiments, and described results and conjectures even beyond his, all done in her own kitchen.<br /><br />Lord Rayleigh demonstrated the integrity he was known for, by translating the letter into English, and sending it to the journal Nature, requesting it be printed without correction.<br /><br />The story, with some additional detail about curiosity with his urine stream and its relation to the discovery of ink-jet printing can be found in <a href="http://lenfisherscience.com/curious-letters-to-scientists-iii-26-agnes-pockels-urine-streams-and-the-modern-inkjet-printer/" target="_blank">Len Fisher's blog here</a>. *Len Fisher<br /><br />Despite her lack of formal training, Pockels was able to measure the surface tension of water by devising an apparatus known as the Pockels trough, a key instrument in the new discipline of surface science. Using an improved version of this slide trough, American chemist Irving Langmuir made additional discoveries on the properties of surface molecules, which earned him a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1932. She published a number of papers and eventually received recognition as a pioneer in the new field of surface science. In 1931, together with Henri Devaux, Pockels received the Laura Leonard award from the Colloid Society. In the following year, the Braunschweig University of Technology granted her an honorary PhD. Pockels died in 1935 in Brunswick, Germany. She never married.*Wik</div><div>Her original letter had a made a splash, however. In 1917, the polymath head of research at General Electric (GE), Irving Langmuir, began using Pockels’ approach for his exquisitely simple studies of oil films. He proved the existence of a monolayer of elongated molecules sitting on the surface. Later, he and Katherine Blodgett, GE’s first female scientist, adapted Wilhelmy’s technique for measuring the surface tension to withdraw monolayers from the surface one at a time onto a substrate. Today, their improved Langmuir–Blodgett trough is the starting point for the deliberate construction of self-assembled structures. *Chemistry World</div><div><br /></div><div>The Langmuir-Blodgett trough owes its existence to Pockels' early work</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLCc_y2hs_rw2tzFnNMKkE6eF9_JONMrnOghBOBUK-nAQdf1_uuo-G95b9BABCC9Vr5WqI_fLWj2hKkrlJwDaAusI_NpjFOv4lriOD3pTq4eFt1_awEXKi18ZIAneB6Nw1B7dloo4nd3nNDKLtadpS-hvZKPEPpoy78X646X4saX6i0LDoqL-H-VSAtk0/s300/Langmuir-Blodgett%20trough.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="300" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLCc_y2hs_rw2tzFnNMKkE6eF9_JONMrnOghBOBUK-nAQdf1_uuo-G95b9BABCC9Vr5WqI_fLWj2hKkrlJwDaAusI_NpjFOv4lriOD3pTq4eFt1_awEXKi18ZIAneB6Nw1B7dloo4nd3nNDKLtadpS-hvZKPEPpoy78X646X4saX6i0LDoqL-H-VSAtk0/s1600/Langmuir-Blodgett%20trough.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr /><b>1926</b> John von Neumann, 22, received his doctorate summa cum laude in mathematics with minors in experimental physics and chemistry from the University of Budapest. *Goldstein, The Computer form Pascal to von Neumann, p. 170<br /><hr />1997 Fairchild Semiconductor Sold: National Semiconductor Corp. completes the sale of its Fairchild Semiconductor business. Many consider Fairchild the "original" Silicon Valley company for its profound and diverse institutional legacy: a survey of over 100 large silicon valley companies in the 1980s found that almost all of them had links to Fairchild, mostly through ex-Fairchild employees who had spun off and started these companies on their own. Fairchild had been founded by Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and six others who left en masse from Shockley Semiconductor, after that firm's founder and co-inventor of the transistor, William Shockley, struggled with a confrontational management style. Noyce and Moore later co-founded Intel Corporation. *CHM</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv_j66HenddqpLAnOpB-rASu6IonaHdKLx6_1qkBabR1o2s2nBXOMoTETqnI8VR-XOVEc4An4pmfKb50_voUa8QdYOjAUGwwhfxi2Zelf-edQM7IgnnjahEzlScUrIaMXkQDlrYMZ1-zNwFMwNUiAtdGv4tzKoe4mkbLbE-ELE0HrNP1OUYTjvDcqJOUo/s330/Fairchild_Semiconductor_Logo.svg.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="117" data-original-width="330" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv_j66HenddqpLAnOpB-rASu6IonaHdKLx6_1qkBabR1o2s2nBXOMoTETqnI8VR-XOVEc4An4pmfKb50_voUa8QdYOjAUGwwhfxi2Zelf-edQM7IgnnjahEzlScUrIaMXkQDlrYMZ1-zNwFMwNUiAtdGv4tzKoe4mkbLbE-ELE0HrNP1OUYTjvDcqJOUo/s320/Fairchild_Semiconductor_Logo.svg.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />2009 The U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution (HRES 224), recognizing March 14, 2009, as National Pi Day .<br />In 1988 The earliest known official or large-scale celebration of Pi Day was organized by Larry Shaw in 1988 at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where Shaw worked as a physicist, with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, then consuming fruit pies. The Exploratorium continues to hold Pi Day celebrations.*Wik</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzVMM0rEe4gi8w621chI877ALfuZoQOvyxzvKkDqBQbGS7HASTg7O_HXjFgdR8fWECT7WLykMUbbH-iqwRNqjHmiZ6SziXog9dg-GumH8yfz3QPRleik65LQIoMO6vl-QymCIK9Vx8KntN9N3QZQHinfKVUkJ1R21KKjgu6jm2fjNdo2zxz9o3cNAoot4/s259/natl%20pi%20day.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzVMM0rEe4gi8w621chI877ALfuZoQOvyxzvKkDqBQbGS7HASTg7O_HXjFgdR8fWECT7WLykMUbbH-iqwRNqjHmiZ6SziXog9dg-GumH8yfz3QPRleik65LQIoMO6vl-QymCIK9Vx8KntN9N3QZQHinfKVUkJ1R21KKjgu6jm2fjNdo2zxz9o3cNAoot4/s1600/natl%20pi%20day.jpeg" width="259" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span></div>1683 John Theophile Desaguliers (12 Mar 1683, 29 Feb 1744 at age 60)French-English chaplain and physicist who studied at Oxford, became experimental assistant to Sir Isaac Newton. As curator at the Royal Society, his experimental lectures in mechanical philosophy and electricity (advocating, substantiating and popularizing the work of Isaac Newton) attracted a wide audience (<i>In his lectures Newton, it is said, often spoke only to the walls.</i>). In electricity, he coined the terms conductor and insulator. He repeated and extended the work of Stephen Gray in electricity. He proposed a scheme for heating vessels such as salt-boilers by steam instead of fire. He made inventions of his own, such as a planetarium, and improvements to machines, such as Thomas Savery's steam engine (by adding a safety valve, and using an internal water jet to condense the steam in the displacement chambers) and a ventilator at the House of Commons. He was a prolific author and translator. *TIS</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqSZerI0kMypxBB9vjgdg9TQeAka4cjiCVeuobdjs3pOdEqfEjmMO-MeBv9VrmCZKt_XD8gQkf_v57XyHCKm7hL1DiXz06WfCa0EaMyNzirU3bAbapB4yoePgJ3GsWONDPPfbHE_FsE_g98wOhrVW7OeOdR5KpCP1hiZwBkwDOfurCqG9u3U74N4qCN8M/s413/John_Theophilus_Desaguliers.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqSZerI0kMypxBB9vjgdg9TQeAka4cjiCVeuobdjs3pOdEqfEjmMO-MeBv9VrmCZKt_XD8gQkf_v57XyHCKm7hL1DiXz06WfCa0EaMyNzirU3bAbapB4yoePgJ3GsWONDPPfbHE_FsE_g98wOhrVW7OeOdR5KpCP1hiZwBkwDOfurCqG9u3U74N4qCN8M/s320/John_Theophilus_Desaguliers.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr />1685 Bishop George Berkeley (12 March 1685 in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, Ireland<br />- 14 Jan 1753 in Oxford, England). In 1734 he published The Analyst, Or a Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician (namely, Edmund Halley). This work was a strong and reasonably justified attack on the foundation of the differential calculus. He called differentials “the ghosts of departed quantities.” *VFR</div><div><br /><hr />1824 Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (12 Mar 1824, 17 Oct 1887) German physicist who, with Robert Bunsen, established the theory of spectrum analysis (a technique for chemical analysis by analyzing the light emitted by a heated material), which Kirchhoff applied to determine the composition of the Sun. He found that when light passes through a gas, the gas absorbs those wavelengths that it would emit if heated, which explained the numerous dark lines (Fraunhofer lines) in the Sun's spectrum. In his Kirchhoff's laws (1845) he generalized the equations describing current flow to the case of electrical conductors in three dimensions, extending Ohm's law to calculation of the currents, voltages, and resistances of electrical networks. He demonstrated that current flows in a zero-resistance conductor at the speed of light. *TIS</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWjrBszbfGkEA-t4Hj7vsFvxKSW06s9MGL3CHJAs8EL_FFw7Aclalf1Cu8GO9PG2EKQW_hac34JRzJWbNHzhRSZPQ88EVnPMQOqyk4S3TXdKu6dctumbrKx_YcOGcYGugLzfY8llHKW7qjyGujhG9CPdJQHhxKPSmQAWpN0sHIuStHnP5z0xLZOnqZpY/s450/kirchhoff6.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="386" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWjrBszbfGkEA-t4Hj7vsFvxKSW06s9MGL3CHJAs8EL_FFw7Aclalf1Cu8GO9PG2EKQW_hac34JRzJWbNHzhRSZPQ88EVnPMQOqyk4S3TXdKu6dctumbrKx_YcOGcYGugLzfY8llHKW7qjyGujhG9CPdJQHhxKPSmQAWpN0sHIuStHnP5z0xLZOnqZpY/s320/kirchhoff6.jpeg" width="274" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1835 Simon Newcomb (12 Mar 1835; died 11 Jul 1909 at age 74) Canadian-American astronomer and and mathematician who prepared ephemerides (tables of computed places of celestial bodies over a period of time) and tables of astronomical constants. He was an astronomer (1861-77) before becoming Superintendent of the U.S. Nautical Almanac Office (1877-97). During this time he undertook numerous studies in celestial mechanics. His central goal was to place planetary and satellite motions on a completely uniform system, thereby raising solar system studies and the theory of gravitation to a new level. He largely accomplished this goal with the adoption of his new system of astronomical constants at the end of the century. *TIS This astonomer and mathematician<br />was the most honored scientist of his time. *VFR<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitW-SerngFHdTN2hc1zeMRQj1k-npzAp-m1FVRa_6QHsRuXHtptjH2Xs-z4tT5uj_w0MHX8oVgowpzQOQFt9yR7afOT-qK2QVHQ-s3JkVaEyvjHYJ_q16SKUOklCSA5R2UKbN9Wp1V0P0/s1600/Newcomb_Simon.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitW-SerngFHdTN2hc1zeMRQj1k-npzAp-m1FVRa_6QHsRuXHtptjH2Xs-z4tT5uj_w0MHX8oVgowpzQOQFt9yR7afOT-qK2QVHQ-s3JkVaEyvjHYJ_q16SKUOklCSA5R2UKbN9Wp1V0P0/s200/Newcomb_Simon.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Newcomb is buried in Arlington National Cemetery <br />Newcomb is often quoted as saying that heavier than air flight was impossible from a statement he made only two months before the Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C.<br /><div class="quotation">"The mathematician of today admits that he can neither square the circle, duplicate the cube or trisect the angle. May not our mechanicians, in like manner, be ultimately forced to admit that aerial flight is one of that great class of problems with which men can never cope… I do not claim that this is a necessary conclusion from any past experience. But I do think that success must await progress of a different kind from that of invention." He also is famously quoted for saying, "We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy." </div><div><hr /></div><div>Sir William Henry Perkin FRS (12 March 1838 – 14 July 1907) was an English chemist and inventor who, in his youth, was enthused about chemistry by attending public lectures by Michael Faraday. While experimenting to synthesize quinine from a coal tar chemical, Perkins mixed aniline and sodium dichromate and unexpectedly found a dense colour - he named as aniline purple - which he extracted with alcohol. He had discovered the first artificial dye. Textiles of his era were coloured from natural sources; his was a valuable alternative. At the age of 18, he patented the dye. His father invested in his efforts to manufacture the dye. It went on sale in 1857, and it became popular in France. By age 23 he was fathering a new synthetic organic chemical industry. He continued synthesis research. He was knighted in 1906. *TIS The dye he eventually called mauveine produced a color we now call Mauve. The word muave is from the French (and earlier Latin) plant called mallow of a similar color.</div><div>The craze for aniline dyes, satirised in this George du Maurier cartoon</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9kDX0Pu6024BK_PttyXkaQxewGZB3nLp7_cwbYswcscuotQUQDEF_whG5kg3qTfs7pNYJQ8Tp21fUDNHhZYWJ1tvPuj0xkD0gEoQYsHroph3KJ81iLyhHXmKersIRoTIWV4UAklA0DIK0agjRcnzAOn3OS0XiOB28RgxaeYY0YVHvWE9NTQW0bTZLQlQ/s420/Perkins%20The_craze_for_aniline_dyes.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="420" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9kDX0Pu6024BK_PttyXkaQxewGZB3nLp7_cwbYswcscuotQUQDEF_whG5kg3qTfs7pNYJQ8Tp21fUDNHhZYWJ1tvPuj0xkD0gEoQYsHroph3KJ81iLyhHXmKersIRoTIWV4UAklA0DIK0agjRcnzAOn3OS0XiOB28RgxaeYY0YVHvWE9NTQW0bTZLQlQ/s320/Perkins%20The_craze_for_aniline_dyes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNVz0dGtvSRUTGvwaZpQxHeHoR1cfJmrUA2Zb3b1nxEoCdkXTZz9HRpaomZnzCLSQXWp6rkmDuI0jDfbooQEaDAni4q8YJLpzq6OkkBi74ZAp77osAANgnTiLDii3uyLsX4151t1CUz7fHEjY3yHqcmX45Aqwh4ZeApf05mvfOKiKtfngbYhWGdaR_P5c/s421/William_Henry_Perkin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNVz0dGtvSRUTGvwaZpQxHeHoR1cfJmrUA2Zb3b1nxEoCdkXTZz9HRpaomZnzCLSQXWp6rkmDuI0jDfbooQEaDAni4q8YJLpzq6OkkBi74ZAp77osAANgnTiLDii3uyLsX4151t1CUz7fHEjY3yHqcmX45Aqwh4ZeApf05mvfOKiKtfngbYhWGdaR_P5c/s320/William_Henry_Perkin.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><hr />1859 Ernesto Cesaro (12 March 1859 , 12 Sept 1906) died of injuries sustained while aiding a drowning youth. In addition to differential geometry Cesàro worked on many topics such as number theory where, in addition to the topics we mentioned above, he studied the distribution of primes trying to improve on results obtained in this area by Chebyshev. He also contributed to the study of divergent series, a topic which interested him early in his career, and we should note that in his work on mathematical physics he was a staunch follower of Maxwell. This helped to spread Maxwell's ideas to the Continent which was important since, although it it hard to realise this now, it took a long time for scientists to realize the importance of his theories.<br />Cesàro's interest in mathematical physics is also evident in two very successful calculus texts which he wrote. He then went on to write further texts on mathematical physics, completing one on elasticity. Two further works, one on the mathematical theory of heat and the other on hydrodynamics, were in preparation at the time of his death.<br />Cesàro died in tragic circumstances. His seventeen year old son went swimming in the sea near Torre Annunziata and got into difficulties in rough water. Cesàro went to rescue his son but sustained injuries which led to his death. *SAU</div><div>I was reminded by Offer Pade' (Thanks that In mathematical analysis, Cesàro summation assigns values to some infinite sums that are not necessarily convergent in the usual sense. The Cesàro sum is defined as the limit, as n tends to infinity, of the sequence of arithmetic means of the first n partial sums of the series. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidNDrgmVUXShn33sCGOBvHhT0vSSoCRejPQlGkqHnnKec8KGxGdcjMJaLoA_770Ljrrrq1kLHUXRgTCFUahTSNO7N26-22CgkgXOtLjTt9iZLl6dDTYGGWH9Ybh9W2W9wFbSHN4Cp6o5zYFPABxxkHQDQadYUG9zqosqdje1zdvBa5PpKd_NkTcr_bYHg/s326/ErnestoCesaro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="271" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidNDrgmVUXShn33sCGOBvHhT0vSSoCRejPQlGkqHnnKec8KGxGdcjMJaLoA_770Ljrrrq1kLHUXRgTCFUahTSNO7N26-22CgkgXOtLjTt9iZLl6dDTYGGWH9Ybh9W2W9wFbSHN4Cp6o5zYFPABxxkHQDQadYUG9zqosqdje1zdvBa5PpKd_NkTcr_bYHg/s320/ErnestoCesaro.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1925 Leo Esaki (12 Mar 1925, )Japanese physicist who shared (with Ivar Giaever and Brian Josephson) the Nobel Prize in Physics (1973) in recognition of his pioneering work on electron tunneling in solids. From some deceptively simple experiments published in 1958, he was able to lay bare the tunneling processes in solids, a phenomena which had been clouded by questions for decades. Tunneling is a quantum mechanical effect in which an electron passes through a potential barrier even though classical theory predicted that it could not. Dr. Esaki's discovery led to the creation of the Esaki diode, an important component of solid state physics with practical applications in high-speed circuits found in computers and communications networks.*TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFEfgB6iS9fquocjfx3q9tcUqDwNexOdUC-_7FjEgcOU1hl7A5IZCNcEyhUM-I_P92AN7I6D3Of8vMKl_E3Wl5x3cbOBcUTGmdZQueNSIWPRkrgAXKjkC7H1aDxo-iZ0rySRzy6TfN69PHymsjiPnTgaAdu3keX_xtoTdyaVo-PaLQJWx_AEjxcWEJ7o0/s426/Leo_Esaki_1959.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFEfgB6iS9fquocjfx3q9tcUqDwNexOdUC-_7FjEgcOU1hl7A5IZCNcEyhUM-I_P92AN7I6D3Of8vMKl_E3Wl5x3cbOBcUTGmdZQueNSIWPRkrgAXKjkC7H1aDxo-iZ0rySRzy6TfN69PHymsjiPnTgaAdu3keX_xtoTdyaVo-PaLQJWx_AEjxcWEJ7o0/s320/Leo_Esaki_1959.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1945 Vijay Kumar Patodi (March 12, 1945 – December 21, 1976) was an Indian mathematician who made fundamental contributions to differential geometry and topology. He was the first mathematician to apply heat equation methods to the proof of the Index Theorem for elliptic operators. He was a professor at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai (Bombay). *Wik<br /><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span></div>1834 Karl Wilhelm Feuerbach (30 May 1800 in Jena, Germany - 12 March 1834 in Erlangen, Germany) His mathematical fame rests entirely on three papers. Most important was this contribution to Euclidean geometry: The circle which passes through the feet of the<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>altitudes of a triangle touches all four of the circles which are tangent to the three sides; it is internally tangent to the inscribed circle and externally tangent to each of the circles which touches the sides of the triangle externally. *VFR<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoSijj-H6xb6wUlKZVjmhUPGFVWge3Tnhf9Ft47MsuVxRCdCfG50aSv2yIzfdKyUhRGVu9-8APZli4fIHW0xROpsA9IaM9OJCsQsotcWSOJ89W31GJMQe_JBqAxdl6Ti0lNn4XQROVrAc/s1600/nine+point+circle.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoSijj-H6xb6wUlKZVjmhUPGFVWge3Tnhf9Ft47MsuVxRCdCfG50aSv2yIzfdKyUhRGVu9-8APZli4fIHW0xROpsA9IaM9OJCsQsotcWSOJ89W31GJMQe_JBqAxdl6Ti0lNn4XQROVrAc/s320/nine+point+circle.png" width="320" /></a>The circle is also commonly called the <a href="http://pballew.net/arithm18.html#nineptcr" target="_blank">Nine-point circle</a>. It passes through the feet of the altitudes, the midpoints of the three sides, and the point half way between the orthocenter and the vertices.<br />Feuerbach did undertake further mathematical research. He sent a note from Ansbach to the journal Isis (dated 22 October 1826) entitled Einleitung zu dem Werke Analysis der dreyeckigen Pyramide durch die Methode der Coordinaten und Projectionen. Ein Beytrag zu der analytischen Geometrie von Dr. Karl Wilhelm Feuerbach, Prof. d. Math. (Introduction to the analysis of the triangular pyramid, by means of the methods of coordinates and projections. A study in analytic geometry by Dr Karl Wilhelm Feuerbach, Professor of Mathematics). This note announced results which were to appear in full in a later publication and indeed they did in a 48-page booklet Grundriss zu analytischen Untersuchungen der dreyeckigen Pyramide (Foundations of the analytic theory of the triangular pyramid) published in 1827. This is a second major work by Feuerbach and it has been studied carefully by Moritz Cantor who discovered that in it Feuerbach introduces homogeneous coordinates. He must therefore be considered as the joint inventor of homogeneous coordinates since Möbius, in his work Der barycentrische Calcul also published in 1827, introduced homogeneous coordinates into analytic geometry.*SAU<br />Although he is credited for its discovery, Karl Wilhelm Feuerbach did not entirely discover the nine-point circle, but rather the six point circle, recognizing the significance of the midpoints of the three sides of the triangle and the feet of the altitudes of that triangle. (See Fig. 1, points D, E, F, G, H, and I.) (At a slightly earlier date, Charles Brianchon and Jean-Victor Poncelet had stated and proven the same theorem.) But soon after Feuerbach, mathematician Olry Terquem himself proved the existence of the circle. He was the first to recognize the added significance of the three midpoints between the triangle's vertices and the orthocenter.*Wik<br /><hr /><b>1898 Johann Jakob Balmer</b> (1 May 1825, 12 Mar 1898 at age 72) Swiss mathematician and physicist who discovered a formula basic to the development of atomic theory. Although a mathematics lecturer all his life, Balmer's most important work was on spectral series by giving a formula relating the wavelengths of the spectral lines of the hydrogen atom (1885) at age 60. Balmer's famous formula is λ= hm<sup>2</sup>/(m<sup>2</sup>-n<sup>2</sup>). Wavelengths are accurately given using h = 3.6456 x10-7m, n = 2, and m = 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. He suggested that giving n other small integer values would give other series of wavelengths for hydrogen. Why this prediction agreed with observation was not understood until after his death when the theoretical work of Niels Bohr was published in 1913. *TIS</div><div><br /></div><div><div>In 1895, a mathematical relationship between the frequencies of the hydrogen light spectrum was reported by a Swiss school teacher, Johann Balmer, in Annalen der Physik. Its significance was overlooked until Niels Bohr realized this showed a structure of energy levels of the electron in the hydrogen atom. *TIS</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMX28XJhZJCGh-bgo0i0Abqb-Ipzd86xnXy7ps7Jjo7BTdarAOmarp5areC1eKMfCQaW40LXeY1kp69EadJohqogZfF3IX7va9Du3eiYy6WBfgntmTl0brVCVccTGw9Iyf26gWWV4x3BJyf7_ubRy5ENPuXsBI2yJimxSQ6qWUOF3gYKEAGwuEYVY1/s1200/Hydrogen_spectrum.svg.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="1200" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMX28XJhZJCGh-bgo0i0Abqb-Ipzd86xnXy7ps7Jjo7BTdarAOmarp5areC1eKMfCQaW40LXeY1kp69EadJohqogZfF3IX7va9Du3eiYy6WBfgntmTl0brVCVccTGw9Iyf26gWWV4x3BJyf7_ubRy5ENPuXsBI2yJimxSQ6qWUOF3gYKEAGwuEYVY1/w400-h160/Hydrogen_spectrum.svg.png" width="400" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSRXJL_HMT-Ik-jnDEOEHZDsd1hnQ_XLYw-zO-ChmTts_Hv7vqM9Ua2GiXhSK__kWU6GOJoSweQGVe30dCbeEPTSzYnI-oEJ6EFEg5LfPL3TCuC2VaKDZwYp6DmWGozQhLP6RZuA00EX5lx-SoXini2G3HiA1LMGxt84hTktjQJPWxpQRBaSPk8ntbBIg/s458/Balmer.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="458" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSRXJL_HMT-Ik-jnDEOEHZDsd1hnQ_XLYw-zO-ChmTts_Hv7vqM9Ua2GiXhSK__kWU6GOJoSweQGVe30dCbeEPTSzYnI-oEJ6EFEg5LfPL3TCuC2VaKDZwYp6DmWGozQhLP6RZuA00EX5lx-SoXini2G3HiA1LMGxt84hTktjQJPWxpQRBaSPk8ntbBIg/s320/Balmer.jpeg" width="231" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1905</b><b> William Allen Whitworth</b> (1 February 1840 – 12 March 1905) was an English mathematician and a priest in the Church of England.<br />As an undergraduate, Whitworth became the founding editor in chief of the Messenger of Mathematics, and he continued as its editor until 1880. He published works about the logarithmic spiral and about trilinear coordinates, but his most famous mathematical publication is the book Choice and Chance: An Elementary Treatise on Permutations, Combinations, and Probability (first published in 1867 and extended over several later editions). The first edition of the book treated the subject primarily from the point of view of arithmetic calculations, but had an appendix on algebra, and was based on lectures he had given at Queen's College. Later editions added material on enumerative combinatorics (the numbers of ways of arranging items into groups with various constraints), derangements, frequentist probability, life expectancy, and the fairness of bets, among other topics.<br />Among the other contributions in this book, Whitworth was the first to use ordered Bell numbers to count the number of weak orderings of a set, in the 1886 edition. These numbers had been studied earlier by Arthur Cayley, but for a different problem. He was the first to publish Bertrand's ballot theorem, in 1878; the theorem is misnamed after Joseph Louis François Bertrand, who rediscovered the same result in 1887. He is the inventor of the E[X] notation for the expected value of a random variable X, still commonly in use, and he coined the name "subfactorial" for the number of derangements of n items.<br />Another of Whitworth's contributions, in geometry, concerns equable shapes, shapes whose area has the same numerical value (with a different set of units) as their perimeter. As Whitworth showed with D. Biddle in 1904, there are exactly five equable triangles with integer sides: the two right triangles with side lengths (5,12,13) and (6,8,10), and the three triangles with side lengths (6,25,29), (7,15,20), and (9,10,17). *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zAh5op1wmHEsVQtqfW5aa0_1T6Utdesdj8EDlKX5rBi-JG2lCDRwLU5tGtifY7fhYCwsrzWckjTWwG_sJxeMMbduFqaTmYLSXDweEt-inUFMo5mAkvaP7y0ahJfMaxG7at6MePPkXcpZnReRgbt8mGtUo_sSHa0sVsTHUz7O67yuoBs4n6FTPcrCw48/s1280/choice%20and%20chance%20whitworth.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="813" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zAh5op1wmHEsVQtqfW5aa0_1T6Utdesdj8EDlKX5rBi-JG2lCDRwLU5tGtifY7fhYCwsrzWckjTWwG_sJxeMMbduFqaTmYLSXDweEt-inUFMo5mAkvaP7y0ahJfMaxG7at6MePPkXcpZnReRgbt8mGtUo_sSHa0sVsTHUz7O67yuoBs4n6FTPcrCw48/s320/choice%20and%20chance%20whitworth.jpg" width="203" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDRHTLFJW3aFpCaxKmulbPisJAqBXX0NZ7yxz29i8xkZHqtLO2vEWrDNy3q51-80yaTu-oNrXp6LF3nS8ylvdLJBOk4TcbRUjxm0Dh4Wgz9LGbSBHyvIdLE8eXR55WzmVjDZ22bJSiQp8OHOZZ9TOv2VwBnAJ_0FzU0VTVHA_JTqcoEJSmiNqh3roKwZY/s1200/whitworth.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="941" data-original-width="1200" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDRHTLFJW3aFpCaxKmulbPisJAqBXX0NZ7yxz29i8xkZHqtLO2vEWrDNy3q51-80yaTu-oNrXp6LF3nS8ylvdLJBOk4TcbRUjxm0Dh4Wgz9LGbSBHyvIdLE8eXR55WzmVjDZ22bJSiQp8OHOZZ9TOv2VwBnAJ_0FzU0VTVHA_JTqcoEJSmiNqh3roKwZY/s320/whitworth.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><hr /><b>1915 Arthur Edwin Haynes</b>,(May 23, 1849;Baldwinsville, Onondaga County, New York, USA - Mar. 12, 1915; Minneapolis, Minnesota) Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Hillsdale College from 1875 until 1890. He came to Michigan in June 1858. They located near the village of Reading in southwestern Hillsdale Co. where the father had a farm.<br />Arthur received a common school education and remained on the family farm until he reached twenty years of age.<br />In the fall of 1870, Arthur entered Hillsdale College where he remained, a diligent student, until he was graduated from that institution in June 1875. He taught several terms of district school before graduation and was also employed during his college course as a tutor in mathematics in the college. During the summer between his junior and senior years, he assisted in the erection of the Central College building, in order to earn money to continue his studies. He carried a hod from the first story until the completion of the fourth, shouldering 80 pounds of brick and walking from the bottom to the top of the ladder (20 feet) without touching the hod handle, a feat that he was justly proud of. His classroom at Hillsdale was in that same building.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVg1kGh7lp5l1Xz1ROYKB0V_MZ3IC9EfniuxC_peOq_ReX1hCUDszoDXZauv-vc_-o769WJOnQGwdJ5fOJSHlxGpXfmS3Y5sjL4WpkJb1dc9iXqzRcioVnrIo-ghWeo01gqDDSfQ2yego/s1600/spherical+black+board.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVg1kGh7lp5l1Xz1ROYKB0V_MZ3IC9EfniuxC_peOq_ReX1hCUDszoDXZauv-vc_-o769WJOnQGwdJ5fOJSHlxGpXfmS3Y5sjL4WpkJb1dc9iXqzRcioVnrIo-ghWeo01gqDDSfQ2yego/s200/spherical+black+board.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Immediately following graduation,he married and was appointed instructor in mathematics in Hillsdale College in the fall of 1875, and two years later was elected to the full Professorship. In 1885 he was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society. In 1890 he switched to the University of Minnesota. He wrote a paper on "The Mounting and Use of a Spherical Blackboard." He died in Minneapolis in 1915 and his body was removed back to Hillsdale where he was buried in Oak Grove Cemetary *PB notes<br /><hr /><b>1942 Sir William Henry Bragg </b>(2 July 1862 – 10 March 1942) was a pioneer British scientist in solid-state physics who was a joint winner (with his son Sir Lawrence Bragg) of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915 for research on the determination of crystal structures. During the WW I, Bragg was put in charge of research on the detection and measurement of underwater sounds in connection with the location of submarines. He also constructed an X-ray spectrometer for measuring the wavelengths of X-rays. In the 1920s, while director of the Royal Institution in London, he initiated X-ray diffraction studies of organic molecules. Bragg was knighted in 1920. *TIS </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirIO-8udADLErO7S-tFVruHkrwd60EcEn6q52O7_MbYpbVwSxFVvUmssxDTq5Mq14rHEzZiix-GdhL3Itw4F8CoXthp8Fnp0oHIuW72OsQEhbxhyphenhyphen_1cYiUezW0iSjjGzNYgVcvLDZi4PDai6L3omxK68mIhvnlC00YWGReBx-A8lvkQbe-pD0UxLZBTIQ/s318/w%20h%20bragg.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="318" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirIO-8udADLErO7S-tFVruHkrwd60EcEn6q52O7_MbYpbVwSxFVvUmssxDTq5Mq14rHEzZiix-GdhL3Itw4F8CoXthp8Fnp0oHIuW72OsQEhbxhyphenhyphen_1cYiUezW0iSjjGzNYgVcvLDZi4PDai6L3omxK68mIhvnlC00YWGReBx-A8lvkQbe-pD0UxLZBTIQ/s1600/w%20h%20bragg.jpeg" width="318" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div>1946 Leonida Tonelli (19 April 1885 – 12 March 1946) was an Italian mathematician, most noted for creating Tonelli's theorem, usually considered a forerunner to Fubini's theorem. (A result which gives conditions under which it is possible to compute a double integral using iterated integrals. As a consequence it allows the order of integration to be changed in iterated integrals.)*Wik He published 137 papers, all single authored except one in 1915 written in collaboration with Guido Fubini, and a number of important books including Fondamenti di calcolo delle variazioni (2 volumes) (1921, 1923), Serie trigonometriche (1928), and (with E Lindner) Corso di matematica per la Scuola media (3 volumes) (1941, 1942).*SAU</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEics69khG22wnPu3Cj4PrisuMLPGDhPdm9uAaXYw_mX4JpCcA7v_NyXGTGdfAAQcwkDhkrELGpPA_qvOKkU78ToUSz6VtGqy-C2QYVbolRVulcd6SmexigwMnIKLZvdu9JPsTHR-r1JQuEU3gz4O8j-GYicbG6CRj9S-OuHbZNYpSvuXBVexNo82eo20VE/s463/Leonida_Tonelli.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEics69khG22wnPu3Cj4PrisuMLPGDhPdm9uAaXYw_mX4JpCcA7v_NyXGTGdfAAQcwkDhkrELGpPA_qvOKkU78ToUSz6VtGqy-C2QYVbolRVulcd6SmexigwMnIKLZvdu9JPsTHR-r1JQuEU3gz4O8j-GYicbG6CRj9S-OuHbZNYpSvuXBVexNo82eo20VE/s320/Leonida_Tonelli.jpg" width="228" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1972 Louis Joel Mordell (28 January 1888 – 12 March 1972) was a U.S. born British mathematician, known for pioneering research in number theory. He was born in Philadelphia, USA, in a Jewish family of Lithuanian extraction. He came in 1906 to Cambridge to take the scholarship examination for entrance to St John's College, and was successful in gaining a place and support.<br />Having taken third place in the Mathematical Tripos, he began independent research into particular diophantine equations: the question of integer points on the cubic curve, and special case of what is now called a Thue equation, the Mordell equation<br /><br />y<span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">^2</span> = x<span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">^3</span> + k.<br /><br />During World War I he was involved in war work, but also produced one of his major results, proving in 1917 the multiplicative property of Ramanujan's tau-function. The proof was by means, in effect, of the Hecke operators, which had not yet been named after Erich Hecke; it was, in retrospect, one of the major advances in modular form theory, beyond its status as an odd corner of the theory of special functions.<br />In 1920 he took a teaching position in Manchester College of Technology, becoming the Fielden Reader in Pure Mathematics at the Victoria University of Manchester in 1922 and Professor in 1923. There he developed a third area of interest within number theory, geometry of numbers. His basic work on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordell%27s_theorem" target="_blank">Mordell's theorem</a> is from 1921/2, as is the formulation of the Mordell conjecture.<br />In 1945 he returned to Cambridge as a Fellow of St. John's, when elected to the Sadleirian Chair, and became Head of Department. He officially retired in 1953. It was at this time that he had his only formal research students, of whom J. W. S. Cassels was one. His idea of supervising research was said to involve the suggestion that a proof of the transcendence of the Euler–Mascheroni constant was probably worth a doctorate. *Wik</div><div>An example of a Mordell curve y^2 = x^3 + 1</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM4wgX73IUGy3miAi0er5DGi59fDNiSDaRDuTzmdd9JorIEwt39yoWvEQ6YcRGTSDR_fMsW4EmoRNY3V5txI7pRFvfiY9UGD4jsS9wvFW6FtCApFey_7vhYGPjq_3KvnbZq_R8SHyAZyfhAN6ceKd-KnngRtyGyLbYk2gAxU7lLBPc_4p9rky2WoLngg0/s369/Louis_Mordell.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="369" data-original-width="263" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM4wgX73IUGy3miAi0er5DGi59fDNiSDaRDuTzmdd9JorIEwt39yoWvEQ6YcRGTSDR_fMsW4EmoRNY3V5txI7pRFvfiY9UGD4jsS9wvFW6FtCApFey_7vhYGPjq_3KvnbZq_R8SHyAZyfhAN6ceKd-KnngRtyGyLbYk2gAxU7lLBPc_4p9rky2WoLngg0/s320/Louis_Mordell.jpeg" width="228" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIJZB_gwb3OA2kluBWk6ki1cfaKcygP7bYiGvSItHL02pkk2F05H7-BU7oZYnYKVfRAiQfAVzko5YOZj9xbwZh-R-suf5fwpg5Q3ijWUZBqqQ1KoK3SPbzOVwAhRCu0qtqX5U-CW8-j4mkfbDFvikFWBLK0Hlx6kxE7TQW5KZdxuA12ryZQdXlgPTXaZo/s414/Mordell_curve_example.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="328" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIJZB_gwb3OA2kluBWk6ki1cfaKcygP7bYiGvSItHL02pkk2F05H7-BU7oZYnYKVfRAiQfAVzko5YOZj9xbwZh-R-suf5fwpg5Q3ijWUZBqqQ1KoK3SPbzOVwAhRCu0qtqX5U-CW8-j4mkfbDFvikFWBLK0Hlx6kxE7TQW5KZdxuA12ryZQdXlgPTXaZo/s320/Mordell_curve_example.png" width="254" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-29114476124951252062024-03-11T05:00:00.004+00:002024-03-12T12:58:56.388+00:00On This Day in Math - March 11<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3EOMcHH6A1cORYL3Vxt6g4QNcay1h_Z58Elmhc44-PcN08KaX-WaMpzWgovzwcAq2HZzGgymI75gxDYr2jb1jpatv51abCoxBvGCdrky8VQAz0gSo41x_-_AH_lRYLtmkbGgQcsm3SdI/s1600/Von_Koch_curve.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3EOMcHH6A1cORYL3Vxt6g4QNcay1h_Z58Elmhc44-PcN08KaX-WaMpzWgovzwcAq2HZzGgymI75gxDYr2jb1jpatv51abCoxBvGCdrky8VQAz0gSo41x_-_AH_lRYLtmkbGgQcsm3SdI/s400/Von_Koch_curve.gif" width="300" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">*Wik</span></div><p><br />If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.<br />~Vannevar Bush<br /><br /><br />The 70th day of the year; 70 is the smallest "Weird" number. In number theory, a weird number is a natural number that is abundant but not semiperfect. In other words, the sum of the proper divisors (divisors including 1 but not itself) of the number is greater than the number, but no subset of those divisors sums to the number itself.<br /><br />2<sup>70</sup> = 1180591620717411303424. The sum of the digits is 70, and if you reverse the order, 424303114717026195081, it is a prime #.</p><p><br />All the primes in the 70's, are emirps, primes that are still prime when you reverse the order of the digits, 71----17 etc.<br /><br />\( 1^2 + 2^2 + 3^2 + \cdots + 24^2 = 70^2 \)</p><p>Several languages, especially ones with vigesimal(base 20) number systems, do not have a specific word for 70: for example, French soixante-dix "sixty-ten"; Danish halvfjerds, short for halvfjerdsindstyve "three and a half score". (For French, this is true only in France; other French-speaking regions such as Belgium, Switzerland, Aosta Valley and Jersey use septante.) *Wik </p><div><br /></div><div>70 is the second smallest number where the sum of its divisors is a perfect square. \(1 + 2 + 5 + 7 + 10 + 14 + 35 + 70= 12^2 = 144\) There are only three year dates (to my knowledge) for which the sum of the divisors is a square. </div><hr /><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p>1574 By means of an equinoctial armillary which he constructed on the facade of the church of Santa Maria Novella, Egnatio Danti observed that the vernal equinox occurred eleven days earlier than it should have according to the Julian Calendar. This is one of the many events which led to the Gregorian calendar reform of 1584. *VFR</p><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjOaPU5XRdNu611uh7s4Kkzlef4HkD5k1LE5rlJKGpOSy7DTb5dvdLwuJXzVStEHUjgVSl2HEWv4eVsi1zIvjf3BOuV-FQRq5X61x1eJU5nBfx4ehpffYpQ2fe1LUxX_DKDbzpMrTAk3M/s768/danti+armilarry+sphere.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="768" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjOaPU5XRdNu611uh7s4Kkzlef4HkD5k1LE5rlJKGpOSy7DTb5dvdLwuJXzVStEHUjgVSl2HEWv4eVsi1zIvjf3BOuV-FQRq5X61x1eJU5nBfx4ehpffYpQ2fe1LUxX_DKDbzpMrTAk3M/s320/danti+armilarry+sphere.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Renaissance Mathematicus</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><hr />1582 At noon the sun shone in through the mouth of the South Wind, a mural on one wall, and crossed the meridional sundial line in the Meridian Room in the Tower of Winds in Rome. This should have happened on March 21, so Pope Gregory VIII was (supposedly) convinced of the need for calendar reform. *Sky and Telescope, 64(1982), 530–533</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYf7z6knehD6Niu1vNGg_V0enTCpC0NsPamwqdDNuKuhVdc9QhTAnP6dQRp-tnq4EcgPMa9MngXwzSgC8VCvUYPDUBdFm3qp5OjTXKKf_tcTguXIaSuYQpj4kBs6eRBTLwiEIoFTDRSOX_4KXcSq8qK5LqSeI9BX2TQzdGLnfFfmO2jxjIoey93t6BS8U/s186/tower%20of%20winds%20vatican.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="186" data-original-width="178" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYf7z6knehD6Niu1vNGg_V0enTCpC0NsPamwqdDNuKuhVdc9QhTAnP6dQRp-tnq4EcgPMa9MngXwzSgC8VCvUYPDUBdFm3qp5OjTXKKf_tcTguXIaSuYQpj4kBs6eRBTLwiEIoFTDRSOX_4KXcSq8qK5LqSeI9BX2TQzdGLnfFfmO2jxjIoey93t6BS8U/s1600/tower%20of%20winds%20vatican.jpeg" width="178" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><br /> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="392" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KOLBPiZ97D0" title="Vaticans Secret Room "Tower of the Winds"- Metatron's Cube" width="696"></iframe>
<div><br /><hr />1672 Robert Hooke FRS started writing his ‘Memoranda’, as he called his daily entries, on 10 March 1672. There’s no clear statement about why he started this project, just the terse entry ‘Memoranda begun’, followed by some characteristically abrupt notes about the weather and so on. It’s worth reproducing the whole of his first entry here:<br /><blockquote>Sun. 10 [mercury] fell from 170 to 185. most part of ye Day cleer but cold & somewhat windy at the South. [I was this morning better with my cold then I had been 3 months before] [moon] apogeum. It grew cloudy about 4. [mercury] falling still.<br />I told Cox how to make Reflex glasses by Silver and hinted to him making them by printing. Hewet brought me £10 from Brother John Hooke. News of 3 empty Dutch ships taken by ye montacu frigat</blockquote>*Robert Hooke's London</div><div>1680 Portrait of a Mathematician by Mary Beale, conjectured to be of Hooke but also conjectured to be of Isaac Barrow</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUHKmYyaw45WScdO2p9ml5GPP_OJtgFSs1Ml2kudwJUV4V8rI8M4z_IZ5nQ184yM-N-nie0Qpf5Hvw25G8gRoTqj1TW-dyXkmNaQaHYNiYMJM7RDu_4s17QwSzIUuFsbc7ENccTMEyuqCKqY4nXo5BcCYBqhAG7AhsmvWACxjOkPddnSvMbteVYEoOi1k/s408/Portrait_of_a_Mathematician%20hooke.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUHKmYyaw45WScdO2p9ml5GPP_OJtgFSs1Ml2kudwJUV4V8rI8M4z_IZ5nQ184yM-N-nie0Qpf5Hvw25G8gRoTqj1TW-dyXkmNaQaHYNiYMJM7RDu_4s17QwSzIUuFsbc7ENccTMEyuqCKqY4nXo5BcCYBqhAG7AhsmvWACxjOkPddnSvMbteVYEoOi1k/s320/Portrait_of_a_Mathematician%20hooke.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1702 </b>The UK’s first daily newspaper hit the streets on this day. Called The Daily Courant, it owed its appearance to the fact that control of the Press by the Government had been abandoned some five years earlier. The Courant also owed its existence to a remarkable and determined woman – Elizabeth Mallet, the newspaper’s first proprietor and editor.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqD0ns2Ui-bZOvBCTRV__OZwvOBvtCT2rWxg9cD4LIAwmwhvBfSH6EDbrQXcPkQsxduYktCC0tGWvYHHoINbd4KjgPfLUToRuN2jJiacO3u1WnJM0G1Po1PvbZAOIfvdLLBVCZ07L_kMPuCG4WInOFH3N0WT7DUivaXHSHMS74btXunH6y35Sav49C/s1348/daily-courant.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1348" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqD0ns2Ui-bZOvBCTRV__OZwvOBvtCT2rWxg9cD4LIAwmwhvBfSH6EDbrQXcPkQsxduYktCC0tGWvYHHoINbd4KjgPfLUToRuN2jJiacO3u1WnJM0G1Po1PvbZAOIfvdLLBVCZ07L_kMPuCG4WInOFH3N0WT7DUivaXHSHMS74btXunH6y35Sav49C/w238-h400/daily-courant.jpg" width="238" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div>1711 Robert Simson, who had no formal training in mathematics, was elected to the chair of mathematics at the University of Glasgow on the condition that “he give satisfactory proof of his skill in mathematics previous to his admission.” *VFR He must have proved his skill as he held the position until 1761. The pedal line is often called the<a href="http://pballew.net/simson.html" target="_blank"> Simson line.</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbvARV0i9Xkwl49u6W9Th1ue0UXK6HNu_dlVAR954SdfoORXuZ4dtwua4oCdAhvruCIugfOts8oj-A8UqM439-wf6D42ZVSvpMhcZmUFd81tO1lic6oVMR-ToG3BQ2gHEb7r0lCWVg8LNqJzvHG_MDP_8fmkJ1fEiElx2Hymj22ssrEWYSH39ufOUcVyU/s275/Pedal_Line.svg.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="250" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbvARV0i9Xkwl49u6W9Th1ue0UXK6HNu_dlVAR954SdfoORXuZ4dtwua4oCdAhvruCIugfOts8oj-A8UqM439-wf6D42ZVSvpMhcZmUFd81tO1lic6oVMR-ToG3BQ2gHEb7r0lCWVg8LNqJzvHG_MDP_8fmkJ1fEiElx2Hymj22ssrEWYSH39ufOUcVyU/s1600/Pedal_Line.svg.png" width="250" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhD8CaXZQkOMpmWF52EKB1RePS7ZHC67U97AtjAU7C-zo2nU732_rIlsSCwsmHPU4DWAG9EJquChpY8JUF77FYfpvooMj9TTZX4AvjrUkh10w6w_iGuGmhEsJSv_rQpN18mtFnV5mOodrJFLmS2mTnYW-XUFjyf3CJkDAkGFDCS6_Z6Nl1hTimoKb2vgY/s393/Robert_Simson.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhD8CaXZQkOMpmWF52EKB1RePS7ZHC67U97AtjAU7C-zo2nU732_rIlsSCwsmHPU4DWAG9EJquChpY8JUF77FYfpvooMj9TTZX4AvjrUkh10w6w_iGuGmhEsJSv_rQpN18mtFnV5mOodrJFLmS2mTnYW-XUFjyf3CJkDAkGFDCS6_Z6Nl1hTimoKb2vgY/s320/Robert_Simson.jpg" width="269" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1782 Euler writes to accept membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the first foreign member. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTZgR2fI9Jyw8difbU3obzQcRYs9LRbvdtbGwK1XUQ3c5XnVcF0NymfQqTTx4QHfALiPUglvMxRhwmzjOdoeherpUIyYY6MW9B_86WoKWXQ_z2M9CX0cJwTXqlkmXSFTdxaxQMsPmDzsY/s1600/Euler+accepts+invitation+to+am+society+of+arts+and+sciences.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTZgR2fI9Jyw8difbU3obzQcRYs9LRbvdtbGwK1XUQ3c5XnVcF0NymfQqTTx4QHfALiPUglvMxRhwmzjOdoeherpUIyYY6MW9B_86WoKWXQ_z2M9CX0cJwTXqlkmXSFTdxaxQMsPmDzsY/s1600/Euler+accepts+invitation+to+am+society+of+arts+and+sciences.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>1794 At the instigation of Monge the Ecole Polytechnique was founded. *VFR The Polytechnique was established during the French Revolution, it became a military school under Napoleon in 1804. It is still under the control of French Ministry of Defense today.<br /><hr />In <b>1811</b>, the Luddite riots began in Nottingham, England. There was poverty and misery, made worse by the new inventions - machinery which could do jobs better and faster than people. In those days of low wages and the ever-present threat of actual starvation should those wages stop for any reason, these innovations must have made the prospect even more gloomy. There were food shortages resulting from the Napoleonic Wars, and high unemployment. A group of laborers attacked a factory, breaking up 63 stocking and lace manufacturing frames, the machines which they feared would replace them. During the next three weeks gangs of upwards of fifty men, armed with pistols, guns and heavy hammers broke two hundred more frames. *TIS</div><div><div>Nottingham’s textile workers claimed to be following the orders of a mysterious “General Ludd.” Merchants received threatening letters addressed from “Ned Ludd’s office, Sherwood Forest.” Newspapers reported that Ludd had been a framework knitting apprentice who had been whipped at the behest of his master and took his revenge by demolishing his master’s machine with a hammer.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ned Ludd, however, was likely no more real than another legendary denizen of Sherwood Forest who fought against injustice, Robin Hood. Mythic though he may have been, Ned Ludd became a folk hero in parts of Nottingham and inspired verses such as:</div><div><br /></div><div>Chant no more your old rhymes about bold Robin Hood</div><div><br /></div><div>His feats I but little admire</div><div><br /></div><div>I will sing the Achievements of General Ludd</div><div><br /></div><div>Now the Hero of Nottinghamshire *History</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtDEcazjam8uNd9q9Q52sCicxtLwroJSiq73yxH1_hYyrIQsszBNhopw6wNyLBZ-t0MAnQI3DElfWGoqZw4Qrr5OEucMwWpIDDU5QbjOtNtfdJHd1JJ_PdrFg6imyz8Xz2lnYIT418c7At_1qqXoYbbnutbTYkoqB9aVR4CA5DfrzQ_F31JarvTLqEymE/s683/luddites-loom.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="683" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtDEcazjam8uNd9q9Q52sCicxtLwroJSiq73yxH1_hYyrIQsszBNhopw6wNyLBZ-t0MAnQI3DElfWGoqZw4Qrr5OEucMwWpIDDU5QbjOtNtfdJHd1JJ_PdrFg6imyz8Xz2lnYIT418c7At_1qqXoYbbnutbTYkoqB9aVR4CA5DfrzQ_F31JarvTLqEymE/s320/luddites-loom.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1878 </b>Shortly after Edison developed his phonograph, the French Academy of Sciences had it demonstrated by the Count du Moncel. Edison's French licensee was represented by a man named Puskas who set in front of the committee and spoke into the phonograph, then fitted a large horn to the device for amplification and to the astonishment of all they heard the phonograph express its pleasure at being presented to the Academy in Puskas' nasal American-French. <div>Some were more astonished than others. Physician Jean Bouillard, 82, confronted Puskas for his Parlor trick as no machine could produce accents. To calm, and convince the doctor, Moncel himself set down and spoke into the machine, "We thank Mr Edison for having sent us his phonograph." When du Moncel's words were reproduced in his Parisian French accent, the Doctor was convinced. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn1nsH95iHzognq99hR7ibtTmXrysT3XyxQk0ZjLZEcorzEDr0cS1GnDqBirH0UA3j7sn93dG-fajg3NowuOcrGFHi_srwdACn0WBakIGTQDmskeB4zBCCTRtNtCIdQcnOu64VCUu2t_k1g-tdZawsg139vkpL8bGISBOAhwm9MggJq2FcT6Wi6X5Su-Y/s200/edison%20phonograph.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="144" data-original-width="200" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn1nsH95iHzognq99hR7ibtTmXrysT3XyxQk0ZjLZEcorzEDr0cS1GnDqBirH0UA3j7sn93dG-fajg3NowuOcrGFHi_srwdACn0WBakIGTQDmskeB4zBCCTRtNtCIdQcnOu64VCUu2t_k1g-tdZawsg139vkpL8bGISBOAhwm9MggJq2FcT6Wi6X5Su-Y/s1600/edison%20phonograph.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>1780 August Leopold Crelle (11 Mar 1780; died 6 Oct 1855 at age 75). Although always interested in mathematics he lacked the money to enroll at a university and so became an engineer instead. In 1826, when he had the money, he founded the Journal f¨ur die rein und angewandte Mathematik and edited fifty two volumes. Although not a great mathematician he had a gift for recognizing the abilities of such men as Abel, Jacobi, Steiner, Dirichlet, Pl¨ucker, M¨obius, Eisenstein, Kummer, and Weierstrass and offered to publish their papers in his journal. *VFR As a civil engineer in the service of the Prussian Government and worked on the construction and planning of roads and the first railway in Germany (completed in 1838). He founded (1826) the world's oldest mathematical periodical still in existence, Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik ("Journal for Pure and Applied Mathematics"), now known as Crelle's Journal,and edited it for the rest of his life. *TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMV-NjAIKDOi_lZj_XyahKu5xG36j5M2sYz2TttTxGV3bvOXrMxPJ1PMVHrflQO_NWiQZnfa7Z6JINJNjul4n0_j8F2wg7bbRVWvMyrePoNcsA7sp0i8WE7_R6mgEMc-qD-Pq4rWdkOHXJVchEgpC1Do3E8efPu1Nq42qCOCKu2YfnjUwsk_n7TCk9-SI/s319/August_Leopold_Crelle.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="240" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMV-NjAIKDOi_lZj_XyahKu5xG36j5M2sYz2TttTxGV3bvOXrMxPJ1PMVHrflQO_NWiQZnfa7Z6JINJNjul4n0_j8F2wg7bbRVWvMyrePoNcsA7sp0i8WE7_R6mgEMc-qD-Pq4rWdkOHXJVchEgpC1Do3E8efPu1Nq42qCOCKu2YfnjUwsk_n7TCk9-SI/s1600/August_Leopold_Crelle.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1zPIOfc_5RvgBwWtMtKOWjCPyRnOsCKiFy63bcoiVQO9Ni7rY0AiTgAIpPbOQe5rpPCFz-avNIi_v6JoF-2CILJlDHJdv25rMXopAzz7mT0G8ceN20EXvTcQ8A4UcOL2QWBOYaIz8RVQjSrtRT5f6Ju-4gZ_soZUxGNbbcoCApm387EAYKFlP-in3N4Y/s193/Crelle%20journal.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="193" data-original-width="150" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1zPIOfc_5RvgBwWtMtKOWjCPyRnOsCKiFy63bcoiVQO9Ni7rY0AiTgAIpPbOQe5rpPCFz-avNIi_v6JoF-2CILJlDHJdv25rMXopAzz7mT0G8ceN20EXvTcQ8A4UcOL2QWBOYaIz8RVQjSrtRT5f6Ju-4gZ_soZUxGNbbcoCApm387EAYKFlP-in3N4Y/w249-h320/Crelle%20journal.gif" width="249" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr />1811 Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier (11 Mar 1811; 23 Sep 1877 at age 66) French astronomer who predicted by mathematical means the existence of the planet Neptune. He switched from his first subject of chemistry to to teach astronomy at the Ecole Polytechnique in 1837 and worked at the Paris Observatory for most of his life. His main activity was in celestial mechanics. Independently of Adams, Le Verrier calculated the position of Neptune from irregularities in Uranus's orbit. As one of his colleagues said, " ... he discovered a star with the tip of his pen, without any instruments other than the strength of his calculations alone. In 1856, the German astronomer Johan G. Galle discovered Neptune after only an hour of searching, within one degree of the position that had been computed by Le Verrier, who had asked him to look for it there. In this way Le Verrier gave the most striking confirmation of the theory of gravitation propounded by Newton. Le Verrier also initiated the meteorological service for France, especially the weather warnings for seaports. Incorrectly, he predicted a planet, Vulcan, or asteroid belt, within the orbit of Mercury to account for an observed discrepancy (1855) in the motion in the perihelion of Mercury. *TIS (A nice blog about Le Verrier is at the <a href="http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/he-said-it-would-be-there-and-it-was/" target="_blank">Renaissance Mathematicus</a> blog.)</div><div>I was reminded that as much as we appreciate his work in discovering Neptune, we should not overlook that his very first paper on astronomy submitted to The Academy of sciences was on </div><div><br /></div><div>Statue of Le Verrier at the Paris Observatory was On the Secular Variations of the Orbits of the Planets. It was in this paper , presented on September 16, 1839 that he became the first person to compute the eigen vectors of a matrix. *Hat Tip to Alain Juhel</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmnyvsGTaXj70aPWRBU3GhHL-IIHvgmbTq0gaOlgI8nBo5xwvVnRIWRGzhtqqpgny70YWrv59IsLOskcgyOUF9ntZHq87Hx3_a4tcLC4VyJS_R1RAvo4LkJvCZ93_gdWtN8Xzsj-3wliiH5WitvAALTiT1Y9j6eGBnavlLplZsBBV27bI-QJWopR_VTkQ/s399/Statue_de_Le_Verrier.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmnyvsGTaXj70aPWRBU3GhHL-IIHvgmbTq0gaOlgI8nBo5xwvVnRIWRGzhtqqpgny70YWrv59IsLOskcgyOUF9ntZHq87Hx3_a4tcLC4VyJS_R1RAvo4LkJvCZ93_gdWtN8Xzsj-3wliiH5WitvAALTiT1Y9j6eGBnavlLplZsBBV27bI-QJWopR_VTkQ/s320/Statue_de_Le_Verrier.JPG" width="265" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1822 Joseph-Louis-François Bertrand (11 Mar 1822; 5 Apr 1900 at age 78) was a French mathematician and educator and educator remembered for his elegant applications of differential equations to analytical mechanics, particularly in thermodynamics, and for his work on statistical probability and the theory of curves and surfaces. In 1845 Bertrand conjectured that there is at least one prime between n and (2n-2) for every n greater than 3, as proved five years later by Chebyshev. It is not clear to me if he was the one who suggested the jingle<br /><blockquote>I've told you once and I'll tell you again<br />There's always a prime between n and 2n.</blockquote>In 1855 he translated Gauss's work on the theory of errors and the method of least squares into French. He wrote a number of notes on the reduction of data from observations. *TIS At age 11 he started to attend classes at the Ecole Polytechnique, where his Uncle Duhamel was a well-known professor of mathematics. At 17 he received his doctor of science degree. *VFR<br />In combinatorics, Bertrand's ballot problem is the question: "In an election where candidate A receives <i>p</i> votes and candidate B receives <i>q</i> votes with <i>p </i>greater than <i>q</i>, what is the probability that A will be strictly ahead of B throughout the count?" which Bertrand asked, and proved in 1887 in <span class="reference-text">Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences.</span><br />The answer is <img alt="\frac{p-q}{p+q}." class="tex" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/math/b/5/5/b551bad2dfb55d4f49627fd7cb357578.png" /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjD3apf31TZ8CqSwW39EsW5vdQsHwrF4md2KDWdRhHKTOso0R_Bur8YmJMpbNDO_MJND8D1UC-D-ETT-Tg2HChyphenhyphene0Avss8Ll8OsQ2m4pGBN-dj8YK2XXDFOjCs-VZyu1wI9b2e2JsWI7wCOoEpfiiN3cYCEuoPa2UTq1TT57Fk3QwevuEaU35Yn7QLXgs/s394/Bertrand.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjD3apf31TZ8CqSwW39EsW5vdQsHwrF4md2KDWdRhHKTOso0R_Bur8YmJMpbNDO_MJND8D1UC-D-ETT-Tg2HChyphenhyphene0Avss8Ll8OsQ2m4pGBN-dj8YK2XXDFOjCs-VZyu1wI9b2e2JsWI7wCOoEpfiiN3cYCEuoPa2UTq1TT57Fk3QwevuEaU35Yn7QLXgs/s320/Bertrand.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1845 Eleanor Mildred (Balfour) Sidgwick, (11 March 1845 – 10 February 1936) was an activist for the higher education of women, Principal of Newnham College of the University of Cambridge and a leading figure in the Society for Psychical Research.<br />She was born in East Lothian, daughter of James Maitland Balfour and Lady Blanche Harriet. She was born into perhaps the most prominent political clan in nineteenth-century Britain, the 'Hotel Cecil': her brother Arthur would eventually himself become prime minister. Another brother, Frank, a biologist, died young in a climbing accident.<br />One of the first students at Newnham College in Cambridge, in 1876 she married (and became converted to feminism by) the philosopher Henry Sidgwick. In 1880 she became Vice-Principal of Newnham under the founding Principal Anne Clough, succeeding as Principal on Miss Clough's death in 1892. She and her husband resided there until 1900, the year of Henry Sidgwick's death. In 1894 Mrs Sidgwick was one of the first three women to serve on a royal commission, the Bryce commission on Secondary Education.<br />As a young woman, Eleanor had helped (John William Strutt, who was married to her sister, Evelyn) Lord Rayleigh improve the accuracy of experimental measurement of electrical resistance. She conducted several experiments in electricity and with him published three papers in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.<br />She subsequently turned her careful experimental mind to the question of testing the veracity of claims for psychical phenomena. She was elected President of the Society for Psychical Research in 1908 and named 'president of honour' in 1932. Her Husband, Henry, her brother and future Prime Minister, Arthur, and Lord Rayleigh all were also Presidents of the Society.)<br />She was a member of the Ladies Dining Society in Cambridge, with 11 other members.<br />In 1916 Mrs Sidgwick left Cambridge to live with one of her brothers near Woking; she remained there until her death in 1936.<br />She was awarded honorary degrees by the universities of Manchester, Edinburgh, St Andrews and Birmingham.Most of her writings related to Psychical Research, and are contained in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. However, some related to educational matters, and a couple of essays dealt with the morality of international affairs. *Wik & encyclopedia.com</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNTkw6FEaHODG-D5K1A_FHDv-Nu6m30pMWklMGyM2q0ceZGrG7PfmDkKf7zzciwpPQeCfMaKlLszJ9SDx8Xt54ZW67Qr3cbqG7LY0n_zHAj1Q0XNiJ4t84XgwwAtmdc5Hfbun-5D20Y3B9H6zqVTP6e3esQD_wusLr2Gh0eTOARcJEO_WFsn4D-atN7Vw/s330/Eleanor_Sidgwick_by_1923.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNTkw6FEaHODG-D5K1A_FHDv-Nu6m30pMWklMGyM2q0ceZGrG7PfmDkKf7zzciwpPQeCfMaKlLszJ9SDx8Xt54ZW67Qr3cbqG7LY0n_zHAj1Q0XNiJ4t84XgwwAtmdc5Hfbun-5D20Y3B9H6zqVTP6e3esQD_wusLr2Gh0eTOARcJEO_WFsn4D-atN7Vw/s320/Eleanor_Sidgwick_by_1923.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1853 Salvatore Pincherle (11 March 1853 in Trieste, Austria (now Italy)-10 July 1936 in Bologna, Italy) worked on functional equations and functional analysis. Together with Volterra, he can claim to be one of the founders of functional analysis. Pincherle contributed to the development and dissemination of Weierstrass's development of a theory of analytic functions. He wrote an expository paper in 1880 which was published in the Giornale di Matematiche which was inspired by the lectures of Weierstrass. This work is important both in the development of analysis and in particular the progress of mathematics in Italy. *SAU</div><div><br /></div><div>He contributed significantly to (and arguably helped to found) the field of functional analysis, established the Italian Mathematical Union (Italian: "Unione Matematica Italiana"), and was president of the Third International Congress of Mathematicians. The Pincherle derivative is named after him.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDgjodkUV6UxEqjvVnWipPkz8l7EwM48ASWcMrpBfsBZ-vZRtw_uZz6b8Ig2mNwyALiSLyUT6FJ5Qt3oDawGxDLtJ9srVkLN71614kMosjyh-jTR-LtUtCaMvm8E_6SAHt0JAHrIFbJYsM_KoKSm-4KrTjZ_J_feNtCbi7HCbwUnTvHgSh6ln7w5EcMHw/s332/Salvatore_Pincherle.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="260" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDgjodkUV6UxEqjvVnWipPkz8l7EwM48ASWcMrpBfsBZ-vZRtw_uZz6b8Ig2mNwyALiSLyUT6FJ5Qt3oDawGxDLtJ9srVkLN71614kMosjyh-jTR-LtUtCaMvm8E_6SAHt0JAHrIFbJYsM_KoKSm-4KrTjZ_J_feNtCbi7HCbwUnTvHgSh6ln7w5EcMHw/s320/Salvatore_Pincherle.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1870 Louis Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Bachelier (March 11, 1870 – April 28, 1946) was a French mathematician at the turn of the 20th century. He is credited with being the first person to model the stochastic process now called Brownian motion, which was part of his PhD thesis The Theory of Speculation, (published 1900).<br />His thesis, which discussed the use of Brownian motion to evaluate stock options, is historically the first paper to use advanced mathematics in the study of finance. Thus, Bachelier is considered a pioneer in the study of financial mathematics and stochastic processes. *Wik Bachelier is now recognised internationally as the father of financial mathematics, but this fame, which he so justly deserved, was a long time coming. The Bachelier Society, named in his honour, is the world-wide financial mathematics society and mathematical finance is now a scientific discipline of its own. The Society held its first World Congress on 2000 in Paris on the hundredth anniversary of Bachelier's celebrated PhD Thesis, Théorie de la Spéculation *SAU</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9mFEdatgfywu0fLoMh7nwh83UwNKk1qNvlZ0u9Yug0XW4bG8nDzTyV3A9YzCJ-8R5eAbFwsbicz1DKStHQ_hcqfwwmtRUoZ2ayyx5XLrObP-niN9M7Jnyx2fNXjJqZFCuLeSfGsDpM9k0MC9PHW9y0VIS_xPAcVm1L9n-cQaKsCpTNsJcSiIzGyjmX40/s296/LouisBachelier.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="200" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9mFEdatgfywu0fLoMh7nwh83UwNKk1qNvlZ0u9Yug0XW4bG8nDzTyV3A9YzCJ-8R5eAbFwsbicz1DKStHQ_hcqfwwmtRUoZ2ayyx5XLrObP-niN9M7Jnyx2fNXjJqZFCuLeSfGsDpM9k0MC9PHW9y0VIS_xPAcVm1L9n-cQaKsCpTNsJcSiIzGyjmX40/s1600/LouisBachelier.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1888 William Edward Hodgson Berwick (11 March 1888 in Dudley Hill, Bradford – 13 May 1944 in Bangor, Gwynedd) was a British mathematician, specializing in algebra, who worked on the problem of computing an integral basis for the algebraic integers in a simple algebraic extension of the rationals.*Wik<br /><hr />1890 Birthdate of Vannevar Bush (11 Mar 1890; 28 Jun 1974 at age 84), the electrical engineer who developed the differential analyzer in the 1930s. This was an analogue device for integrating second order differential equations. It provides a nice simple model of the definite integral. *VFR Pre-World-War II computer pioneer Vannevar (pronounced "Van-ee-ver") Bush, who also was deeply involved with wartime computer projects, invented an electromechanical differential analyzer that used mechanical integrators to help solve differential equations. Bush was a co-founder of Raytheon, a military contractor. He also became very interested in information retrieval, which led him to imagine a machine he called "memex" -- an electronic extension of an individual's mind and memory base -- that mimicked human associative linking of information, and anticipated hypertext research. *CHM<br />Reminded by a tweet from Chris Stokes, "@Nisaccom" that Bush drove a Stanley Steamer in his youth I found this nice anecdote.<br /><blockquote>He drove a steam car, a Stanley Steamer, for many years and came to an easy understanding of its workings. He mastered the art of coaxing it up icy hills to see his future wife and of avoiding major fires. One day when it flooded and caught fire he sat by the side of the road waiting for it to go out but a traffic cop turned up and complained that if he wanted to burn his car there was a municipal dump just up the road. He explained that it was only a matter of time but the traffic cop wasn't convinced. When the fire eventually went out he drove away on the full head of steam that had built up leaving behind a bewildered traffic cop.</blockquote>*<a href="http://www.i-programmer.info/" target="_blank">iprogrammer info web page</a> </div><div><br /></div><div>Differential analyzer in use at the Cambridge University Mathematics Laboratory, 1938</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsiSdmyE-mKWO5XnC-qIWKJgIM4r-tad02-DhZmnlQhs-TbQ5luujH1lDFGbfZ5OpmkMbjql_VjsPIQHQ6JoR1S6E5ZWZD866c_m2SmNWNr87iQWOejMjJaXxM_sehUJSFGif5LhSdfXTyU4y6PqotERvFK2ZK6EsNkn504VrkwBVMOVp_-8E-d-oGbjw/s330/bush%20Cambridge_differential_analyser.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="241" data-original-width="330" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsiSdmyE-mKWO5XnC-qIWKJgIM4r-tad02-DhZmnlQhs-TbQ5luujH1lDFGbfZ5OpmkMbjql_VjsPIQHQ6JoR1S6E5ZWZD866c_m2SmNWNr87iQWOejMjJaXxM_sehUJSFGif5LhSdfXTyU4y6PqotERvFK2ZK6EsNkn504VrkwBVMOVp_-8E-d-oGbjw/s320/bush%20Cambridge_differential_analyser.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgByuYR3X2BaSrSMDzIlwP24akFBkaoDJcR37z-ZU1wHVTTgFfN_jx2ovGtyUZiACabXATLTjPpxbZZxUxEhlIh4tBbbqSStPaU_OTm4j-2cAJRAW8nEIHMZcWcEfhd8A_Si2N4wVgXsNarmO7kdRqJ_pDUI1I39qjefPqwNfPV3gIIj2dkb6vAm_qR_p8/s440/Vannevar%20Bush.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgByuYR3X2BaSrSMDzIlwP24akFBkaoDJcR37z-ZU1wHVTTgFfN_jx2ovGtyUZiACabXATLTjPpxbZZxUxEhlIh4tBbbqSStPaU_OTm4j-2cAJRAW8nEIHMZcWcEfhd8A_Si2N4wVgXsNarmO7kdRqJ_pDUI1I39qjefPqwNfPV3gIIj2dkb6vAm_qR_p8/s320/Vannevar%20Bush.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><hr />1915 Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (March 11, 1915 – June 26, 1990), known simply as J.C.R. or "Lick" was an American computer scientist, considered one of the most important figures in computer science and general computing history. He is particularly remembered for being one of the first to foresee modern-style interactive computing, and its application to all manner of activities; and also as an Internet pioneer, with an early vision of a world-wide computer network long before it was built. He did much to actually initiate all that through his funding of research which led to a great deal of it, including today's canonical graphical user interface, and the ARPANET, the direct predecessor to the Internet.*Wik</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibOUIKFgzBWhsRaxUsWQ97ccTZWr2v52OFJ3SEZxa8pZDNyUEe7VeupTlwHuY_0J-LcVbkntGL_k3pwRlDczbDQ6f_E0W-9KPQUWXS3nl9SA243Huvr3Spco4Uuts1OUgFp8HO_d5_WjSXcUMQ1SRpYekXJdne1mvPBtUZgnDcVp4UGvQsPUN9X9a6cCI/s267/J._C._R._Licklider.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="187" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibOUIKFgzBWhsRaxUsWQ97ccTZWr2v52OFJ3SEZxa8pZDNyUEe7VeupTlwHuY_0J-LcVbkntGL_k3pwRlDczbDQ6f_E0W-9KPQUWXS3nl9SA243Huvr3Spco4Uuts1OUgFp8HO_d5_WjSXcUMQ1SRpYekXJdne1mvPBtUZgnDcVp4UGvQsPUN9X9a6cCI/s1600/J._C._R._Licklider.jpg" width="187" /></a></div><br /><div><hr /></div><div>1920 <b style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Nicolaas Bloembergen</b><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> (March 11, 1920 – September 5, 2017) </span>Dutch-American physicist who shared (with Arthur L. Schawlow of the United States and Kai M. Siegbahn of Sweden) the 1981 Nobel Prize for Physics for their revolutionary spectroscopic studies of the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter. Bloembergen made a pioneering use of lasers in these investigations and developed three-level pumps used in both masers and lasers.*TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6BOs1fnBa1pZJ5i6RIKYtUe92_fTpeAKAQIp_f_rqQc7kp5C4m1GwdBwloEN7SjQ1KW4BqTNP-M-Rk03zQ6RoKUlk4zr3_mc6cTC-1WyInXnOnHSFkLy1VCNS-Vf2yy3w2CcRJKJAVwB5UiyTaGuSoDMPLD2qWlOU_MWJGosemmHvpvw0GH7CaqWftoQ/s426/Nicolaas_Bloembergen_1981.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="315" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6BOs1fnBa1pZJ5i6RIKYtUe92_fTpeAKAQIp_f_rqQc7kp5C4m1GwdBwloEN7SjQ1KW4BqTNP-M-Rk03zQ6RoKUlk4zr3_mc6cTC-1WyInXnOnHSFkLy1VCNS-Vf2yy3w2CcRJKJAVwB5UiyTaGuSoDMPLD2qWlOU_MWJGosemmHvpvw0GH7CaqWftoQ/s320/Nicolaas_Bloembergen_1981.jpg" width="237" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span></div>1849 Louis Paul Emile Richard (31 March 1795 in Rennes, France - 11 March 1849 in Paris, France) Richard perhaps attained his greatest fame as the teacher of Galois and his report on him which stated, "This student works only in the highest realms of mathematics.... "<br />It is well known. However, he also taught several other mathematicians whose biographies are included in this archive including Le Verrier, Serret and Hermite. He fully realised the significance of Galois' work and so, fifteen years after he left the college, he gave Galois' student exercises to Hermite so that a record of his school-work might be preserved. It is probably fair to say that Richard chose to give them to Hermite since in many ways he saw him as being similar to Galois. Under Richard's guidance, Hermite read papers by Euler, Gauss and Lagrange rather than work for his formal examinations, and he published two mathematics papers while a student at Louis-le-Grand.<br />Despite being encouraged by his friends to publish books based on the material that he taught so successfully, Richard did not wish to do so and so published nothing. This is indeed rather unfortunate since it would now be very interesting to read textbooks written by the teacher of so many world-class mathematicians.*SAU</div><div>Four of his students </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj00GFzCUU474wSLtbfIWXR4B1OrHzXHtd1boLmd6XlXm-MMpzRThyphenhyphenfOcmZpaSjFtRmSr7ne2wA-lZ_oqgpRQgfEhQNSpsPpuyP3TW0ZsPeSqf33zKac2bg4fmF6gJtB-QghxI6Gj31d3pjwBuYZVvhww11wNtLaJXwj1QB67opcUBBz1mPal9iBE_J870/s557/Richard%20students%20cuatro.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="557" data-original-width="449" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj00GFzCUU474wSLtbfIWXR4B1OrHzXHtd1boLmd6XlXm-MMpzRThyphenhyphenfOcmZpaSjFtRmSr7ne2wA-lZ_oqgpRQgfEhQNSpsPpuyP3TW0ZsPeSqf33zKac2bg4fmF6gJtB-QghxI6Gj31d3pjwBuYZVvhww11wNtLaJXwj1QB67opcUBBz1mPal9iBE_J870/s320/Richard%20students%20cuatro.jpeg" width="258" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr />1895 Daniel Friedrich Ernst Meissel (31 July 1826 in Neustadt-Eberswalde, Brandenburg, Prussia - 11 March 1895 in Kiel, Herzogtum Holstein, Prussia) Ernst Meissel's mathematical work covers number theory, work on Möbius inversion and the theory of partitions as well as work on Bessel functions, asymptotic analysis, refraction of light and the three body problem. *SAU</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5rkwOdc1hngDTtd8DXPoAMh_7DYnZPMZ2bapTdR3HesOHSOzy8PeC78twIUQiSDYaPqEYDanWGOY3BcfeLfG_u1GFHGaMDhctnbVbOj4TCiWMBPSxP3VviNozalN5R2nX30d1ceJViDF8TsiOeL4ZaGnjty34hm2ocTn3nVWSiAjDft4fmhrLgMuj_ms/s446/Meissel_hf.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5rkwOdc1hngDTtd8DXPoAMh_7DYnZPMZ2bapTdR3HesOHSOzy8PeC78twIUQiSDYaPqEYDanWGOY3BcfeLfG_u1GFHGaMDhctnbVbOj4TCiWMBPSxP3VviNozalN5R2nX30d1ceJViDF8TsiOeL4ZaGnjty34hm2ocTn3nVWSiAjDft4fmhrLgMuj_ms/s320/Meissel_hf.jpg" width="237" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1924 Niels Fabian Helge von Koch (Stockholm, January 25, 1870 – ibidem, March 11, 1924) was a Swedish mathematician who gave his name to the famous fractal known as the Koch snowflake, one of the earliest fractal curves to be described. Von Koch wrote several papers on number theory. One of his results was a 1901 theorem proving that the Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to a stronger form of the prime number theorem. He described the Koch curve in a 1904 paper entitled "On a continuous curve without tangents constructible from elementary geometry" (original French title: "Sur une courbe continue sans tangente, obtenue par une construction géométrique élémentaire"). *Wik</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy0f510cnyR-3T42zfpZu9NYfg4-AnUVE-Bege4mvbmPWNKi3ZohpnAnLFgyMQgO4TV3Ygmox0l9QfARAPrQgFQiivFAwYE2lkFA4MMu3eUX1YjEfjqXHqmC-Ud6hLpSC26QWZNKqN_x6mHb45QwBMZWl9tCacZQj3NTuh2K3tdDOryKqjpQW74h0TTpQ/s353/Helge_von_Koch.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="353" data-original-width="247" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy0f510cnyR-3T42zfpZu9NYfg4-AnUVE-Bege4mvbmPWNKi3ZohpnAnLFgyMQgO4TV3Ygmox0l9QfARAPrQgFQiivFAwYE2lkFA4MMu3eUX1YjEfjqXHqmC-Ud6hLpSC26QWZNKqN_x6mHb45QwBMZWl9tCacZQj3NTuh2K3tdDOryKqjpQW74h0TTpQ/s320/Helge_von_Koch.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZDY88V58x1NI8XJox0Jb_OEg1MsfZIAayl8RyC_5sTA1ojJ7TMKw3EZoPfbf9fUl_NUgnmeYelihWo7cUoe7TqgYysRwqhzjnwin1K3x4zXiTSGtjk3h1PcYsshjfDwyRFPNfCc1rRfxDIH45vYDyQDJOG5kvNmnSCARdgCMGmVz4eab3jmd_qtDs0ZU/s280/KochFlake.svg.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="280" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZDY88V58x1NI8XJox0Jb_OEg1MsfZIAayl8RyC_5sTA1ojJ7TMKw3EZoPfbf9fUl_NUgnmeYelihWo7cUoe7TqgYysRwqhzjnwin1K3x4zXiTSGtjk3h1PcYsshjfDwyRFPNfCc1rRfxDIH45vYDyQDJOG5kvNmnSCARdgCMGmVz4eab3jmd_qtDs0ZU/s1600/KochFlake.svg.png" width="280" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOCfehKFjHZLEHufQtZ3pS1V4GIIl_snzgGTLzJR5DlO4fVyH1p_r5UB78fzJ5RbtiQRD-BDyTst8oUMV28LKjmm02ya8ulUtOcHsT_Zn182vdigcjGRLjk1kTayXN5rrbBSM0FcugxpT0yVZpbJm2shcYknzbnhyphenhyphenWEIBMQOlspnLlW-uZB5BazjALDNI/s158/von%20koch%20stamp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="86" data-original-width="158" height="86" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOCfehKFjHZLEHufQtZ3pS1V4GIIl_snzgGTLzJR5DlO4fVyH1p_r5UB78fzJ5RbtiQRD-BDyTst8oUMV28LKjmm02ya8ulUtOcHsT_Zn182vdigcjGRLjk1kTayXN5rrbBSM0FcugxpT0yVZpbJm2shcYknzbnhyphenhyphenWEIBMQOlspnLlW-uZB5BazjALDNI/s1600/von%20koch%20stamp.jpg" width="158" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1967 Walter Andrew Shewhart (March 18, 1891 - March 11, 1967) was an American physicist, engineer and statistician, sometimes known as the father of statistical quality control.</div><div>W. Edwards Deming said of him, "As a statistician, he was, like so many of the rest of us, self-taught, on a good background of physics and mathematics. "<br />His more conventional work led him to formulate the statistical idea of tolerance intervals and to propose his data presentation rules, which are listed below:<br /><br />Data have no meaning apart from their context.<br />Data contain both signal and noise. To be able to extract information, one must separate the signal from the noise within the data.<br />Walter Shewhart visited India in 1947-48 under the sponsorship of P. C. Mahalanobis of the Indian Statistical Institute. Shewhart toured the country, held conferences and stimulated interest in statistical quality control among Indian industrialists<br />*SAU</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyyMu8a249HGC3zgHf33Qfi_wV63GnaqutjOCHGmTjDD_sSp9RN9mrsmRVe6fEsFnUEKR6N5baPETl-jfpr60uxCLvkeB1f2eFzim6XjVpnkpQcEyH1LeHxu_KDRhJNstEbG6MLU-8_B0oBp0oO7ouFb9TCn4-U3FGdJO_lhbmWfVJBP3iFYowFjsd9so/s452/WAShewhart.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyyMu8a249HGC3zgHf33Qfi_wV63GnaqutjOCHGmTjDD_sSp9RN9mrsmRVe6fEsFnUEKR6N5baPETl-jfpr60uxCLvkeB1f2eFzim6XjVpnkpQcEyH1LeHxu_KDRhJNstEbG6MLU-8_B0oBp0oO7ouFb9TCn4-U3FGdJO_lhbmWfVJBP3iFYowFjsd9so/s320/WAShewhart.jpg" width="234" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1971</b> <b style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Philo Taylor Farnsworth</b><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) </span>American pioneer in the development of electronic television, taking all of the moving parts out of television inventions. Farnsworth was a 15-year-old high school student when he designed his first television system. Six years later he obtained his first patent. In 1935 he demonstrated his complete television system. Farnsworth's basic television patents covered scanning, focusing, synchronizing, contrast, controls, and power. He also invented the first cold cathode ray tubes and the first simple electronic microscope. The Philco TV manufacturing was named after him. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHciZUpzj7N3Xk7ckxp9GpyGPKTP8tCV6DICty3aYMklZqfoJ-lelK0f5bPJNZz0Yx2dzK787Gz2HbIe_XCRs48wmTBOCNcXvz5DpZh9lNImk7MwB5T4Jpz0_MAHxdJKwR3kJFV_ntKXNSQlMUw5-tZEX4LqAJc_Jtgx89sELMfe8tmRI6eLJ3yws5as/s310/farnsworth%20TV.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="310" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHciZUpzj7N3Xk7ckxp9GpyGPKTP8tCV6DICty3aYMklZqfoJ-lelK0f5bPJNZz0Yx2dzK787Gz2HbIe_XCRs48wmTBOCNcXvz5DpZh9lNImk7MwB5T4Jpz0_MAHxdJKwR3kJFV_ntKXNSQlMUw5-tZEX4LqAJc_Jtgx89sELMfe8tmRI6eLJ3yws5as/s1600/farnsworth%20TV.jpeg" width="310" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-14648082262164660882024-03-10T06:30:00.001+00:002024-03-10T06:30:00.145+00:00Some History Notes about Alphametic Puzzles (and some early versions of a Topology Gem)<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Q0eczLRKqxVCq0QQilHObhznWZ9lvuJpqn5NvJpFt18-lW40hpMeOO5WkSkMYNEhI7HANK6MES1miK8MjgO8a6PNxQ-9OVyHooBnMEH7nMJWmbEz-3K5L_AgP2uPVGho1a4HyZlAMR4/s1600/alphametic+puzzles.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="169" data-original-width="542" height="99" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Q0eczLRKqxVCq0QQilHObhznWZ9lvuJpqn5NvJpFt18-lW40hpMeOO5WkSkMYNEhI7HANK6MES1miK8MjgO8a6PNxQ-9OVyHooBnMEH7nMJWmbEz-3K5L_AgP2uPVGho1a4HyZlAMR4/s320/alphametic+puzzles.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">*Pinterest.com</td></tr></tbody></table><p>They go by various names, Verbal arithmetic, alphametics, cryptarithmetic, crypt-arithmetic, cryptarithms, but you remember seeing them in school, probably as far back as elementary school. All of the terms are much newer than the puzzle. The name "cryptarithmie" was coined by puzzlist Minos (pseudonym of Simon Vatriquant) in the May 1931 issue of Sphinx, a Belgian magazine of recreational mathematics, and was translated as "cryptarithmetic" by Maurice Kraitchik in 1942. In 1955, J. A. H. Hunter introduced the word "alphametic" (my personal favorite) to designate cryptarithms, such as Dudeney's, whose letters form meaningful words or phrases<br /><br />The almost certainly most well known version, published in the July 1924 issue of Strand Magazine by Henry Dudeney, is:<br /><br />\(\begin{matrix} & & \text{S} & \text{E} & \text{N} & \text{D} \\ + & & \text{M} & \text{O} & \text{R} & \text{E} \\ \hline = & \text{M} & \text{O} & \text{N} & \text{E} & \text{Y} \\ \end{matrix}\)<br /><br />The problems existed for at least sixty years before that, and almost any place on the internet you can find that , "Verbal arithmetic puzzles are quite old and their inventor is not known. An 1864 example in The American Agriculturist disproves the popular notion that it was invented by Sam Loyd." (As with many things popularly known to have been invented by Sam Loyd, it was he who popularized the notion that he had invented them.) But not one of the dozens of sites I found this exact statement on, had the original problem. Finally I dug deep into Google Books, and at last ladies and gentlemen, after a period of perhaps 150 years, the first known verbal arithmetic problem ever published:<br /><br /><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NKlAAQAAMAAJ&dq=editions%3AZgDdhNxIOdkC&pg=PA349&ci=618%2C843%2C311%2C132&source=bookclip"><img height="270" src="https://books.google.com/books?id=NKlAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA349&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2CeXUJLss2YbuxdnSEcNtM_cObng&ci=618%2C843%2C311%2C132&edge=0" width="640" /></a><br /><br />Yikes, Ten different letters for a 4 digit by 6 digit multiplication......... This can NOT be the first such problem. Recreational problems start out with simple ideas that people stumble across and find curious, and then expand to more and more complexity.<br /><br />For a modern, but challenging version, here is one I got from Dave Radcliffe@daveinstpaul in early 2016. No solution is offered, although he said he did it first by computer, and warned that "It wasn't so easy."<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-p5eBoErvzQY98AhzqTsji4M2BI9BOXFChTFKer70-79DYlNKQBTDtXfc0e_Jblr0p9UDK8hRpxEdsKdo_hnYStd3qFOQCZwnjyTSw17WlK8OLptlEmAt_M8tvWo15LiifKM3pRe2Jt0/s1600/Alphametric+by+D+Radcliff.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-p5eBoErvzQY98AhzqTsji4M2BI9BOXFChTFKer70-79DYlNKQBTDtXfc0e_Jblr0p9UDK8hRpxEdsKdo_hnYStd3qFOQCZwnjyTSw17WlK8OLptlEmAt_M8tvWo15LiifKM3pRe2Jt0/s320/Alphametric+by+D+Radcliff.jpg" /></a></div><p><br />If that sounds too tough, Dave says "I was inspired by HALF+HALF=WHOLE, which I saw on FB"<br /> -It has more than one answer, so if you find one too quickly, try to figure out how many it has in all. (collect the whole set, send them in the comments ) If you have trouble with Dave's problem, you can look to the bottom of the blog.... or you can <a href="http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/alphamet/alpha_solve.shtml" target="_blank">visit this site</a> which is set up to solve these types of problems for you .<br /><br />Benjamin Vitale @BenVitale came up with this one which has two solutions with the same total, NOT + IN + THE = MOOD<br /><br />A little while later he did a second post with this somewhat unusual version:<br />(x, y, z) are positive integers in arithmetic sequence such that<br /><img alt="x \; < \; y \; < \; z" class="latex" src="https://s0.wp.com/latex.php?latex=x+%5C%3B+%3C+%5C%3B+y+%5C%3B+%3C+%5C%3B+z&bg=ffffff&fg=333333&s=0" title="x \; < \; y \; < \; z" />,<br /><img alt="z^3 \; - \; y^3 \; = \; TWO" class="latex" src="https://s0.wp.com/latex.php?latex=z%5E3+%5C%3B+-+%5C%3B+y%5E3+%5C%3B+%3D+%5C%3B+TWO&bg=ffffff&fg=333333&s=0" title="z^3 \; - \; y^3 \; = \; TWO" /> and <img alt="y^3 \; - \; x^3 \; = \; TOW" class="latex" src="https://s0.wp.com/latex.php?latex=y%5E3+%5C%3B+-+%5C%3B+x%5E3+%5C%3B+%3D+%5C%3B+TOW&bg=ffffff&fg=333333&s=0" title="y^3 \; - \; x^3 \; = \; TOW" /><br />Find <img alt="(x, \; y, \; z)" class="latex" src="https://s0.wp.com/latex.php?latex=%28x%2C+%5C%3B+y%2C+%5C%3B+z%29&bg=ffffff&fg=333333&s=0" title="(x, \; y, \; z)" /> And along the way, O, T, and W<br /><br /></p><hr /><p><br />While looking for the answer to the earliest alphametic, which I never found, I came across an early version of a common, "bet you can't do this" problem many students run into:<br /><br />The problem is generally called the "five rooms" problem, and the object of the puzzle is to draw a continuous path through the walls of all 5 rooms, without going through any wall twice, and without crossing any path. At least that is the modern version of the problem, (and not too modern at that, as this was the version I encountered as a student a very long time ago.)..<br />But the earliest versions of the problem ask for it to be drawn with "three strokes of the pencil, without erasing any lines, or going over the same line twice. This is the same version Henry E. Dudeney used in his 1917 "Amusements in Mathematics", problem 239. I was surprised to see that Gardner's "Entertaining Mathematical Puzzles", 1961 also had this version under the title "Five Bricks" on page 77. In his "My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles" on pages 6 and 7 he calls it "Cross the Network" and it takes the form of the five rooms problem.<br /><br /><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=aKlAAQAAMAAJ&dq=editions%3AZgDdhNxIOdkC&pg=PA135&ci=617%2C597%2C294%2C160&source=bookclip"><img height="217" src="https://books.google.com/books?id=aKlAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA135&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U3exYzd2V0ZQuS05JXO60ps1QqlHQ&ci=617%2C597%2C294%2C160&edge=0" width="400" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Here is a slightly blown up copy for you to try.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN_yzj9vECUDBiUB_Ki_h7xMs1_mCjDELrFeTFsZ7mMjzuAy4EBahMLnoUc9jTPWMCCmzkYpqX2V5s8-Hsq4ZziR8eIiqqnJWnNBzf_-mQNfQ42eFPbX6I7swmziYDq2hNtDAPLvo5M1Q/s1600/5_rooms_sketch.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN_yzj9vECUDBiUB_Ki_h7xMs1_mCjDELrFeTFsZ7mMjzuAy4EBahMLnoUc9jTPWMCCmzkYpqX2V5s8-Hsq4ZziR8eIiqqnJWnNBzf_-mQNfQ42eFPbX6I7swmziYDq2hNtDAPLvo5M1Q/s320/5_rooms_sketch.gif" /></a></div><p><br /><br />There are a number of these types of puzzles. Martin Gardner described them as one of the oldest of topological puzzles but gives no clear details on origin. I could find no references to the type of problem in David Singmaster's Chronology or Recreational Mathematics, but maybe it slipped my eye.<br />Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) like to give one that is possible to his young friends according to an old article in the Strand Magazine, 1908. Although it is sometimes attributed to Carroll, the author of the article says he "saw it in a little book published in 1835. He then contrasts the easy solution of Carroll's problem with what he calls "the old circle and square" problem, I assume because he believes it is older.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieHewTAz84duu0RJT6IKwMld6-_vp646BtMYklp-pkESxTmkta9JS82cxW_3GwHt0HJIzFie6KWMHFNBWBaP4bsIcLG_XBGswf-0yShQ4NSGBKsM0RCZwc3Ju1BP-BYFgLbMI-qJWkA44/s1600/Lewis+carroll+drawing+puzzle.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieHewTAz84duu0RJT6IKwMld6-_vp646BtMYklp-pkESxTmkta9JS82cxW_3GwHt0HJIzFie6KWMHFNBWBaP4bsIcLG_XBGswf-0yShQ4NSGBKsM0RCZwc3Ju1BP-BYFgLbMI-qJWkA44/s320/Lewis+carroll+drawing+puzzle.jpg" /></a></div><p><br />If you have information about this problem in either form I would love information, links, or digital copies.<br /><br />Sometimes you come across things in old puzzle magazines that leave you stumped, as I di in this problem. An interesting, and probably challenging question for people in the US, A question in one of the 1860 editions asked, "What four US coins can be used to make a total of 51 cents... If you get stuck, I will post this answer a little lower down the post..<br /><br /><br /><br />The solution of the problem of the four coins to make 51 cents was two quarters and two 1/2 cent pieces. The 1/2 cent coins were produced in the United States from 1793 to 1857. The half-cent piece was made of 100% copper and was valued at five milles, or one two-hundredth of a dollar.<br /><br />The solution to Dave's alphametic is A=7 E=5 F=1 H=6 I=4 L=0 N=3 O=8 T=2 W=9</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-47957238385464155672024-03-10T06:00:00.007+00:002024-03-11T02:02:34.249+00:00On This Day in Math - March 10<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTyJ6jUuC7D9Zpnl4op0CJfMmtNC8--G7yIxrH3cn62SFErobVu" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTyJ6jUuC7D9Zpnl4op0CJfMmtNC8--G7yIxrH3cn62SFErobVu" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Rings of Uranus from Voyager 2, *astronomynotes.com</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">A rule of thumb for any good math talk is that it should have one proof and one joke</div><div style="text-align: center;">and they should not be the same.</div><p>~Ron Graham<br /><br />The 69th day of the year; the square and the cube of 69 together contain all ten numerals.<br />69<sup>2</sup> = 4761, 69<sup>3</sup> =328509<br /><br />10<sup>69</sup>+69 is prime and;<br />100<sup>69</sup>-69 is prime<br /><br />On Many scientific calculators, 69! is the largest factorial that can be calculated, with an overflow error for larger numbers. 69! is appx 1.711 (10<sup>98</sup>)<br /><br />Don S. McDonald @McDONewt pointed out that \( \binom{69}{5}\) = 11238513, 7 Fibonacci #'s <i>almost</i> in order.<br /><br />The first squared square to be found was a square filled with 69 smaller squares. ( electrical network theory was used to make the discovery, previously most mathematicians felt that there were not likely to be any squared squares <i>see Jan 21</i>).. (I have since found out that this was not the first. In 1938 Roland Sprague found a solution using several copies of various squared rectangles and produced a squared square with 55 squares, and side lengths of 4205)<br /></p><p>A "simple" squared square is one where no subset of more than one of the squares forms a rectangle or square, otherwise it is "compound".</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge3GnBOg1s4jA6ZIXayw6JAXuM-eGRRZx4KbHRzRkhASgtBOzWQj3a2nXBlYBlsv6K6S_O7RUUSL6GM3BIB5YicxcMlfHXIwd0NY8HFotw2Tr2jCYZIvgvlED7lMRmEi7B0nPxCbNlGf4/s1600/squared+square.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge3GnBOg1s4jA6ZIXayw6JAXuM-eGRRZx4KbHRzRkhASgtBOzWQj3a2nXBlYBlsv6K6S_O7RUUSL6GM3BIB5YicxcMlfHXIwd0NY8HFotw2Tr2jCYZIvgvlED7lMRmEi7B0nPxCbNlGf4/s320/squared+square.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Lowest-order perfect squared square *Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4iSinilSiGBYcU7jlXIDLa5BJffdBsWQ33WZmODqV7yq18A4Jef6DtcOpgCcPUeNFdfGfdZoC1VGZXvHNSknPOtKvGWIuJZUpo3NFGMauSGfKEPA2JMtqx6dLwxC2AWhzyf8uMdHvtUvJFD4cBubzG9TkvCflCJEcWFrpypu_btk8HiIbzfiGaCd6B8c/s450/Sprague_squared_square.svg.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4iSinilSiGBYcU7jlXIDLa5BJffdBsWQ33WZmODqV7yq18A4Jef6DtcOpgCcPUeNFdfGfdZoC1VGZXvHNSknPOtKvGWIuJZUpo3NFGMauSGfKEPA2JMtqx6dLwxC2AWhzyf8uMdHvtUvJFD4cBubzG9TkvCflCJEcWFrpypu_btk8HiIbzfiGaCd6B8c/s320/Sprague_squared_square.svg.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Sprague Square</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p>Coptic ostrakon noting an eclipse of the sun which had occurred at midday on 10 March 601 CE, Egypt.* @HistAstro<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEFzMPOlKtw8kEOHsYNGUZJwFM2BKTdMKScjczFfdNpTjdxbGDdTGhZTKHH-JgbzLKDFY2up5uTKVeMQayQaTcSPCB8XbgxOJ2am1kbG7a2xKNPrSlxxXVPD6qpNjbERzHWWX30voDX88WJgvTxQfRxN-_5kV-89C8KdM26XzcKtq-wOTXXqNC8x2s=s680" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="680" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEFzMPOlKtw8kEOHsYNGUZJwFM2BKTdMKScjczFfdNpTjdxbGDdTGhZTKHH-JgbzLKDFY2up5uTKVeMQayQaTcSPCB8XbgxOJ2am1kbG7a2xKNPrSlxxXVPD6qpNjbERzHWWX30voDX88WJgvTxQfRxN-_5kV-89C8KdM26XzcKtq-wOTXXqNC8x2s=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1615 Henry Briggs was completely engaged in the study of logarithms by this date for he wrote “Neper, lord of Markinston, hath set my head and hands a work with his new and admirable logarithms. I hope to see him this summer, if it please God, for I never saw a book, which pleased me better, and made me more wonder.” *VFR<br /></p><hr /><p>1625 Henry Briggs writes to Kepler that work was underway to edit Thomas Harriot’s papers, “since we may expect and hope for a posthumous book from that author any day”. *Thomas Harriot’s Doctrine of Triangular Numbers, Beery & Stedall, pg 28<br /></p><p>Thomas Harriot (1560–1621) was a mathematician and astronomer who founded the English school of algebra. He is known not only for his work in algebra and geometry but also as a prolific writer with wide-ranging interests in ballistics, navigation, and optics. (He discovered the sine law of refraction now known as Snell's law.)</p><p>By about 1614, Harriot had developed finite difference interpolation methods for navigational tables. In 1618 (or slightly later) he composed a treatise entitled ‘De numeris triangularibus et inde de progressionibus arithmeticis, Magisteria magna', in which he derived symbolic interpolation formulae and showed how to use them. This treatise was never published. </p><p>The ideas in the ‘Magisteria' were spread primarily through personal communication and unpublished manuscripts, and so, quite apart from their intrinsic mathematical interest, their survival in England during the seventeenth century provides an important case study in the dissemination of mathematics through informal networks of friends and acquaintances. Harriot's method was not superseded until Newton, apparently independently, made a similar discovery in the 1660s.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG9g0kvE1MAyg6UvLn_-KE24CUF6m438eW_leuHZyAB5Gq2Xp6MqMYtvTYdlq7wcPSOdN-xD-cpxSrLZfIHc0tS971_5TWBlLmzz6YMZSF4hPM0IFBYUJyrFMu1NKhyphenhyphendd9gYz09RyQO_T-3zyZIfRxtoKEE3FKvsHtrFjHoOwF6cfk5gzjXtNyfDidrSc/s1714/harriotts%20triangular%20numbers.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG9g0kvE1MAyg6UvLn_-KE24CUF6m438eW_leuHZyAB5Gq2Xp6MqMYtvTYdlq7wcPSOdN-xD-cpxSrLZfIHc0tS971_5TWBlLmzz6YMZSF4hPM0IFBYUJyrFMu1NKhyphenhyphendd9gYz09RyQO_T-3zyZIfRxtoKEE3FKvsHtrFjHoOwF6cfk5gzjXtNyfDidrSc/s320/harriotts%20triangular%20numbers.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIc5mtpHMWvNmzcUGO35yC1NrI6HqpFDNM-RspP1dl-gjXczxMvAW7TGGpgOY67vaUFuZjNRgNw1lkp756qpWobM9CdoIZwB7VOehUPaXzAyao-TOuuXOoVPLWfAriDka7YGPtsEmjetHeyBEaWgx_sf22sm37J7cMeemj9TdCaRoCiy1a7m7sSt5vtLI/s419/Thomas%20Harriot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIc5mtpHMWvNmzcUGO35yC1NrI6HqpFDNM-RspP1dl-gjXczxMvAW7TGGpgOY67vaUFuZjNRgNw1lkp756qpWobM9CdoIZwB7VOehUPaXzAyao-TOuuXOoVPLWfAriDka7YGPtsEmjetHeyBEaWgx_sf22sm37J7cMeemj9TdCaRoCiy1a7m7sSt5vtLI/s320/Thomas%20Harriot.jpg" width="252" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1672 From Hooke's Journal: Hooke’s first weather report was for Sunday 10 March 1672"[mercury] fell from 170 to 185. most part of ye Day cleer but cold & somewhat windy at the South–[I was this morning better with my cold then I had been 3 months before] [moon] apogeum–It grew cloudy about 4. [mercury] falling still"<br />Instead of writing the words ‘mercury’ and ‘moon’ (transcribed in square brackets here), Hooke depicted them with their astrological symbols ☿ and ☽ as a kind of shorthand. *felicityhen, Hooke's London.com<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiErYXaDAVh7UGHySn7BKwzzB4Xj3JYjKsrjpc60f1x59yWVjITX8Cm044CMUPooNLdbKUygQYQg-ta0u1KFXp_eoO3Kh_qQf1xOfPYl2tqHLvImYMjZwAPULcuzrbKbd7lMskDg9bzI5w04_lBP6Ww7_dv6XuVnF5e5h7Bh3GEn2nigCef2neEPXNAIFQ/s218/hooke%20bio%20jardine.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="145" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiErYXaDAVh7UGHySn7BKwzzB4Xj3JYjKsrjpc60f1x59yWVjITX8Cm044CMUPooNLdbKUygQYQg-ta0u1KFXp_eoO3Kh_qQf1xOfPYl2tqHLvImYMjZwAPULcuzrbKbd7lMskDg9bzI5w04_lBP6Ww7_dv6XuVnF5e5h7Bh3GEn2nigCef2neEPXNAIFQ/s1600/hooke%20bio%20jardine.jpg" width="145" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1695 John Evelyn writes in his journal of a visit to the Earl of Sunderland, who had acquired one of the best math libraries in Europe from the estate of Charles Scarborough; "My Lord showed me his library, now again improved by many books bought at the sale of Sir Charles Scarborough, an eminent physician, which was the very best collection, especially of mathematical books, that was I believe in Europe" *John Evelyn's Diary *AMS<br /></p><hr /><p>1763 Euler's E812. Read before the Academy of Berlin 10 March 1763 but only published posthumously in 1862. "Reflexions sur une espese singulier de loterie nommée loterie genoise." Opera postuma I, 1862, p. 319–335. The paper determined the probability that a particular number be drawn in a lottery.<br />Euler's interest in lotteries began at the latest in 1749 when he was commissioned by Frederick the Great to render an opinion on a proposed lottery. The first of two letters began 15 September 1749. A second series began on 17 August 1763. *Ed Sandifer, How Euler Did It<br /></p><hr /><p>1773 Laplace introduces inverse probability. Stephen Stigler called it the most influential paper published in probability to appear before 1800. *Springer’s 1985 Statistics Calendar<br /></p><p>In probability theory, inverse probability is an old term for the probability distribution of an unobserved variable.</p><p>The term "inverse probability" appears in an 1837 paper of De Morgan, in reference to Laplace's method of probability</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl5ImjD5eAfgcWgP5fk23T6xrjCbKrkg4ZOZLxule7u_eo7e6occLIpnc8YNPALmEkOyGj5yAlHwFNbZak0reJOZPheia_8OB8cRpVKsVfxM7DJfjbIZO44d5yA9Vboyl_ydp09kS8k3GFxBEGAURTYVoHqMd7MjeIliI_25jMjCe3C3fKzU4RH9EOVDE/s300/Laplace,_Pierre-Simon.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="256" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl5ImjD5eAfgcWgP5fk23T6xrjCbKrkg4ZOZLxule7u_eo7e6occLIpnc8YNPALmEkOyGj5yAlHwFNbZak0reJOZPheia_8OB8cRpVKsVfxM7DJfjbIZO44d5yA9Vboyl_ydp09kS8k3GFxBEGAURTYVoHqMd7MjeIliI_25jMjCe3C3fKzU4RH9EOVDE/s1600/Laplace,_Pierre-Simon.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnJhew-8rqSG4urxZpGik7gM3rg6DnbfvOKzFx9giLAH01JR2UyCOoixqmK7RtuX1y72TNSUOKc_-5wty5QooURnxjirfRtXjOnHfIaxH4fJl6Uqbpcx93tmOlx-upaHdOziuYtQGZ9RiAt-qdNbIvbHY-qaZkB-OQfn5GNkqMlOF4GTcjW8QsDe5x/s213/argand.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="213" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnJhew-8rqSG4urxZpGik7gM3rg6DnbfvOKzFx9giLAH01JR2UyCOoixqmK7RtuX1y72TNSUOKc_-5wty5QooURnxjirfRtXjOnHfIaxH4fJl6Uqbpcx93tmOlx-upaHdOziuYtQGZ9RiAt-qdNbIvbHY-qaZkB-OQfn5GNkqMlOF4GTcjW8QsDe5x/s1600/argand.png" width="213" /></a></div>1797 The surveyor Caspar Wessel presented his one and only mathematics paper to the Danish Academy of Sciences. It established his priority in publishing a geometrical representation of complex numbers. The paper was essentially unknown until 1895 when Christian Juel pointed out its significance. *VFR (this paper introduced what are now often called <a href="http://pballew.blogspot.com/2011/08/on-this-day-in-math-aug-13.html" target="_blank">Argand Diagrams</a>) He represented complex numbers as points in a Cartesian plane, with the real portion of the number on the x axis and the imaginary part on the y axis. This was also independently devised a few years later, by Jean-Robert Argand, an amateur mathematician who self-published his ideas in an anomymous monograph (1806). Through publicity generated when Argand came forward and identified himself as the author, it was his name that has the lasting association with the Argand diagram<br /><p></p><hr /><p>1797 Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) presented a paper on the megalonyx to the American Philosophical Society. It was published as "A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia," Transactions of American Philosophical Society 4:255-256, along with an account by Caspar Wistar (1761-1818). This is arguably the first American publication in paleontology, but the only paleontology paper written by Jefferson. In 1822, this huge extinct sloth was named Megalonyx jeffersoni by a French naturalist. (Megalonyx Gr. large claw). It was a bear-sized ground sloth, over 2 meters tall, widespread in North America during the last Ice Age.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-P9pLbNMLOIf0Cft1SuYsvd6Ch2WsrjAuaYvFzMdENs8Mqczy7-27CunV2w_ClWWrItJQWlxLJo63L7L4zGOezOMcauYiNp7GjI5myxU-EFH1bPvJg7H50KePZZU8PZ_arSzOVJN46Ylr6sDCVwqIoEMXHvc91XLebbDcB9Xt2BOccfqAeykDCzXZc4/s230/magalonex%20jefferson.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="230" data-original-width="219" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-P9pLbNMLOIf0Cft1SuYsvd6Ch2WsrjAuaYvFzMdENs8Mqczy7-27CunV2w_ClWWrItJQWlxLJo63L7L4zGOezOMcauYiNp7GjI5myxU-EFH1bPvJg7H50KePZZU8PZ_arSzOVJN46Ylr6sDCVwqIoEMXHvc91XLebbDcB9Xt2BOccfqAeykDCzXZc4/s1600/magalonex%20jefferson.jpeg" width="219" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p></p><hr /><p></p><p>1812 Jean Jacques Bret became docteur d´es sciences, having previously been professor of transcen-dental mathematics at the lyc´ee in Grenoble. Later he was involved in a prolonged polemic with J. B. E. Dubourguet concerning the fundamental theorem of algebra. *VFR</p><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibWlhbtdNSfwrPeg9MjsYzhH0WJprAOu6t_BfL5aEW6lTPzu-WTQK8YwDPahVc6S_YvXHCcrCRFfJYVfmESYb4saiQqBXeeup0yTy6y1NXQ5blYMVwyVjrTNouGPhtq2F2iWs1SmJyq5BYZAGjNeey61zSGvubuaNhX6gnSWLA5fGVlqLCBL8efSV7/s600/Royal%20astronomical%20seal.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="600" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibWlhbtdNSfwrPeg9MjsYzhH0WJprAOu6t_BfL5aEW6lTPzu-WTQK8YwDPahVc6S_YvXHCcrCRFfJYVfmESYb4saiQqBXeeup0yTy6y1NXQ5blYMVwyVjrTNouGPhtq2F2iWs1SmJyq5BYZAGjNeey61zSGvubuaNhX6gnSWLA5fGVlqLCBL8efSV7/w200-h199/Royal%20astronomical%20seal.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p><b style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><br />1820</b><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13.2px;"> </span><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Founding of the Royal Astronomical Society of England. Charles Babbage was one of the founding members. *Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann, p. 10 *VFR.</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;" /><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 13.2px;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f9fbfe; color: #141414; font-family: "open sans"; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">The 'Astronomical Society of London' was conceived on 12 January 1820 when 14 gentlemen sat down to dinner at the Freemason's Tavern, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. After an unusually short gestation the new Society was born on 10 March 1820 with the first meeting of the Council and the Society as a whole. An early setback, when Sir Joseph Banks induced the Duke of Somerset to withdraw his agreement to be the first President, was overcome when Sir William Herschel agreed to be the titular first President, though he never actually took the Chair at a meeting. *Royal Astronomical Society</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;" /></p><hr style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;" /><p><b style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"></b></p><div><p><b>1876 <span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"> </span></b><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, Thomas A Watson, talked by telephone over a two-mile wire stretched between Boston and Cambridge Massachusetts. The message was a simple statement, "Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you." The common story is that he had invented the device by accident and would not have one in his home because he saw it as a distraction. </span></p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">Whatever his objections, years later on January 25 of 1915, he place another call to his former assistant, between Bell in New York and Watson in San Francisco, and they repeated the exact same dialogue as their first message. The call was a public relations stunt by A T & T to demonstrate their ability to make transcontinental calls, a 3,400 mile communication. The call was timed to agree with the opening of the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco which would open on Feb 20. </span><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">A telephone line was also established to New York City so people across the continent could hear the Pacific Ocean. </span></p><p><i>The transcontinental line was completed on June 17, of 1914 and successfully voice tested in July. A postage stamp commemorating the completion was released in 1914 also.</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigjz_My1qDZf9H6jRkuiat6o5C0qIA6TdeW-dvn4IqMBq75ksfDvcNqQbpcqp-rYGvW8s_ZEpkSIE2_wUSvGEh7KMMUnk0cLTEKdnmy9cdPb0BIGSzf2-cyFQuzAfPCTPPeOP_SABZiXpk2c-KMoigvKuvW22jm_L48HNCZa6f6rf8W3Ze7Jb7ocGloA0/s393/Panama_pacific_poster.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigjz_My1qDZf9H6jRkuiat6o5C0qIA6TdeW-dvn4IqMBq75ksfDvcNqQbpcqp-rYGvW8s_ZEpkSIE2_wUSvGEh7KMMUnk0cLTEKdnmy9cdPb0BIGSzf2-cyFQuzAfPCTPPeOP_SABZiXpk2c-KMoigvKuvW22jm_L48HNCZa6f6rf8W3Ze7Jb7ocGloA0/s320/Panama_pacific_poster.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQT_B9eCExRMbjU2h0vk7LKdRqD2Kdg8QZnQMP1oL52o65w97shGU0qLTsDth7kQ81673NEcnWh4xFU73U4bGNFbF_BjtKuf0bbEKTEPKXiOjLRwFx5cLi3xOMY0ypjim-DMhpXW9xT5r2B-Vhq1Gb3HF0L32KUEdJLipCkQnLzsbBtvtNTJFbVpQcPEQ/s1600/transcontinental%20phone%20stamp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="852" data-original-width="1600" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQT_B9eCExRMbjU2h0vk7LKdRqD2Kdg8QZnQMP1oL52o65w97shGU0qLTsDth7kQ81673NEcnWh4xFU73U4bGNFbF_BjtKuf0bbEKTEPKXiOjLRwFx5cLi3xOMY0ypjim-DMhpXW9xT5r2B-Vhq1Gb3HF0L32KUEdJLipCkQnLzsbBtvtNTJFbVpQcPEQ/s320/transcontinental%20phone%20stamp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><hr /></span><p></p></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>1897 Schering in Gottingen in response to a note from Fuchs that he had found materials related to Guass' Disquisitiones Arithmetica in the papers of Dirichlet describes a story that he had shared with Kronecker a decade before,<br /><blockquote>"The piece of Guass's Disquisitiones Arithmeticiae, which is found among Dirichlet's papers, is probably that portion which, as Dirichlet told me himself, he saved from the hand of Gauss when the latter lit his pipe with his manuscript of the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae on the day of his doctoral jubilee."</blockquote>On 28 April of the same year, Dedekind expressed skepticism of the tale since he reasoned, if Gauss had saved the paper for fifty years he obviously valued it, and that if the anecdote were true, Dirichlet surely would have shared it with him as well. *Uta Merzbach, An Early Version of Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, Mathematical Perspectives, 1981</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPmgZkRfKJaVLmiB9gB5oeUvRW6NEIWbCSMEkglM4srhE_Z_fFr5AAtlkCqIKor_LdRMWesatqMROMDhyphenhyphendJDtpye9ZYSy-BaP9kALRNrv4WVTwZrHw3emEpS-Smy5LTin7928gO-mIqUtu0YhTbu8MK2X4ufGsZm1Ror-oKLmcEpw6z1PkLOsgV06Z1sA/s420/Carl_Friedrich_Gauss_1840_by_Jensen.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPmgZkRfKJaVLmiB9gB5oeUvRW6NEIWbCSMEkglM4srhE_Z_fFr5AAtlkCqIKor_LdRMWesatqMROMDhyphenhyphendJDtpye9ZYSy-BaP9kALRNrv4WVTwZrHw3emEpS-Smy5LTin7928gO-mIqUtu0YhTbu8MK2X4ufGsZm1Ror-oKLmcEpw6z1PkLOsgV06Z1sA/s320/Carl_Friedrich_Gauss_1840_by_Jensen.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnB8RACaojhioqZznvoX-_HBBZy-ekybmjtlet-7CcZHa0E3FjQwT6dbm_Xk2IgfQUN7MoQaKcq_zV0dAglCOQKZcKFpF6PogVeVow12dLLSqYN2GSPnlHoOK0yR3yaaDICFnARoSe4z8/s1600/Amazing+stories+first+issue.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnB8RACaojhioqZznvoX-_HBBZy-ekybmjtlet-7CcZHa0E3FjQwT6dbm_Xk2IgfQUN7MoQaKcq_zV0dAglCOQKZcKFpF6PogVeVow12dLLSqYN2GSPnlHoOK0yR3yaaDICFnARoSe4z8/s320/Amazing+stories+first+issue.jpg" width="230" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table>1926 Amazing Stories was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Before Amazing, science fiction stories had made regular appearances in other magazines, including some published by Gernsback, but Amazing helped define and launch a new genre of pulp fiction.The first issue appeared on 10 March 1926, with a cover date of April 1926. *Wik<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><hr />1977 Rings of Planet Uranus discovered. The rings of Uranus were discovered by James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham, and Douglas J. Mink. More than 200 years ago, William Herschel also reported observing rings (in 1789); some modern astronomers are skeptical that he could have actually seen them, as they are very dark and faint – others are not. In 1977, the rings of Uranus were discovered from earth by stellar occultation experiments made when Uranus occulted (passed in front of) a star and it was noticed that there were dips in the brightness of the star before and after it passed behind the body of Uranus. This data suggested that Uranus was surrounded by at least five rings. Four more rings were suggested by subsequent occultation measurements from the Earth, and two additional ones were found by space probe Voyager 2, bringing the total to 11. *TIS Uranus has two sets of rings. The inner system of nine rings consists mostly of narrow, dark grey rings. There are two outer rings: the innermost one is reddish like dusty rings elsewhere in the solar system, and the outer ring is blue like Saturn's E ring.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGgtDqnWkGDbz9ilmK2GdVlOgL9cNv5ObLWQHK7Peeh45zqerugZ6cYCVvGk4Af_vJtrLEYb45gLmGSffMOXBDvLSQl-pDxQCHnEVPV0qT92v2lzr9TJRf0uO8r5ZU1nRqdOx1kPTsf2GnVwjpsiy9ZezyD-748cv0IehE13b-jtuID8H2wgP9-VVe/s473/Uranian_rings_scheme.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGgtDqnWkGDbz9ilmK2GdVlOgL9cNv5ObLWQHK7Peeh45zqerugZ6cYCVvGk4Af_vJtrLEYb45gLmGSffMOXBDvLSQl-pDxQCHnEVPV0qT92v2lzr9TJRf0uO8r5ZU1nRqdOx1kPTsf2GnVwjpsiy9ZezyD-748cv0IehE13b-jtuID8H2wgP9-VVe/s320/Uranian_rings_scheme.png" width="271" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjGx2Z1_g_C0G_7mXzmm2QLQPUb0-yoAqtpwfO3M7IMV_3zkG5oNR6y4hXVO-Yp2meJprFZFhrUp4Ueyi1Em4KO-kos6e9f5QV1AQIATNSRqXD2-MGgADNek6n9i-PuS277re-SyZMT15nhDP98vE2-R4H_V0sOk1TU-28YmyXoWMl3Xzb34-rkJVP=s246" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="246" data-original-width="204" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjGx2Z1_g_C0G_7mXzmm2QLQPUb0-yoAqtpwfO3M7IMV_3zkG5oNR6y4hXVO-Yp2meJprFZFhrUp4Ueyi1Em4KO-kos6e9f5QV1AQIATNSRqXD2-MGgADNek6n9i-PuS277re-SyZMT15nhDP98vE2-R4H_V0sOk1TU-28YmyXoWMl3Xzb34-rkJVP=w140-h169" width="140" /></a></div><hr /></div>1981 Czechoslovakia issued a stamp picturing the philosopher/mathematician Bernhard Bolzano (1781–1848). [Scott #2352] *VFR<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><hr />In 1982, a syzygy occurred when all nine planets aligned on the same side of the Sun. The planets are spread out over 98 degrees on this date. The four major planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, span an arc of some 73 degrees. *TIS The next "grand" syzygy is May 19, 2161, when eight planets (excluding Pluto) will be found within 69 degrees of each other, according to astronomers at the Kitt Peak National Observatory.<br /><br /><hr />1988 An article in the Washington Post reported that young Japanese mathematician Yoichi Miyaoka had solved Fermat's Last Theorem. It would be followed with one in the New York Times the next day. Quickly however, a mistake was found. *Magnificent Mistakes in Mathematics by Alfred S. Posamentier, Ingmar Lehmann</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-uE7jSW2sX162vKpuxKEWknBvssQTXNGYsI9caNvVmV9XSEtP2cYtinmfBN-84K4jcJB8whbDDG_enduYm-h7ie8uX2VlSKZyblRMS4WOlP33rWybRTUxccG98zQ3pHdhtLEKGnAkCOG5QRobm5O7TRfCXYn34qVB-YYLs43zoLtd87FHP4utYXB_jQ/s425/magnificent%20mistkes%20in%20math.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-uE7jSW2sX162vKpuxKEWknBvssQTXNGYsI9caNvVmV9XSEtP2cYtinmfBN-84K4jcJB8whbDDG_enduYm-h7ie8uX2VlSKZyblRMS4WOlP33rWybRTUxccG98zQ3pHdhtLEKGnAkCOG5QRobm5O7TRfCXYn34qVB-YYLs43zoLtd87FHP4utYXB_jQ/s320/magnificent%20mistkes%20in%20math.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span></div>1622 Johann Heinrich Rahn (10 March 1622 in Zürich, Switzerland - 25 May 1676 in Zürich, Switzerland) mathematician who was the first to use the symbol "÷",called an obelus, for a division symbol in Teutsche Algebra (1659). The invention is also sometimes credited to British Mathematician John Pell. <a href="http://pballew.net/arithme6.html#divsymb" target="_blank">Here is more on the various symbols</a> used for division .</div><div><div> Pell's equation y^2=ax^2+1, where a is a non-square integer, was first studied by Brahmagupta and Bhaskara II. Its complete theory was worked out by Lagrange, not Pell. It is often said that Euler mistakenly attributed Brouncker's work on this equation to Pell. However the equation appears in a book by Rahn which was certainly written with Pell's help: some say entirely written by Pell. Perhaps Euler knew what he was doing in naming the equation. *SAU He introduced the division sign (obelus, ÷) into England. The obelus was first used by Johann Rahn (1622-1676) in 1659 in Teutsche Algebra. Rahn's book was interpreted into English and published, with additions made by John Pell. According to some sources, John Pell was a key influence on Rahn and he may be responsible for the development of the symbol. The word obelus comes from a Greek word meaning a "roasting spit." The symbol wasn't new. It had been used to mark passages in writings that were considered dubious, corrupt or spurious.*TIS</div></div><div>The obelus as used br Rahn (Pell?) was not a mathematical operator, but a shorthand for an operation. In the cimage below you can see that down the left column he gives instructions for how to proceed in a solution. Notice the obelus only appears in the left column, never as an operation. In the columns where steps of solution occur, he uses a vinculum (division bar) as the division operator.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjCyA0R1vIzmmRgo7uAtAhZDj9zqIyZ448TDj9-LbRZJZ-4filF-ss9yUNibQNMCDzYCUq2WPz82OMkIuQn_9yj9CJ_m8RajeiSWYSTueVh9JbQZms0_H3LXrvEVuUV-n2WbemkvTiYmXh-BF_tIqs3mlITuP608vXnb6uVKVBgB6ZKP_e8sT0imvcNEA/s273/johan%20rahn.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="184" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjCyA0R1vIzmmRgo7uAtAhZDj9zqIyZ448TDj9-LbRZJZ-4filF-ss9yUNibQNMCDzYCUq2WPz82OMkIuQn_9yj9CJ_m8RajeiSWYSTueVh9JbQZms0_H3LXrvEVuUV-n2WbemkvTiYmXh-BF_tIqs3mlITuP608vXnb6uVKVBgB6ZKP_e8sT0imvcNEA/s1600/johan%20rahn.jpeg" width="184" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHqALhhCApWx2GI7HglxarC1oVHxkhDkNpwjKCBsAxhAXb0K8VcbrZ7gfxP0h5bYpj9iU7Pa7lNQWixsx0qmbLzpl-PbRrEHYDb71cpVsxex7XyNXc1Moqts4_w4vw3m16ShhqgPGKcHD4CtSy6dHTZDalOjXxu3UikRO665IRNLtsQ8VRdTwz3mzG3xE/s1197/rahn%20tutesch%20algebra.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="672" data-original-width="1197" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHqALhhCApWx2GI7HglxarC1oVHxkhDkNpwjKCBsAxhAXb0K8VcbrZ7gfxP0h5bYpj9iU7Pa7lNQWixsx0qmbLzpl-PbRrEHYDb71cpVsxex7XyNXc1Moqts4_w4vw3m16ShhqgPGKcHD4CtSy6dHTZDalOjXxu3UikRO665IRNLtsQ8VRdTwz3mzG3xE/w400-h225/rahn%20tutesch%20algebra.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1748 John Playfair (10 Mar 1748; 20 Jul 1819 at age 71) Scottish mathematician, He is responsible for introducing (although we now know that it was known to Proclus in the fifth century) the commonly used equivalent of Euclid’s Fifth Postulate: Through a given point not on a given straight line only one line parallel to the given line may be drawn. *VFR His Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802) gave strong support to James Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism, essential to a proper understanding of geology. Playfair was the first scientist to recognise that a river cuts its own valley, and he cited British examples of the gradual, fluvial origins of valleys, to challenge the catastrophic theory (based on the Biblical Flood in Genesis) that was still widely accepted. He was also the first to link the relocation of loose rocks to the movement of glaciers. Playfair published texts on geometry, physics, and astronomy.*TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC4SyrGyrLWNIV6ZAGgrsD66spktZvzPUxLYX2Hf2wNl63cB85yAhpCbPM9xymo_vFMm0PfGJpnGicSCkKTwhMijsm2jafRIodyGFpRVCiQrh-wNJVjl_cbPqaVE1CquZ_WkgmHnEk9HaZoQ9WQe9x178PBDDfeeaHlEf8_ZB_mAuVwQZXABkd01cUIzg/s800/playfair1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC4SyrGyrLWNIV6ZAGgrsD66spktZvzPUxLYX2Hf2wNl63cB85yAhpCbPM9xymo_vFMm0PfGJpnGicSCkKTwhMijsm2jafRIodyGFpRVCiQrh-wNJVjl_cbPqaVE1CquZ_WkgmHnEk9HaZoQ9WQe9x178PBDDfeeaHlEf8_ZB_mAuVwQZXABkd01cUIzg/s320/playfair1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-ThT6Mr9Xwl0O13Fs8yBQOPwhuxWI1pNV10isTg9BmO0n74OnlX3vqYaqq2QHtBjKUpo2S9HRm0UtV2t5vru-A_ku4o_WSikFkOvqF7h1EjTdmLZK7gPRLFw6xKxO0LZ77adqjIHJI2s_V7gb7omai53ahCSRkpyB5qnat5AEAqbmdlDBkJj5yzDJDZs/s259/john%20playfair.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-ThT6Mr9Xwl0O13Fs8yBQOPwhuxWI1pNV10isTg9BmO0n74OnlX3vqYaqq2QHtBjKUpo2S9HRm0UtV2t5vru-A_ku4o_WSikFkOvqF7h1EjTdmLZK7gPRLFw6xKxO0LZ77adqjIHJI2s_V7gb7omai53ahCSRkpyB5qnat5AEAqbmdlDBkJj5yzDJDZs/s1600/john%20playfair.jpeg" width="259" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1762 Jeremias Benjamin Richter (10 Mar 1762; 4 Apr 1807 at age 45) was a German chemist who discovered law of equivalent proportions. He studied chemistry in his spare time while in the Prussian army (1778-1785) and afterwards while earning a Ph.D. in mathematics (1789). Richter was much influenced by Kant, whose lectures he may have attended, in the contention that science is applied mathematics. Richter looked for mathematical relationships in chemisty, convinced that substances reacted with each other in fixed proportions. He showed such a relationship when acids and bases neutralize to produce salts (1791). Thus he was the first to establish stoichiometry, which became the basis of quantitative chemical analysis. He died of tuberculosis at age 45 years.*TIS</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguEmUC15n_j_REkI78xTL2DRXZ8sRWZcMO62ZQ5qsYYhIfUVKXCq5nY_6bom61NAbN0ZhgDolaUY1XE8RTNqsuJ4QLTnqmAftUm7feosvlPGCvnmrO8028D3pOHjaXVpir2B89u5qYYfisEnF_xVCzjpHH4YktsZAdxHbyTYSITMBoeO_WWFR-guHLtlQ/s502/Jeremias_Benjamin_Richter.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguEmUC15n_j_REkI78xTL2DRXZ8sRWZcMO62ZQ5qsYYhIfUVKXCq5nY_6bom61NAbN0ZhgDolaUY1XE8RTNqsuJ4QLTnqmAftUm7feosvlPGCvnmrO8028D3pOHjaXVpir2B89u5qYYfisEnF_xVCzjpHH4YktsZAdxHbyTYSITMBoeO_WWFR-guHLtlQ/s320/Jeremias_Benjamin_Richter.jpeg" width="210" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguB3fFjZy3VYx4mjKvJStl-7sV9ODSs6Zer8r0WVOc8m5tH0Bmv9xefHDbWD_Fd_NRsjzNw90zn5Lp378MItcozTdqkqAqAxWrkB0c8V9iiPHc3yNN-uyj13CyOAFvflhSaar7v-HXcvlx5-YR_n99ZZU6r15prX7qJLol-fnvZU2SkPJGx33YkWCt/s326/Hendricks.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="257" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguB3fFjZy3VYx4mjKvJStl-7sV9ODSs6Zer8r0WVOc8m5tH0Bmv9xefHDbWD_Fd_NRsjzNw90zn5Lp378MItcozTdqkqAqAxWrkB0c8V9iiPHc3yNN-uyj13CyOAFvflhSaar7v-HXcvlx5-YR_n99ZZU6r15prX7qJLol-fnvZU2SkPJGx33YkWCt/s320/Hendricks.jpeg" width="252" /></a></div><br />1818 Joel E. Hendricks, (March 10, 1818 - June 9, 1893) a noted mathematician, was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, March 10, 1818. He early developed a love of mathematics and began to teach school at nineteen years of age. He chanced to procure Moore's Navigation and Ostrander's Astronomy and, without instruction, soon became able to work in trigonometry and calculate solar and lunar eclipses. He took up algebra while teaching and soon became master of that science without instruction. He taught mathematics two years in Neville Academy, Ohio, and then occupied a position on a Government survey in Colorado in 1861. In 1864 he located in Des Moines, Iowa and pursued his mathematical studies. In 1874 he began the publication of the Analyst, a journal of pure and applied mathematics and soon won a reputation in Europe among eminent scholars as one of the most advanced mathematicians of the day. His Analyst was taken by the colleges and universities of Europe and found a place in the best foreign libraries. His name became famous among all mathematical experts of the world. Among his correspondents were Benjamin Silliman, John W. Draper and James D. Dana; while his journal was authority at Yale and Johns Hopkins Universities. For ten years, up to 1884, this world-famous Analyst was published at Des Moines by Dr. Joel E. Hendricks. Up to the time it was discontinued, no journal of mathematics had been published so long in America. It is one of the remarkable events of the Nineteenth Century that a self-educated man should, by his own genius and industry, without instruction, reach such an exalted place among the world's great scholars. Dr. Hendricks died in Des Moines on the 9th of June, 1893. *History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/Volume 4 by Benjamin F. Gue<br />A more complete mathematical biography of Mr. Hendricks can be found in <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2971637" target="_blank">The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol 1, #3, 1894</a>.<br /><hr />1864 William Fogg Osgood (March 10, 1864, Boston - July 22, 1943, Belmont, Massachusetts) From 1899 to 1902, he served as editor of the Annals of Mathematics and in 1904–1905 was president of the American Mathematical Society, whose Transactions he edited in 1909–1910.<br />The works of Osgood dealt with complex analysis, in particular conformal mapping and uniformization of analytic functions, and calculus of variations. He was invited by Felix Klein to write an article on complex analysis in the Enzyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften which was later expanded in the book Lehrbuch der Funktionentheorie. Besides his research on analysis, Osgood was also interested in mathematical physics and wrote on the theory of the gyroscope. Osgood's cousin, Louise Osgood, was the mother of Bernard Koopman, the statistician. *Wik Although his nickname was “Foggy,” this was not an apt description of him as a teacher. He instilled the habit of careful thought in Harvard students for 43 years. His A First Course in Differential and Integral Calculus (1907) was revised once and reprinted 17 times.*VFR<br />An interesting anecdote about the book dates to about 1940. Osgood chose not to use limits in his book and used infinitesimals instead. Leonidas Alaoglu taught the course at Harvard, he apparently didn't agree with Osgood's choice, and instructed the class, "Gentleman, please take pages 123 to 150 (Chapter 7 on infinitesimals) between thumb and forefinger and tear them out." *Steven Krantz, Mathematical Apocrypha Redux</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZrK8xBnJneue7iW8pbF9XFjMqj1h4WnSpE6QV5-7GQlxiVQjA857h116JwjoEbSuDRQabjPOJMfGxZTqKJxM2mHNW9mMspwyqHvy8aveB_42xW0V5YRV5wDZHyHkJkZU-tAJvL1hiL7_XkmVv0Q1-3jGmWYwTL0aRbV-mk1E0jTjNQG1zrJs58kGl82w/s244/William_Fogg_Osgood.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="244" data-original-width="225" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZrK8xBnJneue7iW8pbF9XFjMqj1h4WnSpE6QV5-7GQlxiVQjA857h116JwjoEbSuDRQabjPOJMfGxZTqKJxM2mHNW9mMspwyqHvy8aveB_42xW0V5YRV5wDZHyHkJkZU-tAJvL1hiL7_XkmVv0Q1-3jGmWYwTL0aRbV-mk1E0jTjNQG1zrJs58kGl82w/s1600/William_Fogg_Osgood.png" width="225" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1869 Benjamin Fedorovich Kagan (10 March 1869 in Shavli, Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania)<br />- 8 May 1953 in Moscow, USSR) Kagan worked on the foundations of geometry and his first work was on Lobachevsky's geometry. In 1902 he proposed axioms and definitions very different from Hilbert. Kagan studied tensor differential geometry after going to Moscow because of an interest in relativity.<br />Kagan wrote a history of non-euclidean geometry and also a detailed biography of Lobachevsky. He edited Lobachevsky's complete works which appeared in five volumes between 1946 and 1951. *SAU</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeB3zVHD0Aog5vInZPGxbDGZ_sO80TJF_X3ofanMWYaGxnzLqjklK9vKTUuu9U9duAywkivsSuX-BKLg60o2Koe9KY8utZUNN2zLD35e1KOcnhaoMfiTiS8LGx6Z0kpkykvelOEdh2lBK4TrVe5GLSA9Mw5Pr68oAFrZ4G2jsJDfDnFKKDmvrxVe540uA/s326/kagan_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="269" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeB3zVHD0Aog5vInZPGxbDGZ_sO80TJF_X3ofanMWYaGxnzLqjklK9vKTUuu9U9duAywkivsSuX-BKLg60o2Koe9KY8utZUNN2zLD35e1KOcnhaoMfiTiS8LGx6Z0kpkykvelOEdh2lBK4TrVe5GLSA9Mw5Pr68oAFrZ4G2jsJDfDnFKKDmvrxVe540uA/s320/kagan_2.jpg" width="264" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1872 Mary Ann Elizabeth Stephansen (10 March 1872 in Bergen, Norway - 23 Feb 1961 in Espeland, Norway)received her Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Zurich in 1902. She was the first woman from Norway to receive a doctoral degree in any subject. Her thesis area was in partial differential equations. It was not until 1971 that another Norwegian woman obtained a doctorate in mathematics. Stephansen taught at the Norwegian Agricultural College from 1906 until her retirement in 1937. She began as an assistant in physics and mathematics, then was appointed to a newly created docent position in mathematics in 1921. She published four mathematical research papers on partial differential equations and difference equations.<br />A extensive biography of Elizabeth Stephansen is available as a pdf document at the web site of Professor Kari Hag. This also includes description of her mathematical work. *Agnes Scott College Web site</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmLE3RJe6VKEauFEF6WGMuvwS0ZFNj-8uZGYG8IiXo9p8Jq5q4V6W79geLq87ykIXBWgTPKJySJX43dqugBCo_oS2a_e4QGrIVnXzMbQBfayaS6CdYRe2NHA0jqJHdmpNuXNPZS3BhGeTIhxICWgNxDOCeB3euF_qrUlyMpYFTXuzjtm7X8qGPacv5u3I/s300/Elizabeth_Stephansen.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="223" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmLE3RJe6VKEauFEF6WGMuvwS0ZFNj-8uZGYG8IiXo9p8Jq5q4V6W79geLq87ykIXBWgTPKJySJX43dqugBCo_oS2a_e4QGrIVnXzMbQBfayaS6CdYRe2NHA0jqJHdmpNuXNPZS3BhGeTIhxICWgNxDOCeB3euF_qrUlyMpYFTXuzjtm7X8qGPacv5u3I/s1600/Elizabeth_Stephansen.png" width="223" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1912 Frank Smithies FRSE (10 March 1912 Edinburgh, Scotland – 16 November 2002 Cambridge, England) was a British mathematician who worked on integral equations, functional analysis, and the history of mathematics. He was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1961.*Wik<br /><hr />1923 Val Logsdon Fitch <span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px;">(March 10, 1923 – February 5, 2015) </span>American particle physicist who was co-recipient with James Watson Cronin of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1980 for an experiment conducted in 1964 that disproved the long-held theory that particle interaction should be indifferent to the direction of time. Working with Leo James Rainwater, Fitch had been the first to observe radiation from muonic atoms; i.e., from species in which a muon is orbiting a nucleus rather than an electron. This work indicated that the sizes of atomic nuclei were smaller than had been supposed. He went on to study kaons and in 1964 began his collaboration with James Cronin, James Christenson, and René Turley which led to the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons. *TIS His birthplace is in Merriman, a village in Cherry County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 118 at the 2000 census.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9sDrU9ZtareXYakwWXdFHXJ9rHI-rcE8se-W8ADVFdp_-Qf-Qx-6mh1us29vuRcIha2p1oPBJNkT02dh_Xt3hyUWs7GijVoVuOL4iPWnv8s5ZKqVTcF68RA-L8wlxjXDtuUsNlnq9ukWdZGQisWQrnVz69vCZi6859YB7e99haMcX6FA9WAJnP_Z3lR8/s463/Val_Fitch.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9sDrU9ZtareXYakwWXdFHXJ9rHI-rcE8se-W8ADVFdp_-Qf-Qx-6mh1us29vuRcIha2p1oPBJNkT02dh_Xt3hyUWs7GijVoVuOL4iPWnv8s5ZKqVTcF68RA-L8wlxjXDtuUsNlnq9ukWdZGQisWQrnVz69vCZi6859YB7e99haMcX6FA9WAJnP_Z3lR8/s320/Val_Fitch.jpg" width="228" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO10VFpITw2X1JsOIIxg8bcIeBhKrqWLDErBizZnssA7r9XiVS3d9nHqieXHVJvG5X38JS0uxYYG9489quLMDBTktua6mo9ChKasmnBHyRY0THxTu4rZtO-h9QCnvAqUSH9F6llPsjGB4/s1600/mollweid+projection.jpe" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO10VFpITw2X1JsOIIxg8bcIeBhKrqWLDErBizZnssA7r9XiVS3d9nHqieXHVJvG5X38JS0uxYYG9489quLMDBTktua6mo9ChKasmnBHyRY0THxTu4rZtO-h9QCnvAqUSH9F6llPsjGB4/s320/mollweid+projection.jpe" /></a></div><b>1825 Karl Brandan Mollweide</b> (3 Feb 1774 in Wolfenbüttel, Brunswick, now Germany - 10 March 1825 in Leipzig, Germany) He is remembered for his invention of the Mollweide projection of the sphere, a map projection which he produced to correct the distortions in the Mercator projection, first used by Gerardus Mercator in 1569. Mollweide announced his projection in 1805. While the Mercator projection is well adapted for sea charts, its very great exaggeration of land areas in high latitudes makes it unsuitable for most other purposes. In the Mercator projection the angles of intersection between the parallels and meridians, and the general configuration of the land, are preserved but as a consequence areas and distances are increasingly exaggerated as one moves away from the equator. To correct these defects, Mollweide drew his elliptical projection; but in preserving the correct relation between the areas he was compelled to sacrifice configuration and angular measurement.<br />The second piece of work to which Mollweide's name is attached today is the Mollweide equations which are sometimes called Mollweide's formulas. These trigonometric identities ares<br /><br /><br />sin(½(A - B)) / cos(½C) = (a - b) / c, and<br /><br />cos(½(A - B)) / sin(½C) = (a + b) / c,<br /><br /><br />where A, B, C are the three angles of a triangle opposite to sides a, b, c, respectively. These trigonometric identities appear in Mollweide's paper Zusätze zur ebenen und sphärischen Trigonometrie (1808). *SAU<br /><hr />1888 <b style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Lucy Myers Wright Mitchell</b><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> (</span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> March 20, 1845 – March 10, 1888)</span> Persian-American archaeologist who, though self-taught, was one of the first American women in the field, and became an internationally recognized authority on ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. She spoke Syriac, Arabic, French, German, and Italian and pursued an interest in the study of languages in classical literature. By 1873 she changed her focus to classical archeology, and subsequently became one of the foremost archeologists of her time. In Rome (1876-78) she gave parlour lectures to ladies on Greek and Roman sculpture, and also them to the museums. She was given aid and encouragement by many of the leading European archeologists. Her book, A History of Ancient Sculpture, was one of the first in the field by an American. *TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-S8iEjdF31-i5F3naN8Y0Gnn44VUneBn656i1EiPUb572y34WaH3rOFVe-kzM251E-zyo71YsND7Xyp5kswwPZGJ-dvjSX8tNk1nj41aBui-VSIjZxIEuXKgA8PkUzvm7_N-9ga-F3KaZI1-nUX86JVNjFPjAry9Ndhqp_OJ1Tdb1z1ZPEALT6cY0udk/s221/lucy%20Mitchell.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="221" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-S8iEjdF31-i5F3naN8Y0Gnn44VUneBn656i1EiPUb572y34WaH3rOFVe-kzM251E-zyo71YsND7Xyp5kswwPZGJ-dvjSX8tNk1nj41aBui-VSIjZxIEuXKgA8PkUzvm7_N-9ga-F3KaZI1-nUX86JVNjFPjAry9Ndhqp_OJ1Tdb1z1ZPEALT6cY0udk/s1600/lucy%20Mitchell.jpeg" width="221" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div><br /></div><div>1921 Francis Robbins Upton (born 1852 in Peabody, Mass, 10 Mar 1921) American mathematician and physicist who, as assistant to Thomas Edison, contributed to the development of the American electric industry. Upton was the best educated of Edison's Menlo Park assistants. He was recruited by investors who felt it couldn't hurt to supplement Edison's wizardry with some advanced scientific training. He joined Edison in 1878, working at Edison's Menlo Park laboratory on mathematical problems relating to the development of the light bulb, the watt-hour meter and large dynamos. He later became a partner and general manager of the Edison Lamp Company (est. 1880). Upton's articles for Scientific American and Scribner's Monthly introduced many of Edison's inventions to the public. *TIS Upton graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover in 1870. He studied at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, at Princeton University where he received his M.S., and in Berlin, where he worked together with Hermann von Helmholtz.*Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Je7X3BoclFscN8jMuRW4ZrCB-nrcepIX6QDwomrAE26L089oa1tZPrWg04MgI_KhVtsiHqwgKMBIUsD97hotjH2FZCnLwnCxRauwgrmBVgYxBB9AIyULTu6ytNPikWVolBoHwFnWF0MSsukpfVap-3CSeIXK1b_SQf-cCUVdE47H2wk7PUbf9u6la0Y/s279/upton.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="181" data-original-width="279" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Je7X3BoclFscN8jMuRW4ZrCB-nrcepIX6QDwomrAE26L089oa1tZPrWg04MgI_KhVtsiHqwgKMBIUsD97hotjH2FZCnLwnCxRauwgrmBVgYxBB9AIyULTu6ytNPikWVolBoHwFnWF0MSsukpfVap-3CSeIXK1b_SQf-cCUVdE47H2wk7PUbf9u6la0Y/s1600/upton.jpeg" width="279" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1948 Evgeny Evgenievich Slutsky (19 April 1880 in Novoe, Yaroslavl guberniya, Russia - 10 March 1948 in Moscow, USSR) Slutsky was important in the application of mathematical methods in economics. Slutsky introduced stochastic concepts of limits, derivatives and integrals between 1925 to 1928 while he worked at the Conjuncture Institute. In 1927 he showed that subjecting a sequence of independent random variables to a sequence of moving averages generated an almost periodic sequence. This work stimulated the creation of stationary stochastic processes. He also studied correlations of related series for a limited number of trials. He obtained conditions for measurability of random functions in 1937. He applied his theories widely, in addition to economics mentioned above he also studied solar activity using data from 500 BC onwards. Other applications were to diverse topics such as the pricing of grain and the study of chromosomes. *SAU</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH7ZNpQl0M3GFhlbRmVGHa0a4xO7HaO0Nq-9cDVhLYHPZexWwoUUr9Lu8fFUBrKLyR29PEi4Jc2smjAUXCsADj62V2WUSNdfawIfPjgPp6IoT8JqTMy0qPM4iLAr_QTZln_OSjGvWW1SYKawfchetXSO5DoYGOxPtJ_ggsPVPdyCuGMI_gFCFRuSJ51Z8/s240/Eugen_slutsky.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH7ZNpQl0M3GFhlbRmVGHa0a4xO7HaO0Nq-9cDVhLYHPZexWwoUUr9Lu8fFUBrKLyR29PEi4Jc2smjAUXCsADj62V2WUSNdfawIfPjgPp6IoT8JqTMy0qPM4iLAr_QTZln_OSjGvWW1SYKawfchetXSO5DoYGOxPtJ_ggsPVPdyCuGMI_gFCFRuSJ51Z8/s1600/Eugen_slutsky.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1971 Lester Halbert Germer (10 Oct 1896, Chicago, Ill; 10 Mar 1971) was a American physicist who, with his colleague Clinton Joseph Davisson, conducted an experiment (1927) that first demonstrated the wave properties of the electron. They showed that a beam of electrons scattered by a crystal produces a diffraction pattern characteristic of a wave. This experiment confirmed the hypothesis of Louis-Victor de Broglie, a founder of wave mechanics, that the electron should show the properties of an electromagnetic wave as well as a particle. He also studied thermionics, erosion of metals, and contact physics.*TIS</div><div>Lester Germer (right) with Clinton Joseph Davisson (left) 1927</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirV9zLlF2lueyh9hxmQl7mIqH0c4IBaYMqOqh6qQ_SUdrJ3nHvRGtFaNve0d8e3jWUSpXROCqzgPHnyDptqFcp3aa5_WG-54-1gVs7Vlsj_2JWs1eEC53MDLGlEm8m-vqvgzJP8joaq2RfznVVS0u-yPNlIkzVz_28zosCyU2oqDSZTSqn8hsT_pHkVAU/s339/Davisson_and_Germer.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="334" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirV9zLlF2lueyh9hxmQl7mIqH0c4IBaYMqOqh6qQ_SUdrJ3nHvRGtFaNve0d8e3jWUSpXROCqzgPHnyDptqFcp3aa5_WG-54-1gVs7Vlsj_2JWs1eEC53MDLGlEm8m-vqvgzJP8joaq2RfznVVS0u-yPNlIkzVz_28zosCyU2oqDSZTSqn8hsT_pHkVAU/s320/Davisson_and_Germer.jpg" width="315" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1981 Yaroslav Borisovich Lopatynsky (9 Nov 1906 in Tbilisi, Georgia, Russia - 10 March 1981 in Donetsk, USSR) Lopatynsky's contributions to the theory of differential equations are particularly important, with important contributions to the theory of linear and nonlinear partial differential equations. He worked on the general theory of boundary value problems for linear systems of partial differential equations of elliptic type, finding general methods of solving boundary value problems. *SAU<br /><hr /><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-43626919340266733112024-03-09T06:30:00.001+00:002024-03-09T06:30:00.138+00:00Islands in the Mist, ----- of Polynomials, and Pretty Geometry<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvl1T5_BJS1lEvFLhpQj610zZ8xbWehTRzaGrmSVY1Oi_gSG6GLEi7awAXzbf8NygpZosSnNLHLNRz56XDn8Puw56qolj2Fyek8pbxe-wmPsjZbG4EnDtVIDePDRBxaQDGe7VX0IYQmsM/s1600/islands+in+the+mist.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="680" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvl1T5_BJS1lEvFLhpQj610zZ8xbWehTRzaGrmSVY1Oi_gSG6GLEi7awAXzbf8NygpZosSnNLHLNRz56XDn8Puw56qolj2Fyek8pbxe-wmPsjZbG4EnDtVIDePDRBxaQDGe7VX0IYQmsM/s320/islands+in+the+mist.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><center><br /></center><p><br />I once read a description of math as like seeing islands in a great ocean covered by a mist. As you learn the subject you work around on an island and clear away some of the mist. Often your education jumps from one island to another at the direction of a teacher and eventually you have mental maps of parts of many separate islands. But at some point, you clear away a fog on part of an island and see it connects off to another island you had partially explored, and now you know something deeper about both islands and the connectedness of math.<br /><br />I was recently reminded of one of those kinds of connections that ties together several varied topics from the high school education of most good math students. It starts with that over-criticized (and under-appreciated, i) Algebra I technique of factoring.<br />Almost ever student in introductory algebra is introduced to a "sum and product" rule that relates the factors of a simple quadratic (with quadratic coefficient of one) to the coefficients. The rule says that if the roots are at p and q, then the linear coefficient will be the negative of p+q, and the constant term will be their product, pq. So for example, the simple quadratic with roots at x=2 and x=3 will be x<sup>2</sup> - 5x + 6.<br /><br />I know from experience that if you take a cross section of 100 students who enter calculus classes after two+ year of algebra, very few will know that you can extend that idea out to cubics and higher power polynomials. An example for a polynomial with four roots will probably suffice for most to understand. Because the constant terms in linear factors are always the opposite of the roots, {<i>if 3 is a root, (x-3) is a factor</i>} it is easiest to negate all the roots before doing the math involved (at least for me it always was).<br />So if we wanted to find the simple polynomial with roots at -1, -2, -3, and -4 (chosen so all the multipliers are +) we would find that the fourth degree polynomial will have 10 for the coefficient of x<sup>3</sup> because 1+2+3+4 = 10, just as it works in the second term of a quadratic. After that, the method starts to combine sets of them. The next coefficient will be the sum of the products of each pair of factor coefficients. In the example I created we would add 1x2+1x3+1x4+2x3+2x4+3x4 to get 35x<sup>2</sup>. The next term sums all triple products of the numbers, 1x2x3 + 1x2x4 + 1x3x4 + 2x3x4 = 50 for the linear coefficient. And in the constant term, we simply multiply all of them together to get 24.<br /><br />After you've carried that around for a while and maybe forgotten how to get all the other terms, the easy part may remain; the second term is the sum of the opposite of the roots, and the constant term is their product. Then you get to calculus and you learn how easy it is to take the derivative of a polynomial. Then maybe you are playing around with some simple derivatives and you realize that a function f(x) = x<sup>n</sup> + Ax<sup>n-1</sup> + ... will have a derivative that is f'(x)=nx<sup>n-1</sup> + A(n-1)x<sup>n-2</sup>. You realize that if f(x) has roots that sum to A, then f'(x) has roots that will sum to (n-1)A/n <i>[If your younger and this seems unclear, note that the roots of f(x) are the same as the roots of n*f(x), for example, y= x<sup>2</sup> - 1 has the same roots (+/-1) as 2x<sup>2</sup>-2 or 3x<sup>2</sup>-3 etc</i>].<br /><br /> Much later, you come back across this thought, but because you are at a different place in your understanding of math, you realize that means that the average of the zeros of f(x) is A/n, because there are n of them. So the average of f'(x) must also be A/n because there are n-1 of them... and since f"(x) is related to f'(x) by this same method, A/n must be the average of all the zeros of derivatives of f(x) that do not descend to a constant value.<br />Because that seems to glib to pass muster with most of my students, an example of these last two paragraphs, to show how interrelated they are. Take the example f(x) = \(x^4 + 3x^3 + 7x^2 + 2x + 4 \). We simply inspect to see that the roots have a sum of 3, and since there are four of them, their average is -3/4. Without knowing the derivatives, we know the roots of f' will sum to \( \frac{3(-3)}{4} = \frac{-9}{4} \) and since there are three of them, their average is ...yeah... -3/4. We can find f" and the rest by continuing this, but the big flashing light here is that the average stays the same, so the sum of the roots is just the average root times the highest power of the derivative.<br /><br /> You smugly nest that away in your mind and go on about your business, occasionally refreshing it by relating it to a friend or colleague in the coffee shop or at a conference.<br /><br />Someday down the line you wonder, or someone you relate it to asks, will that work with numbers that have complex roots, and you quickly convince yourself that it will, and feel pretty smug for knowing all this. Then you stumble across an old copy of Professor Dan Kalman's paper on Marden's Theorem (at least you will if you are as lucky as I was). (Professor Kalman was awarded the 2009 Lester R. Ford Award of the MAA for his<a blank="" href="http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/4/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=1663" target-=""> 2008 paper on this theorem</a>. Jörg Siebeck discovered this theorem 81 years before <a href="http://www.ams.org/bull/1945-51-12/S0002-9904-1945-08470-5/home.html" target="_blank">Morris Marden wrote</a> about it (1965). However, Prof Kalman writes, "I call this Marden’s Theorem because I first read it in M. Marden’s wonderful book". The theorem says that if you take a trinomial with complex roots (even if the coefficients are complex numbers) there is a really beautiful geometric tie in to the average idea, and more.<br /><br />I will illustrate with an example that is easy to picture. Suppose we take a trinomial with roots of 2+5i, 2-5i and 6, f(x) =x<sup>3</sup> - 10 x<sup>2</sup> + 53 x - 174. The derivative will be 3x<sup>2</sup> - 20x + 53, with zeros at the complex conjugates x = 1/3 (10-i sqrt(59)) and x = 1/3 (10+i sqrt(59)). Both of these we can see quickly have averages of 10/3 for the zeros, but these first derivative zeros will play a special geometric role a little later in Marden's theorem.<br /><br />The second derivative of the original cubic gives us 6x-20, with a zero which agrees with the average of the zeros above.<br /><br />All those little islands with a common algebraic truth seem somehow connected, but then a little more of the mist clears, and the geometry is revealed.<br /><br />But if we examine these zeros on a complex plane, the three zeros of the original function can form the vertices of a triangle. And the two zeros of the first derivative fall inside that triangle, with the zero of f" bisecting the segment joining them.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuSuT7s_ExJ4lxHWTCDUjAKuBy2-ylCKY2hc1kJbJDmGIzClVv5FNazcrFaF4E9i8bweO05gYdQ7ByJ4p7ScYszp36t0Y-7W8lb8LeT_UATrrUe7qwvbDtL1wgv3Ml1q1ZeEVTILZ6u4/s1600/marsden1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuSuT7s_ExJ4lxHWTCDUjAKuBy2-ylCKY2hc1kJbJDmGIzClVv5FNazcrFaF4E9i8bweO05gYdQ7ByJ4p7ScYszp36t0Y-7W8lb8LeT_UATrrUe7qwvbDtL1wgv3Ml1q1ZeEVTILZ6u4/s320/marsden1.jpg" width="163" /></a></div><p><br />So the vertices of the triangle are the roots of f(x), the two red points are f' zeros, and they are the foci of the ellipse shown inscribed in the triangle. And f" has a zero at the center of the ellipse. The ellipse passes through the midpoints of the vertices, and it turns out it is the maximal area ellipse you can inscribe in that triangle, called the Steiner inellipse. (<i>A little algebra, a little calculus, a little geometry, a little trig... maybe there are really no islands, just one math land mass</i>. )<br /><br />I backed it all up one level by integrating f(x) but the four roots did not appear to relate to the three vertices of the trinomial in any pretty way. They do obey the Gauss-Lucas Theorem. The Gauss–Lucas theorem gives a geometrical relation between the roots of a polynomial P and the roots of its derivative P'. The set of roots of a real or complex polynomial is a set of points in the complex plane. The theorem states that the roots of P' all lie within the convex hull of the roots of P, that is the smallest convex polygon containing the roots of P. When P has a single root then this convex hull is a single point and when the roots lie on a line then the convex hull is a segment of this line. The Gauss–Lucas theorem, named after Carl Friedrich Gauss and Félix Lucas is similar in spirit to Rolle's theorem, another high school calculus basic.<br /><br />And here is a tie-in for the stats students, the line containing the foci and centroid is the least squares regression line for the three vertices.<br /><br />If you have only three roots to a higher degree polynomial (one with some or all the roots multiple, such as f(x) = (x-a)<sup>J</sup> (x-b)<sup>K</sup>(x-c)<sup>J</sup> then the ellipse will be tangent at points that divide the segments in ratios of J/K, K/L, and L/J. This is due to Linfield who published it in 1920.<br /><br />And if you have an n-sided polygon which is tangent to an ellipse at all four midpoints, it seems that there is a complex polynomial with those roots whose derivative has zeros at the foci of the ellipse. I managed to create an easy example by using the idea of a rhombus centered at the origin. The polynomial f(x)=x<sup>4</sup>+3x<sup>2</sup> - 4 has zeros at 2i, -2i, 1 and -1. The derivative, 4x<sup>2</sup>+6 has zeros at +sqrt(3/2) and -sqrt(3/2). Using this focus and the point (1/2,1) which is the midpoint of one side of the rhombus I get the ellipse 4x<sup>2</sup> + y<sup>2</sup>=2 which seems to work.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMrwcRW_gqYxBPQIrDpl_1ZC3ZOac-To5fMRYjWTCybyEZ7JjGxmkPlEpaypgqhJPwVVM2ZgG1zlsJDQ7JR5dl2wCjLKiXXWI_6jQJvtR1EwCDpLj6LHaacik3fqq9SgMrYZbsJvHUps0/s1600/marden2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMrwcRW_gqYxBPQIrDpl_1ZC3ZOac-To5fMRYjWTCybyEZ7JjGxmkPlEpaypgqhJPwVVM2ZgG1zlsJDQ7JR5dl2wCjLKiXXWI_6jQJvtR1EwCDpLj6LHaacik3fqq9SgMrYZbsJvHUps0/s320/marden2.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><p><br />I don't have a clear easy way to recognize what fourth power polynomials would have that property, so if you want to be next to teach me some math, send me what you know.<br /><br />I communicated several times in 2007 with Professor Kalman when we shared some information about the history of a problem we were both working on. He went on to include that material, and Marden's Theorem in his wonderful book Uncommon Mathematical Excursions: Polynomia and Related Realms. If you pick it up, check the acknowledgements. There is actually a hat-tip from the professor to yours truly for (<i>a very tiny bit of</i>) assistance with the material for Lill's graphic method of solving for the roots of a polynomial. Still, I'm grateful for any recognition.<br /><br /><br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgakOC-Ne2pNCIsPioevhWL6usVadtfuBKGsKeZoJsk6gQgyOU4C5riVHXW2leQzGEa3uY-7mOtRw6IHpEJ7gkjKIBhjaNpU0EfIFqHT7zfkD0XgKFJ3RMBn5_R1GNuXFvRa_LdXkeupdJcfBCCKCz7ovjCV075eqQUZ_BBa1ssUhTtRK-t7tCYiUjfgxs/s1863/kalman%20Polynomial%20and%20related%20realms.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1863" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgakOC-Ne2pNCIsPioevhWL6usVadtfuBKGsKeZoJsk6gQgyOU4C5riVHXW2leQzGEa3uY-7mOtRw6IHpEJ7gkjKIBhjaNpU0EfIFqHT7zfkD0XgKFJ3RMBn5_R1GNuXFvRa_LdXkeupdJcfBCCKCz7ovjCV075eqQUZ_BBa1ssUhTtRK-t7tCYiUjfgxs/s320/kalman%20Polynomial%20and%20related%20realms.jpeg" width="220" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-26802858230805895922024-03-09T06:00:00.005+00:002024-03-15T16:27:02.169+00:00On This Day in Math - March 9<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuE3NMYNj5D_T8AJAhPFbAZokLwvn-1tSDDGWmUEICpBDnGvhjlxXz0NfwovVp63AwEMP8hKrMLrGRrOz5hucBcYNI-NnATxnNo7VIKTjtQ_IZP54qLlmVvGSchFzHdJwwec6X00iydsk/s1600/1507+Waldseemuller_map_2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuE3NMYNj5D_T8AJAhPFbAZokLwvn-1tSDDGWmUEICpBDnGvhjlxXz0NfwovVp63AwEMP8hKrMLrGRrOz5hucBcYNI-NnATxnNo7VIKTjtQ_IZP54qLlmVvGSchFzHdJwwec6X00iydsk/s400/1507+Waldseemuller_map_2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Waldsemuller 1507 first map to use the name "America" *Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.<br />~Howard Aiken<br /><br />The 68th day of the year; if you searched through pi for all the two digit numbers, the last one you would find is 68. The string 68 begins at position 605 counting from the first digit after the decimal point. (What is the last single digit numeral to appear? One might wonder how far out the string would you have to go to find all possible three digit numbers? )<br /><br />68 is the largest known number to be the sum of two primes in exactly two different ways: 68=7+61=31+37.<br /><br />68 is a stobogrammatic number, rotated it is 89. Some consider only invertible numbers (rotated they form the same value, like 181) as strobograms. HT to Paul O'Malley<br /><br />There are exactly 68 ten digit binary numbers in which each digit is the same as one of it's adjacent digits.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWBcQDyl-h_xBa9HndW0goJEZkSVnM8DVn5r8hZve219VMBsXmpZ7-734Rn_eyznGt4WYEJVdjVVZ8mbJW9iOnGlDcD2v7BqJIlqiou3NL2sni_tgatWNhckU3Yj6eXhlc1bxYwZITgvdedBFLSL9gkr8I9iFfWogAgUTR8F8iYYDUb2tbPBMEhRF/s417/melencolia.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWBcQDyl-h_xBa9HndW0goJEZkSVnM8DVn5r8hZve219VMBsXmpZ7-734Rn_eyznGt4WYEJVdjVVZ8mbJW9iOnGlDcD2v7BqJIlqiou3NL2sni_tgatWNhckU3Yj6eXhlc1bxYwZITgvdedBFLSL9gkr8I9iFfWogAgUTR8F8iYYDUb2tbPBMEhRF/s320/melencolia.jpg" width="307" /></a></div><p><br /></p><div>The numbers on the two diagonals of Durer's Melencolia add up to 68. All the numbers not on the two main diagonals also add up to 68, but that's just the teaser. The sum of the squares of the numbers in each group sum to 748.....Not impressed? Try the sum of the cubes of each group...Yep also equal, their sums are each 9248....Now That's Magic...Math Magic!<br /><br />\(2^{68} = 295147905179352825856\), notice anything? Every digit 0 through 9 is included. There is no smaller power of two for which this is true.*@fermatslibrary<div> <br />68 is the smallest composite number that can be read as a prime number when it is rotated 180<sup>o</sup> HT Jim Wilder @wilderlab.<br /><br />And a historical oddity, in 46 BCE, as a result of Julius Caesar's Calendar adjustment, there were 68 days inserted between November and December.<br /><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>1497 Copernicus, then a student of canon law at the University of Bologna, made his first recorded astronomical observation. Working with Domenica Maria Novara, a professor of astronomy at the university, from whom he rented a room, they observed an occultation of the star aldebaran by the moon. He will later mention this as one of the influential experiences in shaping his new theory.<br /><hr />In 1611, (<i>Mar 9 (NS),Feb 27 (OS)</i>) Johannes Fabricius, a Dutch astronomer, observed the rising sun through his telescope, and observed several dark spots on it. This was perhaps the first ever observation of sunspots. <i>(This is not true, see below</i>) He called his father to investigate this new phenomenon with him. The brightness of the Sun's center was very painful, and the two quickly switched to a projection method by means of a camera obscura. Johannes was the first to publish information on such observations. He did so in his Narratio de maculis in sole observatis et apparente earum cum sole conversione. ("Narration on Spots Observed on the Sun and their Apparent Rotation with the Sun"), the dedication of which was dated 13 Jun 1611. *TIS </div><div>In 1611 Fabricius’ son Johannes brought home a telescope from the University of Leiden where he was studying medicine. With this instrument the father and son, with the son this time in the leading role, discovered the sunspots. Although they were not the first European astronomers to make this discovery, this honor goes to Thomas Harriot, Johannes Fabricius was the first to publish it in his De Maculis in Sole in 1611. Unfortunately his publication went largely unnoticed and is not mentioned at all by Galileo and Christoph Scheiner in their monumental argument as to who first discovered the sunspots. *RMAT (correct answer, neither of them)</div><div>(though unclear statements in East Asian annals suggest that Chinese and Korean astronomers may have discovered them with the naked eye previously, and Fabricius may have noticed them himself without a telescope a few years before).</div><div>The first known drawing of sunspots dates back to John of Worcester in 1128.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2w0HJSFkpS7ClRRdo5H9cr5KnVIraZDr4LktuYBy0ybvBK89cvYUmM0AEp1vSf2G9EQMNRPW5RQQE6iyvoSpQE1QcgSat-Cd228dtHvrxxlixQVuLhe0lJkb_45U4cR5JDHux7ydes26t-KPXE7p_IbSpPRLEUkSrzkigEWzN1LfYaPqX4z9Ovu8GJN4/s484/fabricius%20Maculisinsole.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2w0HJSFkpS7ClRRdo5H9cr5KnVIraZDr4LktuYBy0ybvBK89cvYUmM0AEp1vSf2G9EQMNRPW5RQQE6iyvoSpQE1QcgSat-Cd228dtHvrxxlixQVuLhe0lJkb_45U4cR5JDHux7ydes26t-KPXE7p_IbSpPRLEUkSrzkigEWzN1LfYaPqX4z9Ovu8GJN4/s320/fabricius%20Maculisinsole.gif" width="218" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMYf_B8w9aku5t-XbsH8IRjkRclolBHkBNKwmbmrQy9eCcGxjhF_mCGg6dCFyoAYG0zeXd6Ce4jCF95UW8WquZcpgYKK1oySufA8l9Y9veGzv08vl22dR5Xd42xnrfyCe6l1fKN0gk3nsJegnFBhsKSld85lahNEbxjSRW_ySdIkCU5ZZa_8TCQR8NGr4/s516/fabricius%20sunspots%20john%20of%20wooster.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="516" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMYf_B8w9aku5t-XbsH8IRjkRclolBHkBNKwmbmrQy9eCcGxjhF_mCGg6dCFyoAYG0zeXd6Ce4jCF95UW8WquZcpgYKK1oySufA8l9Y9veGzv08vl22dR5Xd42xnrfyCe6l1fKN0gk3nsJegnFBhsKSld85lahNEbxjSRW_ySdIkCU5ZZa_8TCQR8NGr4/s320/fabricius%20sunspots%20john%20of%20wooster.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John of Wooster drawing</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr />1671 Hooke demonstrates vibration due to sound. For the benefit of two visiting Italian noblemen, Hooke shows how flour "moves like a liquid" when placed in a broad shallow glass when it is struck or vibrated. The flour would rise up the edge of the glass and run over. *Stephen Inwood, The Forgotten Genius<br /><hr /><b>1736</b> Euler receives a letter challenging him to solve the Konigsburg Bridge Problem.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjktdOt-BqBdWOomZG_aIF0ZkFUrHv8dCbXZsuguxLLkQ5RRfSLWlrj0LIUzYmA5bvzoA9ukiS1-7Qo_bSrlZRRWVzgcgcsTFoWUbumd73SAba2yvvyNuzo_MZ5AQ_Z40GsO_495xsZCHQ/s1600/konigsberg+bridges.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjktdOt-BqBdWOomZG_aIF0ZkFUrHv8dCbXZsuguxLLkQ5RRfSLWlrj0LIUzYmA5bvzoA9ukiS1-7Qo_bSrlZRRWVzgcgcsTFoWUbumd73SAba2yvvyNuzo_MZ5AQ_Z40GsO_495xsZCHQ/s320/konigsberg+bridges.jpg" /></a></div><blockquote>"Carl Leonhard Gottlieb Ehler was the mayor of Danzig in Prussia (now Gdansk in Poland), some 80 miles west of Kinigsberg. He corresponded with Euler from 1735 to 1742, acting as intermediary for Heinrich Kuhn, a local mathematics professor. Their initial communication has not been recovered, but a letter of 9 March 1736 indicates they had discussed the problem and its relation to the 'calculus of position':<br />You would render to me and our friend Kiihn a most valuable service, putting us greatly in your debt, most learned Sir, if you would send us the solution, which you know well, to the problem of the seven Kinigsberg bridges, together with a proof. It would prove to be an outstanding example of the calculus of position [Calculi Situs], worthy of your great genius. I have added a sketch of the said bridges ... "</blockquote>*Brian Hopkins, Robin Wilson; <a href="http://www.maa.org/programs/maa-awards/writing-awards/the-truth-about-konigsberg" target="_blank">The Truth About Konigsberg</a><br /><hr />1832 Wolfgang Bolyai made a corresponding member of the mathematics section of the Magyar Academy. *Bonola, Non-Euclidean Geometry, Appendix 1, p. xxv <br /><hr />In 1893, Professor James Dewar communicated to the meeting of the Royal Society that he had succeeded in freezing air into a clear, transparent solid. The precise nature of this solid was not known, and needed further research. It was speculated that it may be “a jelly of solid nitrogen containing liquid oxygen, much as calves'foot jelly contains water diffused in solid gelatine. Or it may be a true ice of liquid air, in which both oxygen and nitrogen exist in the solid form.” At this time, Dewar had not been able to solidify pure oxygen, although nitrogen had been frozen with comparative ease. It also had already been proved that in the evaporation of liquid air, nitrogen boils off first.*TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3uUU4_apTYhqhyrQipXL_1Z8jggilbnOYVeQKph4LdzthkGgsF0trHsZ2Uj5xVLlOKgn6RLi6RDDY8nNjHJFJxr96ZPQk8jIGErcT4Mhc5D88SaMUaVlHWFrReuBX4jsl8AwcAoIkmXTyiF5GytLt2iRb8notSiR2jcI_nyux1hwolNpUPrCDbE96iZg/s365/James_Dewar_in_the_RI_in_London.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3uUU4_apTYhqhyrQipXL_1Z8jggilbnOYVeQKph4LdzthkGgsF0trHsZ2Uj5xVLlOKgn6RLi6RDDY8nNjHJFJxr96ZPQk8jIGErcT4Mhc5D88SaMUaVlHWFrReuBX4jsl8AwcAoIkmXTyiF5GytLt2iRb8notSiR2jcI_nyux1hwolNpUPrCDbE96iZg/s320/James_Dewar_in_the_RI_in_London.png" width="224" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><hr /><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b>1914</b> The Mining and Metallurgical Society held a dinner to bestow its first gold medal on future President Herbert Hoover, and his wife Lou Henry Hoover for their joint translation of Georgius Agricola's De Re Metallica.(1556) Both Hovers had earned bachelor degrees in geology from Stanford. It is said that the future First Lady bore most of the "heavy lifting" in the translation. The President was poor at languages.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcmca2thuAAMqHPogBjmGjw6yw_pNZ3nPV0LvFEqIqDTQG6SQCuWOwJLVDV9Xc4n8RWpwKQ5wBcUyMNEEJXk1SOFc-azOzCuPIpJCiASENibfrDABtNLVew_H_JK7keHKVqLD_TfCCLf0aALaZeGcNOzbnt-0mJQaAD8FVOKzzo-qV0YqILKZiw-M8ARI/s384/Lou-Henry-Hoover-WH-Portrait.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcmca2thuAAMqHPogBjmGjw6yw_pNZ3nPV0LvFEqIqDTQG6SQCuWOwJLVDV9Xc4n8RWpwKQ5wBcUyMNEEJXk1SOFc-azOzCuPIpJCiASENibfrDABtNLVew_H_JK7keHKVqLD_TfCCLf0aALaZeGcNOzbnt-0mJQaAD8FVOKzzo-qV0YqILKZiw-M8ARI/s320/Lou-Henry-Hoover-WH-Portrait.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div><div><b>1951</b> Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam submit a classified paper at the Los Alamos lab, in which they proposed their revolutionary new design, staged implosion, for a practical megaton-range hydrogen bomb.</div><hr /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>1961 </b>Korabl-Sputnik 4 or Vostok-3KA No.1, also known as Sputnik 9 in the West, was a Soviet spacecraft which was launched on 9 March 1961. Carrying the mannequin Ivan Ivanovich, a dog named Chernushka, some mice and the first guinea pig in space, it was a test flight of the Vostok spacecraft. *Wik</div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisaMtO75k3bBwxX8taRxfUMBHkhuJuVPIvqffRbkXgKsVWtatJKfbHVDvxaxYMlYW3jwQGVXo-gSCNCRHxNT9W-TUBIttI2smdwyO1EQuiLY0B4NtHfgQ3ium2NS9DnvLnwR1gko-Om_QOuXJgsGQxM0KY5lyQyJOYrSVMqF-WPQd-cC5PZaOZDxX0/s119/sputnick%209.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="86" data-original-width="119" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisaMtO75k3bBwxX8taRxfUMBHkhuJuVPIvqffRbkXgKsVWtatJKfbHVDvxaxYMlYW3jwQGVXo-gSCNCRHxNT9W-TUBIttI2smdwyO1EQuiLY0B4NtHfgQ3ium2NS9DnvLnwR1gko-Om_QOuXJgsGQxM0KY5lyQyJOYrSVMqF-WPQd-cC5PZaOZDxX0/w320-h231/sputnick%209.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></div><div><b><hr /></b></div><div><b>1993 </b>PowerOpen Association Formed: Apple Computer Inc., Motorola Inc., IBM Corp. and four other computer companies form the PowerOpen Association Inc., intended to promote new computer chip technology in preparation for the release of the next generation of personal computers. The association also tested conformance to the PowerOpen environment, which led to computers such as Apple's Power PC. *CHM</div></div></div></div><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>1451 Amerigo Vespucci (9 Mar 1451; died 22 Feb 1512 at age 60. ), Italian navigator, who claimed to have reached North and South America in 1498. It is after him that the continents are named. *VFR<div><div>Waldsemuller 1507 first map to use the name "America" *Wik</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjhYPs1x4u0wd_uDnehbi-20LAMlHgwnGdeTfxuEHBe4o8p0kAvTRHy85Jqvsmz8xbhfkBiZGxZNq8IDe9H0kIWkhbfEBMXCYqV9f8WavYbCqlyxQ0XcwVnNrm8UsTeqMq9uGZtWrhjqytS9ikDkoq7LjvqiQj1c6gdxw60yqxOVCg4vUf1RXrZzm-HC8/s350/1507%20Waldseemuller_map_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="350" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjhYPs1x4u0wd_uDnehbi-20LAMlHgwnGdeTfxuEHBe4o8p0kAvTRHy85Jqvsmz8xbhfkBiZGxZNq8IDe9H0kIWkhbfEBMXCYqV9f8WavYbCqlyxQ0XcwVnNrm8UsTeqMq9uGZtWrhjqytS9ikDkoq7LjvqiQj1c6gdxw60yqxOVCg4vUf1RXrZzm-HC8/s320/1507%20Waldseemuller_map_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1564 David Fabricius(9 Mar 1564; died 7 May 1617 at age 53) A German astronomer, friend of Tycho Brahe and Kepler, and one of the first to follow Galileo in telescope observation of the skies. He is best known for a naked-eye observation of a star in Aug 1596, subsequently named Omicron Ceti, the first variable star to be discovered, and now known as Mira. Its existence with variable brightness contradicted the Aristotelian dogma that the heavens were both perfect and constant. With his son, Johannes Fabricius, he observed the sun and noted sunspots. For further observations they used a camera obscura and recorded sun-spot motion indicating the rotation of the Sun. (David Fabricius wrote to Michael Maestlin (Kepler's old teacher) that he did not believe the spots were on the Sun's body, although the center of their motions clearly lay in the Sun. *Galileo Project)<div>Kepler had studied the stars and planets with a camera obscura that had a lens to sharpen the view in 1600.(he coined the term camera obscura in 1604 from the Latin for dark chamber or dark room. Before the term camera obscura was first used, other terms were used to refer to the devices: cubiculum obscurum, cubiculum tenebricosum, conclave obscurum, and locus obscurus.) <br />Fabricius, a Protestant minister, was killed by a parishioner angered upon being accused by him as a thief. *TIS (after denouncing a local goose thief from the pulpit, the accused man struck him in the head with a shovel and killed him.. *Wik)<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAOC6Txjr_-v5mg4RhInx9VQdQiKcU4B-qdoMhuwVYJSILZAiHHATNnsB7m79SmRQ3U2QIit68iSpWUa_vqGVmsD7wcSg50RGTD426sSjF83bjaO6S5av9YpDBfb6vtO0uAHUXCYK60tCL-5Ojrd26unlWcca0jYjLKmFc-qFrlEWrnusDmIhq1Sxw/s220/1545_gemma_frisius_-_camera-obscura-sonnenfinsternis_1545-650x337.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="114" data-original-width="220" height="114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAOC6Txjr_-v5mg4RhInx9VQdQiKcU4B-qdoMhuwVYJSILZAiHHATNnsB7m79SmRQ3U2QIit68iSpWUa_vqGVmsD7wcSg50RGTD426sSjF83bjaO6S5av9YpDBfb6vtO0uAHUXCYK60tCL-5Ojrd26unlWcca0jYjLKmFc-qFrlEWrnusDmIhq1Sxw/s1600/1545_gemma_frisius_-_camera-obscura-sonnenfinsternis_1545-650x337.jpg" width="220" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br />[re: invented, The Camera Obscura (Latin for dark room) was a dark box or room with a hole in one end. If the hole was small enough, an inverted image would be seen on the opposite wall. Such a principle was known by thinkers as early as Aristotle (c. 300 BC). It is said that Roger Bacon invented the camera obscura just before the year 1300, but this has never been accepted by scholars; more plausible is the claim that he used one to observe solar eclipses. In fact, the Arabian scholar Hassan ibn Hassan (also known as Ibn al Haitam), in the 10th century, described what can be called a camera obscura in his writings..] The image is the first published picture of camera obscura in Gemma Frisius' 1545 book De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica</div><div><br /><div><hr />1818 Ferdinand Joachimsthal (9 March 1818 in Goldberg, Prussian Silesia (now Złotoryja, Poland) - 5 April 1861 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland)) Influenced by the work of Jacobi, Dirichlet and Steiner, Joachimsthal wrote on the theory of surfaces where he made substantial contributions, particularly to the problem of normals to conic sections and second degree surfaces.<br />Joachimsthal applied the theory of determinants to geometry. He made the important step of introducing oblique coordinates. Joachimsthal surfaces are named after him, these have a family of plane lines of curvature within the plane of a pencil. He has a theorem named after him which concerns the intersection of surfaces. He is also remembered for another theorem on the four normals to an ellipse from a point inside it. *SAU His name is derived from the region in Silesia which was rich in Silver. Coins made with the silver were called "daler", from German T(h)aler, short for Joachimsthaler, a coin from the silver mine of Joachimsthal (‘Joachim's valley’), now Jáchymov in the Czech Republic. The term was later applied to a coin used in the Spanish American colonies, which was also widely used in the British North American colonies at the time of the American War of Independence, hence adopted as the name of the US monetary unit in the late 18th century.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipLORYcw5pOk_u3aDF-IMVVIElWQkiMMoy-0Bubcwtk5wDRKE6MJ4-2xtnJnTVfE2c6EeDGDJU-JnY1franHY2QNRUOvwafLh_ZsGNiKRVyvmwcQRZWWTNqD4NaPG63L67YmKPVqfGelKNDezuBb29GgttXQQZH_QOaCp4pwHefkJ9CYS5yioCCDwfoa0/s268/Ferdinand%20Joachimsthal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="220" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipLORYcw5pOk_u3aDF-IMVVIElWQkiMMoy-0Bubcwtk5wDRKE6MJ4-2xtnJnTVfE2c6EeDGDJU-JnY1franHY2QNRUOvwafLh_ZsGNiKRVyvmwcQRZWWTNqD4NaPG63L67YmKPVqfGelKNDezuBb29GgttXQQZH_QOaCp4pwHefkJ9CYS5yioCCDwfoa0/s1600/Ferdinand%20Joachimsthal.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr />1824 Birthdate of Leland Stanford, the American railroad builder and capitalist who founded Stanford University in 1885. *VFR<br /><hr />1852 Constantin Marie Le Paige (9 March 1852 in Liège, Belgium - 26 Jan 1929 in Liège, Belgium) worked on the theory of algebraic forms, a topic whose study was initiated by Boole in 1841 and then developed by Cayley, Sylvester, Hermite, Clebsch and Aronhold. In particular Le Paige studied the geometry of algebraic curves and surfaces, building on this earlier work. He is best known for his construction of a cubic surface given by 19 points.<br />Le Paige studied the generation of plane cubic and quartic curves, developing further Chasles's work on plane algebraic curves and Steiner's results on the intersection of two projective pencils.<br />The history of mathematics was another topic which interested Le Paige. He published Sluze's correspondence with Pascal, Huygens, Oldenburg and Wallis. *SAU</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOEuwThytbYd-QOSIibKioNgC47WOxISaxeKzncFzhND0814W9NxUeAeeExDFz_S6pjRni2liI9KY-sSSUyLaz1zcMn_9q2kCumwI25fHtZfAuv7pwmaBSzxUNtQxtdE3Kmvo74sQ5yzOHyHaBa5M-2J-aT-9D_IFN3Y7kaP2Y0Zfiq1iA_4FKrSI6QhQ/s326/Constantin_Le_Paige_(1852-1929).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="256" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOEuwThytbYd-QOSIibKioNgC47WOxISaxeKzncFzhND0814W9NxUeAeeExDFz_S6pjRni2liI9KY-sSSUyLaz1zcMn_9q2kCumwI25fHtZfAuv7pwmaBSzxUNtQxtdE3Kmvo74sQ5yzOHyHaBa5M-2J-aT-9D_IFN3Y7kaP2Y0Zfiq1iA_4FKrSI6QhQ/s320/Constantin_Le_Paige_(1852-1929).jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1900 Howard Hathaway Aiken (9 Mar 1900; 14 Mar 1973 at age 72) American mathematician who invented the Harvard Mark I, forerunner of the modern electronic digital computer. While a graduate student and instructor Harvard University, Aiken's research had led to a system of differential equations which could only be solved using numerical techniques, for which he began planning large computer. His idea was to use an adaptation of Hollerith's punched card machine. When eventually built, (1943) it weighed 35 tons, had 500 miles of wire and could compute to 23 significant figures. There were 72 storage registers and central units to perform multiplication and division. It was controlled by a sequence of instructions on punched paper tapes, and used punched cards to enter data and give output from the machine. *TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXCQiSc6lil0MUhmlyatJ-b8tUPdrn4AzCFBzPR-bpRTrze-E1g63SrErpbDhm3sNxU4wHjlgFKfgtzkjK057kUbiHrT_OA0FkrQITR1S2frxETnOV7uVk8f7n4333h7TgAk1j8DE-s6LK8PoMKZv-GuqzwK_Q0QNtvFhfOvLJRY0W5fIsTGHnmnP0dik/s258/aiken%20and%20mark%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="258" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXCQiSc6lil0MUhmlyatJ-b8tUPdrn4AzCFBzPR-bpRTrze-E1g63SrErpbDhm3sNxU4wHjlgFKfgtzkjK057kUbiHrT_OA0FkrQITR1S2frxETnOV7uVk8f7n4333h7TgAk1j8DE-s6LK8PoMKZv-GuqzwK_Q0QNtvFhfOvLJRY0W5fIsTGHnmnP0dik/s1600/aiken%20and%20mark%201.jpeg" width="258" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1923 Walter Kohn </b>(<span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">March 9, 1923 – April 19, 2016) </span> Austrian-American physicist who shared (with John A. Pople) the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The award recognized their individual work on computations in quantum chemistry. Kohn's share of the prize acknowledged his development of the density-functional theory, which made it possible to apply the complicated mathematics of quantum mechanics to the description and analysis of the chemical bonding between atoms. *TIS<br />"Paris somehow lends itself to conceptual new ideas. There is a certain magic to that city." (Thanks to Arjen Dijksman)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLBGXE-LNe0sweU5A_H0IPHbyzwB82Ppzwa3OnVWUrsvp_h3HcFmFLXSKplYhKr21V5-B9EP7uY5IXiOLntxzPi3woaj4ExsJ9rHTkxbLbv6QsD46jOamG8Si1Zf-NTMgiia9dfVv1LjfZy-CXHp-wBZLf1wROzEewLIYPfo8f7STtQqQFb7PPF5SD6Nw/s447/Walter_Kohn.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLBGXE-LNe0sweU5A_H0IPHbyzwB82Ppzwa3OnVWUrsvp_h3HcFmFLXSKplYhKr21V5-B9EP7uY5IXiOLntxzPi3woaj4ExsJ9rHTkxbLbv6QsD46jOamG8Si1Zf-NTMgiia9dfVv1LjfZy-CXHp-wBZLf1wROzEewLIYPfo8f7STtQqQFb7PPF5SD6Nw/s320/Walter_Kohn.jpg" width="236" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1948 László Lovász (March 9, 1948 - ) is a Hungarian mathematician, best known for his work in combinatorics, for which he was awarded the Wolf Prize and the Knuth Prize in 1999, and the Kyoto Prize in 2010.*Wik<br /><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span></div>886 Abu masar (10 Aug 787, 9 Mar 886 at age 98)Persian astrologer, a.k.a. Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi, or Ja'far ibn Muhammad, who was the leading astrologer of the Muslim world. He is known primarily for his theory that the world, created when the seven planets were in conjunction in the first degree of Aries, will come to an end at a like conjunction in the last degree of Pisces. *TIS</div><div>His discourses incorporated and expanded upon the studies of earlier scholars of Islamic, Persian, Greek, and Mesopotamian origin. His works were translated into Latin in the 12th century and, through their wide circulation in manuscript form, had a great influence on Western scholars. Kitab al-Mudkhal al-Kabīr (Great introduction) is his most important work and the one most frequently cited by scholars in the West. It contains an astrological theory on the nature of the moon's influence on the tides and was the key work on the subject during the Middle Ages. This edition is the 1140 translation into Latin by Hermann of Carinthia, first printed by Erhard Ratdolt in Augsburg, Germany, in 1489. The woodcut title vignette of a black-faced astronomer reading the stars with an astrolabe and dividers is one of the best-known Renaissance representations of an astronomer. *Library of Congress</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6x_gobdWSEkBNOPfhB6Err2dPePZnc-gdgAuKUKMDwRA8g_G0C7Z0vG3s_CIkkaJu-W0K-o2JQwDRA2ij5658rJmWhQNJSQeCALXUkmzuVpmh2IUuR5xRiz_mfHKDcrajArBkZVgv84Q61M-P2g1wptPCvpck0pJ6mkJLXNmUbpGzWI3zklo-EoBgSs/s1144/abu%20massar%20Intro%20Astronomy.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="1144" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6x_gobdWSEkBNOPfhB6Err2dPePZnc-gdgAuKUKMDwRA8g_G0C7Z0vG3s_CIkkaJu-W0K-o2JQwDRA2ij5658rJmWhQNJSQeCALXUkmzuVpmh2IUuR5xRiz_mfHKDcrajArBkZVgv84Q61M-P2g1wptPCvpck0pJ6mkJLXNmUbpGzWI3zklo-EoBgSs/w640-h256/abu%20massar%20Intro%20Astronomy.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1833 Jacques Frédéric Français (20 June 1775 in Saverne, Bas-Rhin, France - 9 March 1833 in Metz, France) In September 1813 Français published a work in which he gave a geometric representation of complex numbers with interesting applications. This was based on Argand's paper which had been sent, without disclosing the name of the author, by Legendre to François Français. Although Wessel had published an account of the geometric representation of complex numbers in 1799, and then Argand had done so again in 1806, the idea was still little known among mathematicians. This changed after Français' paper since a vigorous discussion between Français, Argand and Servois took place in Gergonne's Journal. In this argument Français and Argand believed in the validity of the geometric representation, while Servois argued that complex numbers must be handled using pure algebra. *SAU</div><div>Argand diagram</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAwuhRYGbY6oUOoeg4pEoWasw3DVVW7eNNFjhJl96EmuPOPHxP2SK3pK78Lmjg2XbbsvzIDFTwVbTDaPZJkhCyzM9s_2d8ZtJH2mezzQ7Z8kB8yqv7iovfLG6vqXzDh8CevGwdTj83JN1jZak_eCq2Wt0VgA7hEjSACAYuaCSA2DyNVu_qZGoB5AACyi4/s300/Argand%20gauss%20plane.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAwuhRYGbY6oUOoeg4pEoWasw3DVVW7eNNFjhJl96EmuPOPHxP2SK3pK78Lmjg2XbbsvzIDFTwVbTDaPZJkhCyzM9s_2d8ZtJH2mezzQ7Z8kB8yqv7iovfLG6vqXzDh8CevGwdTj83JN1jZak_eCq2Wt0VgA7hEjSACAYuaCSA2DyNVu_qZGoB5AACyi4/s1600/Argand%20gauss%20plane.png" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1851 Hans Christian Oersted (14 Aug 1777, 9 Mar 1851 at age 73) Danish physicist and chemist whose discovery (1820) that an electric current in a wire causes a nearby magnetized compass needle to deflect, indicating the electric current in a wire induces a magnetic field around it, marks the starting point for the development of electromagnetic theory. For this, he can be called “the father of electromagnetism,” for which his name was adopted for the magnetic field strength in the CGS system of units (for which the SI system now uses the henry unit). Philosophically, he had believed nature's forces had a common origin. Oersted was the first to isolate aluminum as a metal (1825). He also made the first accurate determination of the compressibility of water (1822). Late in his career, he researched diamagnetism. In his final years, he turned back to philosophy, and started writing The Soul in Nature. *TIS</div><div>Statue of Oerstead at Oxford</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii_mZuSOtf5mE4kA5SBJikNqYwAlncQHyYr_2aK5tu9XGFJ-QswxSVTVDdB0LOzhbyymeV8Q6rSs47wwmVCJdNqxp7WTTafLaPhOnDTPzLU95Ji7YwNQKUeEloqrQP6u9q4-VYSv4xyksbMvtC1HfLPp6cVZ8M45YaI6m2LFNG1ovzIL3IJEIl2ptqxVs/s359/Hans_Christian_Orsted_statue%20at_Oxford.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii_mZuSOtf5mE4kA5SBJikNqYwAlncQHyYr_2aK5tu9XGFJ-QswxSVTVDdB0LOzhbyymeV8Q6rSs47wwmVCJdNqxp7WTTafLaPhOnDTPzLU95Ji7YwNQKUeEloqrQP6u9q4-VYSv4xyksbMvtC1HfLPp6cVZ8M45YaI6m2LFNG1ovzIL3IJEIl2ptqxVs/s320/Hans_Christian_Orsted_statue%20at_Oxford.jpg" width="227" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1866 Edmond Bour (19 May 1832 in Gray, Haute-Saône, France - 9 March 1866 in Paris, France)Bour made many significant contributions to analysis, algebra, geometry and applied mechanics despite his early death from an incurable disease. His remarkable achievements were cut short at the age of 33 and as a consequence Bour is hardly known in the history of mathematics whereas one feels that if he had been given the chance to continue his outstanding work he would today be remembered as one of the major figures in the subject. *SAU</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJWWaNMvlQNrl_s74dllgOtSXwkSVA-R6le5_FvdIiGKMGm6HK3hYDYB_Z3F_qgk4CXu8nFQ4cMYledYWnTPIcs-v2pKihGh1C9Cl7q2aO8xdNGKzpVX6myApJVyFZhoT8VBc1V2QOp12i30nqezmdWKIAz1VNytkAKxcHo91sBOvHMNLvqBq50yRA1hA/s440/Bust%20of%20Bour%20Mus%C3%A9e%20Baron-Martin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJWWaNMvlQNrl_s74dllgOtSXwkSVA-R6le5_FvdIiGKMGm6HK3hYDYB_Z3F_qgk4CXu8nFQ4cMYledYWnTPIcs-v2pKihGh1C9Cl7q2aO8xdNGKzpVX6myApJVyFZhoT8VBc1V2QOp12i30nqezmdWKIAz1VNytkAKxcHo91sBOvHMNLvqBq50yRA1hA/s320/Bust%20of%20Bour%20Mus%C3%A9e%20Baron-Martin.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1917 Agnes Sime Baxter (Hill) (18 March 1870 – 9 March 1917) was a Canadian-born mathematician. She studied at Dalhousie University, receiving her BA in 1891, and her MA in 1892. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1895; her dissertation was “On Abelian integrals, a resume of Neumann’s ‘Abelsche Integrele’ with comments and applications." *Wik</div><div>It must have been a difficult time for a woman such as Baxter taking what were considered at that time to be men's subjects. Although few women studied mathematics, Baxter was not the only one studying mathematics at Dalhousie; for example there were two other women in the class of 24 that studied second level mathematics with her. Her performance at university was outstanding and she was awarded a distinction and received the Sir William Young Gold Medal. With the award of her B.A. degree Baxter became the first ever woman to graduate with honours from Dalhousie University. But more than this, she had been clearly the best student in both mathematics and mathematical physics.</div><div>When she graduated in 1895, Baxter became only the second Canadian woman to be awarded Ph.D. in Mathematics. On a wider scale, she was only the fourth woman to receive such a degree in the whole of North America.*SAU</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4z6qCsqzU3XWj6quMtzON83NBMICD-sTahr-6KUlRAZfpArakyy0Yl0r6NnhN906n5sFYdu1ZewRarsUAQcGLuX8VR2tDSRe3NT_TBCDEzdw5Bc4-tjayVbrN3P8K9IQo7N0022Cm79XSrNLHEJJm9bFTLj-wxjCwRanwZOUwQ4jmMTcHJXS3WtYiT4s/s326/agnes%20Baxter%20hill.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="271" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4z6qCsqzU3XWj6quMtzON83NBMICD-sTahr-6KUlRAZfpArakyy0Yl0r6NnhN906n5sFYdu1ZewRarsUAQcGLuX8VR2tDSRe3NT_TBCDEzdw5Bc4-tjayVbrN3P8K9IQo7N0022Cm79XSrNLHEJJm9bFTLj-wxjCwRanwZOUwQ4jmMTcHJXS3WtYiT4s/s320/agnes%20Baxter%20hill.jpeg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr />1923 Johannes Diederik van der Waals (23 Nov 1837; 9 Mar 1923) Dutch physicist, winner of the 1910 Nobel Prize for Physics for his research on the gaseous and liquid states of matter. He was largely self-taught in science and he originally worked as a school teacher. His main work was to develop an equation (the van der Waals equation) that - unlike the laws of Boyle and Charles - applied to real gases. Since the molecules do have attractive forces and volume (however small), van der Waals introduced into the theory two further constants to take these properties into account. The weak electrostatic attractive forces between molecules and between atoms are called van der Waals forces in his honour. His valuable results enabled James Dewar and Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes to work out methods of liquefying the permanent gases. *TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPyycCs8iE4NmjApjWfuJGsdnZcB_sSj8edHnsAGbT6kEqbVlWfRkObretvtv0zlorYw6uLUxKNnfVc89O7UV0Uzy_HvYscwvWbRD1SBvcNv2vXZa4_8UNzvIvdTOHE1i7SKXqzmaTDJWK4WA2NgQTHKPNHMiyJ92yS0iGWFRTjVde2a4a1oWmuxFiH-k/s260/Johannes_Diderik_van%20der%20Waals.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="230" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPyycCs8iE4NmjApjWfuJGsdnZcB_sSj8edHnsAGbT6kEqbVlWfRkObretvtv0zlorYw6uLUxKNnfVc89O7UV0Uzy_HvYscwvWbRD1SBvcNv2vXZa4_8UNzvIvdTOHE1i7SKXqzmaTDJWK4WA2NgQTHKPNHMiyJ92yS0iGWFRTjVde2a4a1oWmuxFiH-k/s1600/Johannes_Diderik_van%20der%20Waals.jpg" width="230" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1931 Ivan Vladislavovich Sleszynski (23 July 1854 in Lysianka, Cherkasy, Kiev gubernia, Ukraine - 9 March 1931 in Kraków, Poland)Sleszynski's main work was on continued fractions, least squares and axiomatic proof theory based on mathematical logic. In a paper of 1892, based on his doctoral dissertation, he examined Cauchy's version of the Central Limit Theorem using characteristic function methods, and made several significant improvements and corrections. Because of the work, he is recognised as giving the first rigorous proof of a restricted form of the Central Limit Theorem. *SAU</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA-fURyxdhij50sypcD9c9v8Kmsgi-1gIEt0H5wq-Z40rOt7xewSAnQXQglLD75loCcQSb2En-k6Uc2rZA8KPjqy-OoVg5GD6v8k6bVvADQNpExM5bdzCvLNYXq8MudwlTRu0NetL8jq1a8Fm0a1HUe2S_m7Lrvci_PuDnxR9vbL-9OtW-Tu9-mWM1JSY/s259/sleszynski%20grave.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA-fURyxdhij50sypcD9c9v8Kmsgi-1gIEt0H5wq-Z40rOt7xewSAnQXQglLD75loCcQSb2En-k6Uc2rZA8KPjqy-OoVg5GD6v8k6bVvADQNpExM5bdzCvLNYXq8MudwlTRu0NetL8jq1a8Fm0a1HUe2S_m7Lrvci_PuDnxR9vbL-9OtW-Tu9-mWM1JSY/s1600/sleszynski%20grave.jpeg" width="194" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1942 Mykhailo Pilipovich Krawtchouk (27 Sept 1892 in Chovnitsy, (now Kivertsi) Ukraine - 9 March 1942 in Kolyma, Siberia, USSR) In 1929 Krawtchouk published his most famous work, Sur une généralisation des polynômes d'Hermite. In this paper he introduced a new system of orthogonal polynomials now known as the Krawtchouk polynomials, which are polynomials associated with the binomial distribution.<br />However his mathematical work was very wide and, despite his early death, he was the author of around 180 articles on mathematics. He wrote papers on differential and integral equations, studying both their theory and applications. Other areas he wrote on included algebra (where among other topics he studied the theory of permutation matrices), geometry, mathematical and numerical analysis, probability theory and mathematical statistics. He was also interested in the philosophy of mathematics, the history of mathematics and mathematical education. Krawtchouk edited the first three-volume dictionary of Ukrainian mathematical terminology. *SAU</div><div><div>Mykhailo Krawtchouk was arrested on February 21, 1938. He was charged with a</div><div>membership in an underground Ukrainian nationalist and terrorist organization and spying.</div><div>The accusation of a membership in such fictitious organizations was a typical charge</div><div>against the country’s intellectuals during the Great Terror. The allegations of stemmed</div><div>from the fact that Krawtchouk closely identified with Ukrainian culture, playing a major</div><div>role in developing Ukrainian mathematical terminology and mathematical education. </div></div><div><div> On September 23, 1938, in a trial lasting one half-hour, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Krawtchouk to 20 years in prison and 5 years in exile. Mykhailo Krawtchouk</div><div>was assigned to perform heavy manual work in a gold mine in Kolyma region, one of the coldest and most uninhabitable places on the planet. Like a large proportion of political prisoners, Krawtchouk did not survive the Kolyma camps.</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0oA0FY80LXVShCUlRsrQZzCs9NJHd8X9OJ-SEa2R-ua8iHeWg81q-KaZVzvJ8HqvM-kGyp3YHXDKCI8xfQguDg9fDILaaI97Ft1eg2a4jc-J_IGpYvZ1956QVoUL4Z8B459krc6-Ta86a6Rfdn2ZEgGrjtAUHZNKDrbh7R0nH2u0ybgLt8YR4rEYFEjo/s158/krawtchouk.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="158" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0oA0FY80LXVShCUlRsrQZzCs9NJHd8X9OJ-SEa2R-ua8iHeWg81q-KaZVzvJ8HqvM-kGyp3YHXDKCI8xfQguDg9fDILaaI97Ft1eg2a4jc-J_IGpYvZ1956QVoUL4Z8B459krc6-Ta86a6Rfdn2ZEgGrjtAUHZNKDrbh7R0nH2u0ybgLt8YR4rEYFEjo/w320-h300/krawtchouk.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1954 V(agn) Walfrid Ekman (3 May 1874, 9 Mar 1954 at age 79) Swedish physical oceanographer and mathematical physicist whose research into the dynamics of ocean currents led to his name remaining associated with terms for particular phenomena of the ocean or atmosphere, including Ekman spiral, Ekman transport and Ekman layer. Fridtjof Nansen pointed out to Ekman that he had noticed that icebergs drift at an angle of 20°-40° to the prevailing wind, rather than directly with the wind. In 1902, Ekman published an explanation, known now as the Ekman spiral, describing movement of ocean currents influenced by the Earth's rotation. He also developed experimental techniques and instruments such as the Ekman current meter and Ekman water bottle.*TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyOgJjh9hyphenhyphenK9C1rjCo-ZZW8ypycXFvU2BPV5GVq-fQMwplT3bKAPm2vcF9ayoJa0-LPOGQXoVX_HlWqMqGBKt0rcczdWXdjoDbQTgJ3zLjKHF3HRIXK0J1-xRMiPRgQba59sdtT_sqbo6vARbpQiues6PYKD6DcQE2EhwMVPI-IZQo_UxT3XS6N-wOzx4/s240/ekman.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="180" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyOgJjh9hyphenhyphenK9C1rjCo-ZZW8ypycXFvU2BPV5GVq-fQMwplT3bKAPm2vcF9ayoJa0-LPOGQXoVX_HlWqMqGBKt0rcczdWXdjoDbQTgJ3zLjKHF3HRIXK0J1-xRMiPRgQba59sdtT_sqbo6vARbpQiues6PYKD6DcQE2EhwMVPI-IZQo_UxT3XS6N-wOzx4/s1600/ekman.jpeg" width="180" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqS0Yjn6V5dVN6xLurGA-bsq32QpzKtYq3GJPbV8Zscdb5kw1sLLPyzYyhQ7DvXYRfQG3AN66mgrDhRC7Ai9UftyQ3mLQ-jQZRKOMZpDWxTjL-uWUy1S2SjD_NiNFUKm9IZWFASX1fZqYankMncxLe9fzfjKSlPesU0ph77_R78R6gEHDlG5wxMGzNo2w/s240/ekman%20spital.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="240" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqS0Yjn6V5dVN6xLurGA-bsq32QpzKtYq3GJPbV8Zscdb5kw1sLLPyzYyhQ7DvXYRfQG3AN66mgrDhRC7Ai9UftyQ3mLQ-jQZRKOMZpDWxTjL-uWUy1S2SjD_NiNFUKm9IZWFASX1fZqYankMncxLe9fzfjKSlPesU0ph77_R78R6gEHDlG5wxMGzNo2w/s1600/ekman%20spital.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr />1962 Dr. Howard T. Engstrom (23 Jun 1902, 9 Mar 1962 at age 59) American computer designer who promoted the first commercially available digital computer, the Univac. As a Yale professor he had written a paper on the mathematical basis for cryptanalysis techniques. During WW II he was called to the Navy and placed in command of the OP-20-G automated machines "Research Section" for message decryption. After the war, he was a co-founder of Engineering Research Associates, a private company to work on electronic digital circuit technology for the Navy on a contract basis, with former Navy researchers. ERA delivered its first Atlas computer to the National Security Agency in Dec 1950. As vice president for research, Engstrom took the initiative to make a commercial version, renamed Univac. *TIS<br /><hr />1981 Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück (September 4, 1906 – March 9, 1981)<br />Delbrück was a German-American biophysicist and Nobel laureate.<br />Delbrück studied astrophysics, shifting towards theoretical physics, at the University of Göttingen. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1930, he traveled through England, Denmark, and Switzerland. He met Wolfgang Pauli and Niels Bohr, who got him interested in biology.<br />In 1937, he moved to the United States to pursue his interests in biology, taking up research in the Biology Division at Caltech on genetics of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.<br />Delbrück was one of the most influential people in the movement of physical scientists into biology during the 20th century. Delbrück's thinking about the physical basis of life stimulated Erwin Schrödinger to write the highly influential book, What Is Life?. Schrödinger's book was an important influence on Francis Crick, James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins who won a Nobel prize for the discovery of the DNA double helix. *TIA<br /><hr />1993 Max August Zorn (6 June 1906 in Krefeld, Germany - 9 March 1993 in Bloomington, Indiana, USA) To his chagrin, he is most famous for discovering something yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice. *VFR (with a smile, I'm sure) He was an algebraist, group theorist, and numerical analyst. He is best known for Zorn's lemma, a powerful tool in set theory that is applicable to a wide range of mathematical constructs such as vector spaces, ordered sets, etc. Zorn's lemma was first discovered by K. Kuratowski (see June 18) in 1922, and then independently by Zorn in 1935.*Wik Today we know that the Axiom of Choice, the well-ordering principle, and Zorn's Lemma (the name now given to Zorn's maximum principle by Tukey and now the standard name) are equivalent. *SAU</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi9T8CHlLwt8OjSpm7CVK1jbXeFcKv1ddMAVPGvieayIqffDmPbjgqj50b1rfhgXuCzsF78KpgPFcrIsT5wD0-Mc3qusMZBpJdJh7aNq0vpbNvkRZfQ0_sXZn3nELZ2eVsVqIq2L7F4F08JTmNwn1B5QQKNfwsQNV95WWu8PNjmcq8_xdpHGQY-uLVXvQ/s253/max%20zorn.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="199" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi9T8CHlLwt8OjSpm7CVK1jbXeFcKv1ddMAVPGvieayIqffDmPbjgqj50b1rfhgXuCzsF78KpgPFcrIsT5wD0-Mc3qusMZBpJdJh7aNq0vpbNvkRZfQ0_sXZn3nELZ2eVsVqIq2L7F4F08JTmNwn1B5QQKNfwsQNV95WWu8PNjmcq8_xdpHGQY-uLVXvQ/s1600/max%20zorn.jpeg" width="199" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1916 Richard Kenneth Guy </b>(born September 30, 1916, Nuneaton, Warwickshire - <span face="Roboto, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-size: 16px;"> March 9, 2020</span> ) is a British mathematician, and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Calgary.<br />He is best known for co-authorship (with John Conway and Elwyn Berlekamp) of Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays and authorship of Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, but he has also published over 100 papers and books covering combinatorial game theory, number theory and graph theory.<br />He is said to have developed the partially tongue-in-cheek "Strong Law of Small Numbers," which says there are not enough small integers available for the many tasks assigned to them — thus explaining many coincidences and patterns found among numerous cultures.<br />Additionally, around 1959, Guy discovered a unistable polyhedron having only 19 faces; no such construct with fewer faces has yet been found. Guy also discovered the glider in Conway's Game of Life.<br />Guy is also a notable figure in the field of chess endgame studies. He composed around 200 studies, and was co-inventor of the Guy-Blandford-Roycroft code for classifying studies. He also served as the endgame study editor for the British Chess Magazine from 1948 to 1951.<br />Guy wrote four papers with Paul Erdős, giving him an Erdős number of 1. He also solved one of Erdős problems.</div><div>Many number theorists got their start trying to solve problems from Guy's book Unsolved problems in number theory.</div><div>His son, Michael Guy, is also a computer scientist and mathematician. <div><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit;">Guy died on 9 March 2020 at the age of 103.</span></div><div> *Wik </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROoeH5xjj-IZH2xoeY3IDapJiH1uJuCX7YqA6XBC-Jm1isz7aVwxRLRiPvCCJflY9COrxJIzkddd7PNz-FRVTq-pF6GONX9lM_nNIhOKeB2OrMV7YchWS2b42-ZV2f5G_VF6teYdeV1qiBm0ErKWQRrM6RIuYttOvrE470F3OjHfcmH4zoG45-8h-ato/s250/Richard_K_Guy_2005.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="233" data-original-width="250" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROoeH5xjj-IZH2xoeY3IDapJiH1uJuCX7YqA6XBC-Jm1isz7aVwxRLRiPvCCJflY9COrxJIzkddd7PNz-FRVTq-pF6GONX9lM_nNIhOKeB2OrMV7YchWS2b42-ZV2f5G_VF6teYdeV1qiBm0ErKWQRrM6RIuYttOvrE470F3OjHfcmH4zoG45-8h-ato/s1600/Richard_K_Guy_2005.jpg" width="250" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17ll-qVgBMJhHkkAXH1cHhEmJgMvdjU_X-_QuUorh3yxriI1OeyZrPeOLi0yIdcq29t6fbbm6Wsx6RufABsak3irxCu-mUA9zq4oYEganxryvsaUrGtAmBULc7TwvqzFeaKT9-8EFoByqwtKNQieFdWq5LQeyNdDMP7kmzi07cGXwGTf4AUcyivGgceo/s425/unsolved%20prob%20number%20theory%20Guy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="281" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17ll-qVgBMJhHkkAXH1cHhEmJgMvdjU_X-_QuUorh3yxriI1OeyZrPeOLi0yIdcq29t6fbbm6Wsx6RufABsak3irxCu-mUA9zq4oYEganxryvsaUrGtAmBULc7TwvqzFeaKT9-8EFoByqwtKNQieFdWq5LQeyNdDMP7kmzi07cGXwGTf4AUcyivGgceo/s320/unsolved%20prob%20number%20theory%20Guy.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><br /><br /><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-42036857823186457072024-03-08T06:30:00.001+00:002024-03-08T06:30:00.125+00:00Heron and his Formula(s)<p> Ok, you probably know Heron's Formula (if your teacher calls it Hero's formula, it's the same)... Heron of Alexandria, sometimes called Hero, lived around the year 100 AD and is most often remembered for a formula for the area of a triangle. The formula gives a method of computing the area from the lengths of the three sides...no angles required. If we call the sides a, b, and c; then the area is given by \(A= \sqrt {s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)}\) where the "s" stands for the semi-perimeter, \(s=\frac{a + b + c}{2}\). You can find a <a href="http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/54686.html">nice geometric proof of Heron's formula</a> at this link to the Dr. Math site. The proof was done by Dr. Floor, who credits the method to Paul Yiu of Florida Atlantic University. Documents from the Arabic writers indicate Archimedes may well have known this formula 300 years before Heron. In 1896, a copy of Heron's Metrica was recovered in Constantinople (now Istanbul) that had been copied around 1100 AD. It contains the oldest known demonstration of the formula. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heron%27s_formula" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> also has several nice proofs of the theorem, including one derived from the Pythagorean Thm. </p><div><br /></div><div> Heron is also remembered for his invention of a primitive steam engine and many early automatons, and a coin operated vending machine, and one of the earliest forerunners of the thermometer. The image at right shows a picture of a reconstruction of Heron's steam engine. The image is from the Smith College museum of Ancient Inventions where you can find more about Heron's, and many other's, interesting creations. An extension of Heron's area formula for cyclic <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHUIDYRTl3NrW9FghpY48x_4cv5p3CKViOFu_MwY49j-QhRHihDTEfZDpIMI78Uu_Q_AlG4CMsSeUKKcmiAIApGD__qmdthI248XGoRXPNe878ea3c-av-bYEMIt_jOmbxa17rpjXa8BNlY4dA7JFpXe57KF_VojGFKh7TaKRxmgmeaAU9h-5F-QEv=s700" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="500" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHUIDYRTl3NrW9FghpY48x_4cv5p3CKViOFu_MwY49j-QhRHihDTEfZDpIMI78Uu_Q_AlG4CMsSeUKKcmiAIApGD__qmdthI248XGoRXPNe878ea3c-av-bYEMIt_jOmbxa17rpjXa8BNlY4dA7JFpXe57KF_VojGFKh7TaKRxmgmeaAU9h-5F-QEv=w184-h257" width="184" /></a></div> <div>Heron's Metrica also contains one of the earliest examples of a method of finding square roots that is called the divide and average model. To find an approximate square root of a number, N, think of any number smaller than N, which we will call M. Then find a new approximation by letting E = (M + N/M)/2. Another approximation can be found by repeating the method with this new approximation. For example, beginning with N=20 and M= 2, we get E= (2 + 20/2) / 2 or E= (2+10)/2 = 6. Repeating with M= 6 we get E= (6+ 20/6)/2 = ( 6 + 3 1/3 )/2 = 14/3 or 4 2/3. After only two iterations from a very bad starting guess the approximation is within .2 of the correct value. </div><div><br /></div><div> Heron is also remembered for a problem he solved in Catoprica; Given two points, A and B, on the same side of a line, find a point X on the line so that the total distance AX+XB is a minimum. The solution may come quickly if you know that the translation of Catoprica is "About Mirrors". The solution given by Heron is to find the mirror reflection of point B in the line, B', and draw a straight line from A to B'. Where it intersects the line is the choice of point X. </div><div><br /></div><div>Ok, so much for the old news... but recently I was going through some old journals that Dave Refro sends me from time to time to keep me out of mischief, and I came across an article in the 1885 Annals of Mathematics which listed 105 different formulas for the area of a triangle (<i> things to do on a rainy afternoon, list 110 different formulae for the area of a triangle</i>). One was the well known Heron's formula above and then there was another that looked strikingly similar. If we let M<sub>A</sub> be the length of the median to vertex A, and similarly for M<sub>B</sub> and M<sub>C</sub> . The we can call sigma 1/2 the sum of M<sub>A</sub> + M<sub>B </sub>+ M<sub>C</sub>. Then we can write. </div><div>\(A= \frac{4}{3}\sqrt {\sigma(\sigma - M_A)(\sigma - M_B)(\sigma - M_C)}\)Now that is a new one to me..</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcpABRnr5NRQoSuN3RkYF7mvdVLBiE3-9nhCoQBC2HPJU89-U7EUtgVjAmVMU_mm4E5WruVSl39gZ3GmjDH9K68s-teOVS4e7e-M_6BIywM4-o3qCPDE3mw5IzTJzrEQHcThZHXfOyrLetLLP_dv07-NXsJBjo1cVxcH1_bCxew-Hv8GiXHjYlZ6Y_=s270" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="160" data-original-width="270" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcpABRnr5NRQoSuN3RkYF7mvdVLBiE3-9nhCoQBC2HPJU89-U7EUtgVjAmVMU_mm4E5WruVSl39gZ3GmjDH9K68s-teOVS4e7e-M_6BIywM4-o3qCPDE3mw5IzTJzrEQHcThZHXfOyrLetLLP_dv07-NXsJBjo1cVxcH1_bCxew-Hv8GiXHjYlZ6Y_" width="270" /></a></div><br />Here is one more I only learned recently. The triangle at right has the lengths s-a, etc shown, and you realize that they are the radii of Soddy <a href="https://pballew.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-kiss-precise-soddys-circle-theorem.html" target="_blank">"kissing circles"</a>.(below) If we think of the side a, as opposite angle A (as we like to do in geometry) the a= (s-b )+(s-c), and b=(s-a)+(s-c), and you've figured out already that c=(s-a)+(s-b). Now if we use a' for s-a, and b' for s-b... then we have a= b' + c', and b=a'+c' and c=a' + b'. </div><div>"But Why?", you ask. Because the the formula can be written<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqeIKHu6eSwSVzbY_Mej8GtrTEPtOiCz10EVOOmZFSnmiIYIraO00nMy5VKNR_PDT5niyDqh-Y0-YBkPvy5k3OldoIvsxvxURP5Sf6zrpOtOm3rCQ4Rjj2M-gcfInlr3T12kgNVxyp2FKDn_e7OvQQdTosuqlroQwkgU-yLkkrrDspnhiC2Svz96XO=s315" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="315" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqeIKHu6eSwSVzbY_Mej8GtrTEPtOiCz10EVOOmZFSnmiIYIraO00nMy5VKNR_PDT5niyDqh-Y0-YBkPvy5k3OldoIvsxvxURP5Sf6zrpOtOm3rCQ4Rjj2M-gcfInlr3T12kgNVxyp2FKDn_e7OvQQdTosuqlroQwkgU-yLkkrrDspnhiC2Svz96XO" width="315" /></a></div><br />as \( \sqrt{a' b' c' (a'+b'+c'}\), which looks much simpler. </div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-57624436259142059832024-03-08T06:00:00.004+00:002024-03-16T15:14:42.942+00:00On This Day in Math - March 8<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioe8juBQqvCTPC1K4bGxSO4yHwNvqgFnUERxFfl0oJ9RCHEAYmW_ce2bI9Osvzs2ZwNQ0aW8Pkar-X0TI4IpfYaHbjbu5uOi79oMB9-qo6fT2AsGb5k7xZD50HJmPJOd4KYmn9t81eW7c/s1600/Harmonices+mundi.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="262" data-original-width="192" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioe8juBQqvCTPC1K4bGxSO4yHwNvqgFnUERxFfl0oJ9RCHEAYmW_ce2bI9Osvzs2ZwNQ0aW8Pkar-X0TI4IpfYaHbjbu5uOi79oMB9-qo6fT2AsGb5k7xZD50HJmPJOd4KYmn9t81eW7c/s400/Harmonices+mundi.jpg" width="293" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Sheet from Kepler's Harmonices Mundi *Alamy.com</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p><br />The teaching of Algebra in the early stages ought to consist of a gradual generalisation of Arithmetic; in other words, Algebra ought, in the first instance to be taught as <i>Arithmetica Universalis</i> in the strictest sense.<br />~<b>George Chrystal</b><br /><br />The 67th day of the year; 67 is the largest prime which is not the sum of distinct squares. It is the 19th prime number and the sum of five consecutive primes ending in 19 (7 + 11 + 13 + 17 + 19)<br /><br />The maximum number of internal pieces possible if a circle is cut with eleven lines. These are sometimes called "lazy caterer's numbers."<br />\( 67 = \binom{11}{0} + \binom {11} {1} + \binom {11}{2} \)<br /><br />67 is the largest prime which is not the sum of distinct squares. It is also the smallest prime which contains all ten digits when raised to the tenth power. *Prime Curios<br /><br />and Jim Wilder @wilderlab sent 67 = 2<sup>6</sup> + 2<sup>1</sup>+ 2<sup>0</sup> = 26 + 21 + 20 = 67<br /><br />And one <a href="http://pballew.blogspot.com/2008/05/taking-things-to-new-and-some-old.html" target="_blank">smoot</a> is equal to 67 inches. The long and short of it is that a smoot is a unit of measurement that measures exactly 5 feet 7 inches (or 67 inches or 1.7018 meters – sorry, surveyors tend to get carried away with conversions). The smoot was created in 1958 when Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity members at MIT decided to use a pledge, Oliver R. Smoot, Jr., to calculate the length of the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge. Smoot lay down on the bridge, his fraternity brothers marked his head and feet, then he moved down one length and the process was repeated until the entire length of the bridge had been measured. The fraternity painted markings every ten smoots. The length of the bridge was calculated at 364.4 smoots, plus one ear. Succeeding pledge classes repainted the markings; it is a tradition that continues to this day.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijdH7VGtd1RNGjr7aSjEyFIFyvwoFJ8nD6TDaLpWYfeRN2IenkflyOuZMigZdOrlQGMnCt7XPOYX9j0u5ADWRYylCVsy3j3vhnyqCs439GakREXQHLDYjR1aA0XoyllFKOgYUxTxcK9MzAye2QncOyq4GpZNRDhqutb4HDBwlCH_wia4mm28sc12RUddU/s248/smoot%20.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="203" data-original-width="248" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijdH7VGtd1RNGjr7aSjEyFIFyvwoFJ8nD6TDaLpWYfeRN2IenkflyOuZMigZdOrlQGMnCt7XPOYX9j0u5ADWRYylCVsy3j3vhnyqCs439GakREXQHLDYjR1aA0XoyllFKOgYUxTxcK9MzAye2QncOyq4GpZNRDhqutb4HDBwlCH_wia4mm28sc12RUddU/s1600/smoot%20.jpeg" width="248" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span></div><p>1618 Kepler, On how he discovered his Third law:<br />...and if you want the exact moment in time, it was conceived mentally on 8th March in this year one thousand six hundred an eighteen, but submitted to calculation in an unlucky way, and therefore rejected as false, and finally returning on the 15th of May and adopting a new line of attack, stormed the darkness of my mind. So strong was the support from the combination of my labor of seventeen years on the observations of Brahe and the present study, which conspired together, that at first I believed I was dreaming, and assuming my conclusion among my basic premises. But it is absolutely certain and exact that the proportion between the periodic times of any two planets is precisely the sesquialterate proportion of their mean distances ...<br />* Harmonice mundi (Linz, 1619) Book 5, Chapter 3, trans. Aiton, Duncan and Field, p. 411.<br /></p><p>", as Kepler later recalled, on the 8th of March in the year 1618, something marvelous "appeared in my head". He suddenly realized that</p><p>III. The proportion between the periodic times of any two planets is precisely one and a half times the proportion of the mean distances.</p><p>Presumably he used the word “proportion” here to signify the logarithm of the ratio, so he is asserting that log(T1/T2) = (3/2)log(r1/r2), where Tj are the periods and rj are the mean radii of the orbits of any two planets. In the form of a diagram, his insight looks like this:</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVfsY0BxFh0rY7WfCwyK0sLYQbQ5pyDzORLrQJMMXtdhsHTQZHjGDyogBkOOSmxOekCLVuZ4CVAYvdYhiN_-2wMyGhjkmitY7na0Oqt0FP5InWekdpNSoSnfDusf3Gwv8lF2ae1RVflI8ZoEufsOZKScMuXVhAB8lKpgQ-GYFJn_wAbyJchsqzmSPHmeM/s331/kepler%20log%20reg.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="331" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVfsY0BxFh0rY7WfCwyK0sLYQbQ5pyDzORLrQJMMXtdhsHTQZHjGDyogBkOOSmxOekCLVuZ4CVAYvdYhiN_-2wMyGhjkmitY7na0Oqt0FP5InWekdpNSoSnfDusf3Gwv8lF2ae1RVflI8ZoEufsOZKScMuXVhAB8lKpgQ-GYFJn_wAbyJchsqzmSPHmeM/s320/kepler%20log%20reg.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /> At first it may seem surprising that it took a mathematically insightful man like Kepler over twelve years of intensive study to notice this simple linear relationship between the logarithms of the orbital periods and radii. In modern data analysis the log-log plot is a standard format for analyzing physical data. However, we should remember that logarithmic scales had not yet been invented in 1605. A more interesting question is why, after twelve years of struggle, this way of viewing the data suddenly "appeared in his head" early in 1618. (Kepler made some errors in the calculations in March, and decided the data didn't fit, but two months later, on May 15 the idea "came into his head" again, and this time he got the computations right, and thought he was dreaming because the fit is so exact.)<p></p><p>Is it just coincidental that John Napier's "Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descripto" (published in 1614) was first seen by Kepler towards the end of the year 1616? We know that Kepler was immediately enthusiastic about logarithms, which is not surprising, considering the masses of computation involved in preparing the Rudolphine Tables. Indeed, he even wrote a book of his own on the subject in 1621. It's also interesting that Kepler initially described his "Third Law" in terms of a 1.5 ratio of proportions, exactly as it would appear in a log-log plot, rather than in the more familiar terms of squared periods and cubed distances. It seems as if a purely mathematical invention, namely logarithms, whose intent was simply to ease the burden of manual arithmetical computations, may have led directly to the discovery/formulation of an important physical law, i.e., Kepler's third law of planetary motion. (Ironically, Kepler's academic mentor, Michael Maestlin, chided him − perhaps in jest? − for even taking an interest in logarithms, remarking that "it is not seemly for a professor of mathematics to be childishly pleased about any shortening of the calculations".) By the 18th of May, 1618, Kepler had fully grasped the logarithmic pattern in the planetary orbits: '<i>Now, because 18 months ago the first dawn, three months ago the broad daylight, but a very few days ago the full Sun of a most highly remarkable spectacle has risen, nothing holds me back.' "</i></p><p>*mathpages.com</p><p> <br /><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1758</b> Euler's paper on the game of Rencontre,(A type of solitaire card game, although it was sometimes played in a variation with two players... Rencontre takes two players, whom Euler names A and B. (Their descendents still populate mathematics problems worldwide. )The players have identical decks of cards. They both turn over cards, one at a time and at the same time. If they turn over the same card at the same time, there is a coincidence, and A wins. If they go all the way through the deck without a coincidence, then B wins. published in 1753, is E201, "Calcul de la probabilité dans le jeu de rencontre," Mémoires de l'académie de Berlin (1751), 1753, p. 255-270. Regarding this work, the editor says that a memoir entitled "Calcul des probabilités dans les jeux de hasard" was presented to the Academy of Berlin 8 March 1758. He asserts that it is probably memoir 201: "Calcul de la probabilité dans le jeu de rencontre." An analysis of it appeared in the Nova Acta eruditorum, Leipzig 1754, p, 179. Euler's paper can be <a href="http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~euler/docs/originals/E201.pdf" target="_blank">found here</a> Euler showed that the probability that A wins (there is a match in first n cards) is 1/n!, which rapidly converges to 1/e, or about 37%. </p><p>The function is called a derangement or subfactorial. A classic form of the problem is how many different can a clerk put n letters in n addressed envelopes so that no letter is in the correct address. </p><p>The symbol for subfactorial n is !n, a reversal of the usual factorial notation of today. </p><p>The problem of counting derangements was first considered by Pierre Raymond de Montmort in his Essay d'analyse sur les jeux de hazard in 1708; he solved it in 1713, as did Nicholas Bernoulli at about the same time.</p><p>The 9 derangements of the order of numbers one to four (from 24 permutations) are highlighted the probability of randomly picking a derangement is 9/24.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbetFvpHuGXiOXEbLs-UeF-uOEpHDnanqxY6yeqJifAj5DpBCn6QVEELDEI3sz1JItzUZWvzY14w9QfGxTJTbV6tbZ7IsenjUQ7n4OO2ZUUgCADwGwVgc0EQ9NG-sfqIkPvNPEZxuvgn10oN44HrmVfmo_Xi2gdYt-mkaK3Ss227_EOLUxCTKEq5xebKo/s330/Derangement4.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="234" data-original-width="330" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbetFvpHuGXiOXEbLs-UeF-uOEpHDnanqxY6yeqJifAj5DpBCn6QVEELDEI3sz1JItzUZWvzY14w9QfGxTJTbV6tbZ7IsenjUQ7n4OO2ZUUgCADwGwVgc0EQ9NG-sfqIkPvNPEZxuvgn10oN44HrmVfmo_Xi2gdYt-mkaK3Ss227_EOLUxCTKEq5xebKo/s320/Derangement4.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><hr /><p>In 1775, Joseph Priestley, having discovered oxygen on 1 Aug 1774, experimented with mice in his home laboratory on whether it is necessary to support life. *TIS <br /></p><p>Over the past experiments, Joseph Priestley was looking for different ‘airs’ and trying to observe their properties. In one of the experiments, he noticed that when a burning candle was placed in a jar, it was put out. In such a jar, a mouse would also die because of the lack of air. However, putting a green plant in the same jar and exposing it to sunlight would bring the air back, which would permit the flame to burn and the mouse to breathe. </p><p>On August 1, Priestley took a lump of reddish solid substance, which was mercury oxide, and put it inside an inverted container, which was placed in a pool of mercury. Then he took a ‘burning lens’ and focussed the sunlight on the reddish lump hoping the substance to burn and collect the air that was produced.</p><p>The produced ‘air,’ he wrote, was “five or six times as good as common air," and it allowed the mouse to breathe and the candle to burn for four times longer than earlier. Priestley had discovered what he called “dephlogisticated air," and which was later named by Antoine Lavoisier as Oxygen.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3UkqYvfBY6m9eGO9bFXSEowN2aGlVsSt7m1Gbo8dXsyTKfwNI1rQGl9E1b23s92fkrzRLzh7BhGDTcFOh-OKD3eV6CpjBfiVC2o9pvii4zmRQXH8VR2fdBoHP3GDMUB0MXik47jZcJ6Ug2n2JmTddaevxVnoLYjQ7iKfprYoWcE-46iuRGxd6xR2vVzg/s312/Joseph_Priestley%20(1).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="247" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3UkqYvfBY6m9eGO9bFXSEowN2aGlVsSt7m1Gbo8dXsyTKfwNI1rQGl9E1b23s92fkrzRLzh7BhGDTcFOh-OKD3eV6CpjBfiVC2o9pvii4zmRQXH8VR2fdBoHP3GDMUB0MXik47jZcJ6Ug2n2JmTddaevxVnoLYjQ7iKfprYoWcE-46iuRGxd6xR2vVzg/s1600/Joseph_Priestley%20(1).jpeg" width="247" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIizo3g0KCbfF3cJ4cXLYz_GwZwBX8VG6TgoeaKSsnkcY2hx6GHF4Oe7OvtBbXmjYQqjX5r9HwGID4Oh96M-T0nVWTPWvSOyZ9DEEO25y35iph1mqF2K8OYguPgBIki-Z8HMEGe049v71keID9BPPwNoG9mAwSeujlkxl-zYA0K1o-Ksud8MdgxGWqVVM/s226/Priestly%20mouse%20and%20mint.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="223" data-original-width="226" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIizo3g0KCbfF3cJ4cXLYz_GwZwBX8VG6TgoeaKSsnkcY2hx6GHF4Oe7OvtBbXmjYQqjX5r9HwGID4Oh96M-T0nVWTPWvSOyZ9DEEO25y35iph1mqF2K8OYguPgBIki-Z8HMEGe049v71keID9BPPwNoG9mAwSeujlkxl-zYA0K1o-Ksud8MdgxGWqVVM/s1600/Priestly%20mouse%20and%20mint.jpeg" width="226" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh41N0KdVYNB4YqZSHIIip54HlvcnqHd4miyJZw_UqipRHiYvB1emsb29WEpRL-yvyO3Q3tn0_cO3O3n6UaLX6I6r2xDzFMHkksv2ryFlTGwTwqA2GUBUn7VwYDMH7nzcprlJXjRfg7Q_FnPql1mEiFdt5-9RY15ZoDMqnfZnu7JSGdzFOL28b8qOAG/s500/1838%20dime.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh41N0KdVYNB4YqZSHIIip54HlvcnqHd4miyJZw_UqipRHiYvB1emsb29WEpRL-yvyO3Q3tn0_cO3O3n6UaLX6I6r2xDzFMHkksv2ryFlTGwTwqA2GUBUn7VwYDMH7nzcprlJXjRfg7Q_FnPql1mEiFdt5-9RY15ZoDMqnfZnu7JSGdzFOL28b8qOAG/w200-h200/1838%20dime.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />1838 US mint in New Orleans begins operation (producing dimes). “Dime” is based on the Latin word “decimus,” meaning “one tenth.” The French used the word “disme” in the 1500s when they came up with the idea of money divided into ten parts. In America, the spelling changed from “disme” to “dime.” <p></p><hr /><p>1896 James Dewar responds in answer to questions about his cryogenic experiments and safety precautions from Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, the Dutch Physicist whose laboratory had been shut down in Leiden for being to dangerous. "I may say that I have made all my experiments with high pressure apparatus before the Prince of Wales and the Sister of your Queen Dowager the Duchess of Albany without the slightest hesitation and no suggestions of danger were even suggested." *archive of the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory. <br /></p><hr /><p>1945 A Patent is Filed for the Harvard Mark I: C.D Lake, H.H. Aiken, F.E. Hamilton, and B.M. Durfee file a calculator patent for the Automatic Sequence Control Calculator, commonly known as the Harvard Mark I. The Mark I was a large automatic digital computer that could perform the four basic arithmetic functions and handle 23 decimal places. A multiplication took about five seconds. *CHM<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimW8EpyvXgoaNnFPCigk52N_T2UNDGYBWc-iefkDP_BPTNwOFiPMDUzTRnR8rTqpbawXWvuSA7sFmqAGqdQQSuyc4q-VEta8f-0u43v6BPVN3IbZEWEJZRsfVvI-XC8nD_MsRMc6lEYyBzz0PL8RweBishdtn52rzqDgCdrATaK8nnF9dCBkmEJl6Q/s236/harvard%20Mark%20I.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="236" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimW8EpyvXgoaNnFPCigk52N_T2UNDGYBWc-iefkDP_BPTNwOFiPMDUzTRnR8rTqpbawXWvuSA7sFmqAGqdQQSuyc4q-VEta8f-0u43v6BPVN3IbZEWEJZRsfVvI-XC8nD_MsRMc6lEYyBzz0PL8RweBishdtn52rzqDgCdrATaK8nnF9dCBkmEJl6Q/w320-h203/harvard%20Mark%20I.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>In 1976, the largest recovered single stony meteorite (1,774 kg) fell in Jilin, China, during a meteor shower that dropped more than 4,000 kg of extra-terrestrial rock. *TIS One piece weighed 1.77 tons, produced an impact pit 6 m deep (only a couple of hundred meters from the nearest house), and is the largest single fragment of stony meteorite ever found. </p><p> At about 3:00 pm on March 8, 1976 a red fireball moving southwest was sighted by townspeople of Hsinglung, Kirin Province. During flight there were several explosions and in the last stages of flight three distinct fireballs were observed.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgiA93oOiej6MVjINt2ae_hygBIYQ_KlhRN9uW2l9EOjIbzdwFZFcSkWCKHza8cuzzfEQ7V4SUy_zxFNfMxOn8_M7LiaB75OrOsaasYIVH-WkGNJ1yCMa6ers1XHtUYJeG4wa8YeFT-52InFGAEgBMtgctMzbaOFAanuEvwa7EbY3FhloSiQci7Peede4/s300/meteorite-Hoba%20ct-classification-1920.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="300" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgiA93oOiej6MVjINt2ae_hygBIYQ_KlhRN9uW2l9EOjIbzdwFZFcSkWCKHza8cuzzfEQ7V4SUy_zxFNfMxOn8_M7LiaB75OrOsaasYIVH-WkGNJ1yCMa6ers1XHtUYJeG4wa8YeFT-52InFGAEgBMtgctMzbaOFAanuEvwa7EbY3FhloSiQci7Peede4/s1600/meteorite-Hoba%20ct-classification-1920.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>2016 Ralph Bohun's, A Discourse Concerning the Origine and Properties of the Wind (1671), was Sold for \(£562 (US$ 734)\) at auction by Bonhams. The Book is mentioned by John Wallis in a letter to Oldenburg of 24 January, 1672(NS) because the book's printing had been temporarily suspended over some wording that appeared "too favourable to the Royal Society" (*Beeley's correspondence of Wallis)<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinnmgEpM5Fxo8pjWuw3WNNQ3B1sZhGvuiJGLc8F8xPZ6Yg52zSrKjClMZE_Suk_-JfWebAQqEkYeJxE62hzHjxB0GF4rtj6y1ATNSLXjwKYADVBhbkuUK_5ONGjfy5xBs08C5NeoBSkTg/s1600/discourse+on+wind.jpe" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinnmgEpM5Fxo8pjWuw3WNNQ3B1sZhGvuiJGLc8F8xPZ6Yg52zSrKjClMZE_Suk_-JfWebAQqEkYeJxE62hzHjxB0GF4rtj6y1ATNSLXjwKYADVBhbkuUK_5ONGjfy5xBs08C5NeoBSkTg/s320/discourse+on+wind.jpe" width="320" /></a></div><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span></div><p><b>1804 Alvan Clark</b> (8 Mar 1804, 19 Aug 1887) American astronomer whose family became the first significant manufacturers of astronomical instruments in the U.S. His company manufactured apparatus for most American observatories of the era, including Lick and Pulkovo, and others in Europe. In 1862, while testing a telescope, Clark discovered the companion star to Sirius, which had previously been predicted but until then never sighted. The 18½-in objective telescope he used was subsequently delivered to the Dearborn Observatory, Chicago. His sons, Alvan Graham Clark and George Bassett Clark, continued the business. The unexcelled 40-in refractor telescopes for the 40-in Yerkes observatory was made by Alvan Graham Clark*TIS<br /></p><p>Clark's telescopes at Lowell and Yerkes observatories</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKIR3Scd9oD1JFzRwPSY2ik7eCEOJUcnEoxHN5go5oIk9OzhT8n_duRg00aT45NmzmAzBbzYFujGa0NIzNvWjk5oj6CAK3NYuIZ-fnGeitD57hsqA8Tk_JmBBFnfNBkOKWDQMwhI6wzgnJ-fbnJ2aW3Ys1TcQE1BE8uweam7aBpIXzt-cOgCY1OU9JYYM/s440/Lowell_Observatory%20Clark_telescope.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKIR3Scd9oD1JFzRwPSY2ik7eCEOJUcnEoxHN5go5oIk9OzhT8n_duRg00aT45NmzmAzBbzYFujGa0NIzNvWjk5oj6CAK3NYuIZ-fnGeitD57hsqA8Tk_JmBBFnfNBkOKWDQMwhI6wzgnJ-fbnJ2aW3Ys1TcQE1BE8uweam7aBpIXzt-cOgCY1OU9JYYM/s320/Lowell_Observatory%20Clark_telescope.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwWVpy3J3UytCWMq_YV7AFYlBz_gzFqZz49_bk6n1Pd5W8bJHiCYT42equVCa8l3ATqzQjd56y7q5vM96Gr4aRxEU5JvhoNEcZwV5JYphcIaAxJcZ2ObGGyJmXB4kDVYvE5hqMHoKS2c_KEFG7VM5ZQVeLlCnNkZOsK8Pj3iBmUQzrs5TfasuFDbM22DE/s399/Yerkes_40_inch%20clark%201897.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwWVpy3J3UytCWMq_YV7AFYlBz_gzFqZz49_bk6n1Pd5W8bJHiCYT42equVCa8l3ATqzQjd56y7q5vM96Gr4aRxEU5JvhoNEcZwV5JYphcIaAxJcZ2ObGGyJmXB4kDVYvE5hqMHoKS2c_KEFG7VM5ZQVeLlCnNkZOsK8Pj3iBmUQzrs5TfasuFDbM22DE/s320/Yerkes_40_inch%20clark%201897.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1851 <b>George Chrystal</b> (8 March 1851 in Old Meldrum (near Aberdeen), Scotland<br />- 3 Nov 1911 in Edinburgh, Scotland)is best remembered today for Algebra: a two volume work which was completed by 1889. He was also involved in educational reform throughout his career and was a major figure in setting up an educational system in Scotland. He became one of the first honorary members of the EMS in 1883. *SAU Chrystal was (one of?) the first to use the inverted exclamation mark for the subfactorial notation. Prior, and for sometime after, the Whitworth symbol was used. <span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The name subfactorial was created by W A Whitworth around 1877. The symbol for the subractorial is !n, a simple reversal of the use of the exclamation for n-factorial n!, although both symbols are relatively newer than the word. Whitworth himself used a symbol something like |</span><u style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-center;">| n </u><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-center;">which is still used in some places. </span></p><p><a href="https://pballew.blogspot.com/2023/02/notes-on-history-of-factorial.html" target="_blank"><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-center;">My "</span><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">Notes on the History of the Factorial" are here.</span></a></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkB-bFRbbnuOwOIerVm_yTAai8mHHRogz6eMEA6DlWJCCesg7h5UDc3dJX1PW1TYmEAR7GOGhR4KX3vVYJONcKuxADpVIj3ssBgSmKJjZwCaY9fYmTASAnlEdk2lADiv6MTSi7i4BXJZFOXol4dcFMO3CwasBuIgQKo9EDG8ZOn-yBNrVpGUmwS0Ft5IA/s326/Chrystal_3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="274" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkB-bFRbbnuOwOIerVm_yTAai8mHHRogz6eMEA6DlWJCCesg7h5UDc3dJX1PW1TYmEAR7GOGhR4KX3vVYJONcKuxADpVIj3ssBgSmKJjZwCaY9fYmTASAnlEdk2lADiv6MTSi7i4BXJZFOXol4dcFMO3CwasBuIgQKo9EDG8ZOn-yBNrVpGUmwS0Ft5IA/s320/Chrystal_3.jpeg" width="269" /></a></div><br /><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-center;"><br /></span><p></p><hr /><p><b>1865 Ernest Vessiot </b>(8 March 1865 in Marseilles, France-17 Oct 1952 in La Bauche, Savoie, France) applied continuous groups to the study of differential equations. He extended results of Drach (1902) and Cartan (1907) and also extended Fredholm integrals to partial differential equations. Vessiot was assigned to ballistics during World War I and made important discoveries in this area. He was honored by election to the Académie des Sciences in 1943. *SAU<br /></p><hr /><p><b>1866 Pyotr Nikolayevich Lebedev</b> (8 Mar 1866; 1 Apr 1912 at age 46) Russian physicist who, in experiments with William Crookes' radiometer, proved (1910) that light exerts a minute pressure on bodies (as predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism), and furthermore that this effect is twice as great for reflecting surfaces than for absorbent surfaces. He had proposed that light pressure on small particles of cosmic dust could be greater than gravitational attraction, thus explaining why a comet's tail points away from the Sun (though it is now understood the solar wind has a greater influence). He built an extremely small vibrator source capable of generating 4-6 mm waves, which he used to demonstrate the first observation of douible refraction of electromagnetic waves in crystals of rhombic sulphur.*TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLEcv6yEku0RJy1Oz-Vv9EiJgFvK6XfQqM2oJ-xre2fUCWJS0jU70WJ4RmdaNP3m2AchthrOSreuLAuuu2acn8dzhyf7LGuCgc8q04eU7gMqAk6fBDxbHwisIBf-480iYc-NZjobgE38OyfLX0aHJSNB_1lHsZwH6hm9TcetxvjP9jlAkXsSSa3XpGJ7M/s387/Lebedev_petr_nikolaevich.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLEcv6yEku0RJy1Oz-Vv9EiJgFvK6XfQqM2oJ-xre2fUCWJS0jU70WJ4RmdaNP3m2AchthrOSreuLAuuu2acn8dzhyf7LGuCgc8q04eU7gMqAk6fBDxbHwisIBf-480iYc-NZjobgE38OyfLX0aHJSNB_1lHsZwH6hm9TcetxvjP9jlAkXsSSa3XpGJ7M/s320/Lebedev_petr_nikolaevich.jpg" width="273" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1879 Otto Hahn </b>(8 Mar 1879; 28 Jul 1968 at age 89) German physical chemist who, with the radiochemist Fritz Strassmann, is credited with the discovery of nuclear fission. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1944 and shared the Enrico Fermi Award in 1966 with Strassmann and Lise Meitner. Element 105 carries the name hahnium in recognition of his work.*TIS<br /></p><p>"For the rest of his life, Hahn provided a standard explanation: fission was a discovery that relied on chemistry only and took place after Meitner left Berlin; she and physics had nothing to do with it, except to prevent it from happening sooner." *Lise Meitner by Ruth Lewin Sime</p><p>The prize-winning science-fiction writer, Frederik Pohl, talking about Szilard's epiphany in Chasing Science (pg 25), ".. we know the exact spot where Leo Szilard got the idea that led to the atomic bomb. There isn't even a plaque to mark it, but it happened in 1938, while he was waiting for a traffic light to change on London's Southampton Row. Szilard had been remembering H. G. Well's old science-fiction novel about atomic power, The World Set Free and had been reading about the nuclear-fission experiment of Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, and the lightbulb went on over his head." (Maybe she had a little idea?)</p><p>in 1939 during the Fifth Washington Conference on Theoretical Physics at the George Washington University, Nobel Laureate Niels Bohr publicly announced the splitting of the uranium atom. The resulting “fission,” with its release of two hundred million electron volts of energy, heralded the beginning of the atomic age.</p><p>The announcement came just weeks after Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, two of Bohr’s colleagues at Copenhagen, reported that they had discovered the element barium after bombarding uranium with neutrons. After receiving the news in a letter, physicist Lise Meitner and her cousin, Otto Frisch, correctly interpreted the results as evidence of nuclear fission. Frisch confirmed this experimentally on January 13, 1939. *atomicheritage.org</p><p> Niels Bohr was planning a trip to America to discuss other problems with Einstein who had found a haven at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies. Bohr came to America, but the principal item he discussed with Einstein was the report of Meitner and Frisch. Bohr arrived at Princeton on January 16, 1939. He talked to Einstein and J. A. Wheeler who had once been his student. From Princeton the news spread by word of mouth to neighboring physicists, including Enrico Fermi at Columbia. Fermi and his associates immediately began work to find the heavy pulse of ionization which could be expected from the fission and consequent release of energy. *Atomic Archive</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-V15HSq6mgb6dYGCg0NC5ZhwCSZ1v2KMoimRu-qmddDYBHfLG_57nr2lYmSVNQLgvBPEMyQBExzhUambwwPsAQqJBLvPoPLUi_m91h-zxm0o6FS3i_gTguJ_bDUET9vT4pR9W-jubi-noWtSN_E2dqk97p6EYHOThOzClj4tndalOZTN92A56eenj0W4/s438/Otto_Hahn_1970.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-V15HSq6mgb6dYGCg0NC5ZhwCSZ1v2KMoimRu-qmddDYBHfLG_57nr2lYmSVNQLgvBPEMyQBExzhUambwwPsAQqJBLvPoPLUi_m91h-zxm0o6FS3i_gTguJ_bDUET9vT4pR9W-jubi-noWtSN_E2dqk97p6EYHOThOzClj4tndalOZTN92A56eenj0W4/s320/Otto_Hahn_1970.jpg" width="241" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1920 George Keith Batchelor </b>FRS (8 March 1920 – 30 March 2000) was an Australian applied mathematician and fluid dynamicist. He was for many years the Professor of Applied Mathematics in the University of Cambridge, and was founding head of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP). In 1956 he founded the influential Journal of Fluid Mechanics which he edited for some forty years. Prior to Cambridge he studied in Melbourne High School.<br />As an applied mathematician (and for some years at Cambridge a co-worker with Sir Geoffrey Taylor in the field of turbulent flow), he was a keen advocate of the need for physical understanding and sound experimental basis.<br />His An Introduction to Fluid Dynamics (CUP, 1967) is still considered a classic of the subject, and has been re-issued in the Cambridge Mathematical Library series, following strong current demand. Unusual for an 'elementary' textbook of that era, it presented a treatment in which the properties of a real viscous fluid were fully emphasized. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959.*Wik<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJLvZ3l0q5uyPMB_tNugIgoBle7y6W6FhXghlKRvUR0tY7BBVGR7UYB6HnpbeM9mByfxTtg5ZOkaR9h4qiubnX-mfMHh2uTPK-FmAfuZzgw-GpvvOdbnxLcrjiDC3GWZc7pCu9tQ6huSveqO7jDe3BeDQ4K0hwTxiHmVOK5DahJP-qY4_GnC4WprNnVQQ/s259/G%20K%20Batchelor.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJLvZ3l0q5uyPMB_tNugIgoBle7y6W6FhXghlKRvUR0tY7BBVGR7UYB6HnpbeM9mByfxTtg5ZOkaR9h4qiubnX-mfMHh2uTPK-FmAfuZzgw-GpvvOdbnxLcrjiDC3GWZc7pCu9tQ6huSveqO7jDe3BeDQ4K0hwTxiHmVOK5DahJP-qY4_GnC4WprNnVQQ/s1600/G%20K%20Batchelor.jpeg" width="194" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQo85x0aR8pYqtCP_3Fv0dKKCkLZ-RxO6_0_IZzQ3liJJ6_5TtLjOeL8qM0k249ivR8yv3VSHVkGuwk8VWSvsToxhZ9PWopjEBmIPT2ZndQlbDAHFMQ3QdsCuA-4S-ZzkhowDnh614cPKAfC3ith22bkOg_y9RaYHqkrEFySV9tKVgfhTeGFiYGZo7z0/s2027/Itroduction%20to%20fluid%20dynamics%20batchelor.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2027" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQo85x0aR8pYqtCP_3Fv0dKKCkLZ-RxO6_0_IZzQ3liJJ6_5TtLjOeL8qM0k249ivR8yv3VSHVkGuwk8VWSvsToxhZ9PWopjEBmIPT2ZndQlbDAHFMQ3QdsCuA-4S-ZzkhowDnh614cPKAfC3ith22bkOg_y9RaYHqkrEFySV9tKVgfhTeGFiYGZo7z0/s320/Itroduction%20to%20fluid%20dynamics%20batchelor.jpeg" width="202" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span></div><p><b>1688 Honoré Fabri</b> (8 April 1608 in Le Grand Abergement, Ain, France - 8 March 1688 in Rome, Italy) was a French Jesuit who worked on astronomy, physics and mathematics. His lectures on natural philosophy were published in 1646 as Tractatus physicus de motu locali. In this work he uses the parallelogram law for forces, correctly applying it to deduce the law of reflection and the motion of a body acted on simultaneously by two forces.*SAU (This seems to be one of the earlier statements of the law)<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv2apTOaQHyu4rJsZP4GmTZWJS2zg4W8rECcasH45g7QurBX4zm9QNZFEMWksznx-gpk-TX-apQDzL7isbwJMler0gZEDau64z2WaSpTeCY3NxvVBsZ9HH40RW0nhlOWtav60h8hMMS5X_PKR8h1YbMtdG6ca_xkY3_TcTFPfuQzl1Oh85C7b85MU6zKM/s265/fabri1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="265" data-original-width="265" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv2apTOaQHyu4rJsZP4GmTZWJS2zg4W8rECcasH45g7QurBX4zm9QNZFEMWksznx-gpk-TX-apQDzL7isbwJMler0gZEDau64z2WaSpTeCY3NxvVBsZ9HH40RW0nhlOWtav60h8hMMS5X_PKR8h1YbMtdG6ca_xkY3_TcTFPfuQzl1Oh85C7b85MU6zKM/s1600/fabri1.jpeg" width="265" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPZOu0rLQpdriXF3q0YWvr75PMtKxvDJQ_tU8b908BN06DJfnZNvZ6AFNa4AZBo5B_86R9CXdJFhXBR8mWV8xLhKa4PYO2ReX2daKZSbq7niPCqbNXM1gOvGra5XsEACiYusvpnDx5TGfrHbkPgVtcnP2M0cLS6YfGOsUfvnpW1AbX2Igk7N253tlK2X0/s333/Honor%C3%A9_Fabri%20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="230" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPZOu0rLQpdriXF3q0YWvr75PMtKxvDJQ_tU8b908BN06DJfnZNvZ6AFNa4AZBo5B_86R9CXdJFhXBR8mWV8xLhKa4PYO2ReX2daKZSbq7niPCqbNXM1gOvGra5XsEACiYusvpnDx5TGfrHbkPgVtcnP2M0cLS6YfGOsUfvnpW1AbX2Igk7N253tlK2X0/s320/Honor%C3%A9_Fabri%20.jpg" width="221" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><br /><b>1974 Olive Clio Hazlett</b> (October 27, 1890 - March 8, 1974) was an American mathematician who spent most of her career working for the University of Illinois. She mainly researched algebra, and wrote seventeen research papers on subjects such as nilpotent algebras, division algebras, modular invariants, and the arithmetic of algebras.*Wik<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0BgiutLlrZfyzHwG38RSmJN0ts70POGR303dpPUpc3eT6b-cx9F0IC4id2mwtxjvaFukuHX9lcTeb1mLycq7egvzZe7M5EtCmPgVBJVcprWFXAqIMizy4HVEyZJCWBSGQm5IUw12Lx_hd0oVOACCB8JyC6lpeme67kuO1VlMJb0BUDGuG88GphgtFp9s/s285/Olive_Hazlett.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="285" data-original-width="220" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0BgiutLlrZfyzHwG38RSmJN0ts70POGR303dpPUpc3eT6b-cx9F0IC4id2mwtxjvaFukuHX9lcTeb1mLycq7egvzZe7M5EtCmPgVBJVcprWFXAqIMizy4HVEyZJCWBSGQm5IUw12Lx_hd0oVOACCB8JyC6lpeme67kuO1VlMJb0BUDGuG88GphgtFp9s/s1600/Olive_Hazlett.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><br /><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbel</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-32841828770792072812024-03-07T06:30:00.001+00:002024-03-07T06:30:00.134+00:00On "Reducing" Fractions<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.futilitycloset.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/2007-02-02-reductio-ad-absurdum-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="http://www.futilitycloset.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/2007-02-02-reductio-ad-absurdum-2.jpg" width="460" /></a></div><p><br /><br />Just read a note from a young educator who was indignant that a visiting math teacher in her class had used the term "reduce fractions" in a dialog with her student. She wondered if she should "correct" this much senior teacher for her misuse of appropriate edu-speak.<br /><br />I am no judge of classroom etiquette, but I have written about the history of the usage of the related terms,and thought it might be time to share with the many who may not be aware of the history of the mathematical language of fractional operations.<br />---------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />Many modern elementary teachers get upset by the use of the term "reduce a fraction". I think this is mostly because they are not familiar with the origin of the term and only understand the word "reduce" to mean "make smaller", which is certainly one of the most common definitions of the word in modern dictionaries. I hope the the following will make them more understanding of those of us who are VERY old, and still remember when the term had a broader meaning.<br /><br />According to the OED, the first use of the term in the sense of reducing a fraction was in 1579 in a book by Thomas Digges. Reduction is defined in the 1850 edition of Frederick Emerson's North American Arithmetic, Part Third, for Advanced Scholars as "the operation of changing any quantity from its number in one denomination to its number in another denomination."(pg 29 ) On the following page it asks the student to "reduce 7 bushels and 6 quarts to pints.". Later in the section on fractions it defines, "Reduction of fractions consists in changing them from one form to another, without altering their value." This broader language is preserved in most later texts for the next seventy or so years. It is defined in Milne's Progressive Arithmetic (1906, William J Milne) thusly, "The process of changing the form of any number without changing its value is called reduction." An almost identical definition appears in Davies and Peck's 1877 Complete Arithmetic, Theoretical and Practical(page 84, art. 66). All the books include reduction of fractions to higher terms as well as lower terms, and reduction of "decimals to common fractions".<br /><br />In the Late 1930's and 40's arithmetic textbooks seemed to have totally omitted the broader definition, and treat reduce as a vade mecam for fractions in "lowest terms" or "simplest terms". In Learning Arithmetic (6) by Lennes, Rogers and Traver, (1942) the term reduction appears in the index only as a subheading under "fractions". The first occurance in the text, on page 36, without prior definition introduces students to a set of problems with the directions, "Reduce the fractions below to simplest forms". In Making Sure of Arithmetic by Silver Burdett (1955) the word "reduce" does not appear in the index at all, but on page 8 it contains, "When the two terms of a fraction are divided by the same number until there is no number by which both terms can be divided evenly, the fraction is reduced to lowest terms." [emphasis is from text]. By 1964, The Universal Encyclopedia of Mathematics by Simon and Schuster contains "A fraction is reduced, or cancelled, by dividing numerator and denominator by the same number." (pg 364) Later on the same page they note, "a fraction cannot be reduced if numerator and denominator are mutually prime" indicating that when they said "the same number" in the first statement, they meant a positive integer. This definition leads to "reduction" of fractions as making the numerator and denominator both smaller.<br /><br />The roots of the word reduce are from the Latin re for back or again, and ducere which means "to lead". The latter root is also found in the word educare which is literally, to lead out, and is the source of our modern English word, educate.</p><div><br /></div><div>And if you like the obvious reductions shown at the top, here is another that is credited to Ed Barbeau who presented “this little beauty of a howler” in the January 2002 College Mathematics Journal, citing Ross Honsberger of the University of Waterloo in Ontario. (With a HT to Greg Ross) Proof left to the reader...</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNfG8oeEwRFnRcJZjdlcik6Pe6N609uAKo7_fnqFULUP__J6kFgrf9ZJSUGNv4I-2ZMTxiaW7-uCvi03XGPm7DiPrHhiZYL36NRKHqzQeVySD4Z9OwGliMIchK1auj1go_8kIrReKpXVDeZQYodPiqDW08wzZE3gyP0Mz29GLXCbgbMrFn4IM7KZAz/s339/2022-08-22-math-notes.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="206" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNfG8oeEwRFnRcJZjdlcik6Pe6N609uAKo7_fnqFULUP__J6kFgrf9ZJSUGNv4I-2ZMTxiaW7-uCvi03XGPm7DiPrHhiZYL36NRKHqzQeVySD4Z9OwGliMIchK1auj1go_8kIrReKpXVDeZQYodPiqDW08wzZE3gyP0Mz29GLXCbgbMrFn4IM7KZAz/s320/2022-08-22-math-notes.png" width="194" /></a></div><p><br /></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-84205958372378088962024-03-07T06:00:00.007+00:002024-03-07T12:46:57.698+00:00On This Day in Math March 7<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioHws1xAfH8L13ZRs552AOEzDvlLitr74KlMsG5YTvx7wP9jH9NR2vO8Hp2ebQDGlx7Kcqq79FxyVUuDaoOcc6W5jxLLz5Ax18FZFoWzlzv9zE6eEQ-cU0TrBN7oGZ6PpZddGpVyUBVYc/s1600/zen+5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioHws1xAfH8L13ZRs552AOEzDvlLitr74KlMsG5YTvx7wP9jH9NR2vO8Hp2ebQDGlx7Kcqq79FxyVUuDaoOcc6W5jxLLz5Ax18FZFoWzlzv9zE6eEQ-cU0TrBN7oGZ6PpZddGpVyUBVYc/s400/zen+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Zentangle *Jeannie</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /><br />Every student who enters upon a scientific pursuit, especially if at a somewhat advanced period of life, will find not only that he has much to learn, but much also to unlearn.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnl4U36Ux4l5Y8zOlNWVzCBE15O_-JJNB3xRyw5yvczPN2dyDCYejZTD9LElrRS4jwtjRvV9pUyyRTgVxO07Y6P3kW2e9RsHieNCKtl9YS_Gy21zcZLqiIesfhpQdr6MQ-X1EIEvMunNg/s1600/route+66.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnl4U36Ux4l5Y8zOlNWVzCBE15O_-JJNB3xRyw5yvczPN2dyDCYejZTD9LElrRS4jwtjRvV9pUyyRTgVxO07Y6P3kW2e9RsHieNCKtl9YS_Gy21zcZLqiIesfhpQdr6MQ-X1EIEvMunNg/s1600/route+66.jpg" width="193" /></a><br />The 66th day of the year; there are 66 different 8-polyiamonds (A generalization of the polyominoes using a collection of equal-sized equilateral triangles (instead of squares) arranged with coincident sides.)<br /><br />Route 66, known as the Main Street of America was dubbed the "Mother Road" by novelist John Steinbeck,<br /><br />The sum of the divisors of 3, 1+3 =4=2^2</p><div>The sum of the divisors of 22, 1+2+11+22=36 = 6^2</div><div>The next number with this quality is 3 x 22=66, whose divisors add to 4*36 = 144 = (12)^2 (alas, beyond that things go wacky!) divisors of 70 are same as 66)</div><div><br />If you wrote out all the numbers on a 12 hour clock, (HrMin, so 6:03 would be 603, etc.), there would be 66 of them that are prime.<br /><br />66 is the largest day number of the year which does not have a letter "e" in its English spelling. Sixty-six is the 19th such numbers in the year, but the next number without an "e" is 2000.<br /><br />Sixty Six is an unincorporated community in Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. Sixty Six is located along U.S. Route 21, north of Branchville.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><center><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span></center><center><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></center><b>1737 </b>Euler presents his instrumental paper, ‘De fractionibus continuis dissertatio’ (‘Essay on continued fractions’), to the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences. He will read the first part of the paper on April 1. "With the exception of a few isolated results which appeared in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, most of the elementary theory of continued fractions was developed in a single paper written in 1737 by Leonhard Euler." *Rosanna Cretney, The origins of Euler's early work on continued fractions. Historia Mathematica, Vol 41, issue 2</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7TsxeCe5xtXEwAImvOdvvYu-gUQOS2ztT_9o2qX15FN78d3k2Bg5TBSDfddrihIgK3CVJLfLhAGHAWAFer9PLIC7K0YGXVbHlMkdHbk7jOKQQA10hC__Bx4lX22Fqrz68us5FWRZq9ysF45N9XtmpDMCEMqFKeJoQ5lGgtkpsowYydNTA7nIi6xDqMMs/s251/euler.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="201" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7TsxeCe5xtXEwAImvOdvvYu-gUQOS2ztT_9o2qX15FN78d3k2Bg5TBSDfddrihIgK3CVJLfLhAGHAWAFer9PLIC7K0YGXVbHlMkdHbk7jOKQQA10hC__Bx4lX22Fqrz68us5FWRZq9ysF45N9XtmpDMCEMqFKeJoQ5lGgtkpsowYydNTA7nIi6xDqMMs/s1600/euler.jpeg" width="201" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1750 Two days after delivering his paper on precession, Recherches sur la Précession, to the Berlin Academy, Euler writes to credit d'Alembert for a paper which inspired him to return to the topic after previously giving up.<br /><blockquote>I applied myself repeatedly and for a long time to the problem of precession, but I always encountered an obstacle − the great number of circumstances that have to be taken into account, and above all this problem: given a body turning about any axis freely, and acted upon by an oblique force, to find the change caused both in the axis of rotation and in the motion. The solution of this is absolutely required for the subject you have so happily developed. But with respect to this problem all my investigations had been unavailing so far, and I would not have applied myself to it further, if I had not seen that the solution must necessarily be encompassed in your treatise, although I was not able to find it there, which at first increased so much the more my desire to develop your whole method. But I must also confess that I could not follow you in the preliminary propositions you employed, for your way of carrying out the calculation was not yet very familiar to me… . But now that I have succeeded better in the investigation of this same subject, having been assisted by some insights in your work by which I was little by little enlightened, I have come to be able to judge your excellent conclusions.</blockquote>*Curtis Wilson, Historia Mathematica, Volume 35, Issue 4, November 2008, Pages 329–332</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVeJqt0lZpqIhLg3_niBGcZzjhnoBr4IG-DQfliyFQteTjeIPq6WIHG2sejg9pt13cEDXtCkZYJgJ574k8ODAlTAa-2Z9TUTIsr2atGEmWZdcv7nXahFEgCDvZ2pP8FnzQq_TKX5qMh6ZXB_pPWcajWQ95XjgZdxh7pDt0zoNLe2vzencfnx9q-fHQs-4/s141/precession%20top.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="102" data-original-width="141" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVeJqt0lZpqIhLg3_niBGcZzjhnoBr4IG-DQfliyFQteTjeIPq6WIHG2sejg9pt13cEDXtCkZYJgJ574k8ODAlTAa-2Z9TUTIsr2atGEmWZdcv7nXahFEgCDvZ2pP8FnzQq_TKX5qMh6ZXB_pPWcajWQ95XjgZdxh7pDt0zoNLe2vzencfnx9q-fHQs-4/w320-h231/precession%20top.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><hr /><div>1785 James Hutton, geologist, presents his full theory of uniformitarianism at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is credited with Establishing geology as a true science, formulating his controversial 'Theory of the Earth', and being the first person to suggest that the Earth is millions of years old.</div><div>His 'Theory of the Earth' noted that features of the Earth’s surface must have formed through cycles of natural processes over geologic time (ie rocks on mountains may have been formed in the bottom of the sea). His geological research contributed to the underlying principles of uniformitarianism.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_CVY-WojURaGGpwQLcx26Q8cOVGOhYeNLjZuwI0979KPMNMngDj1RfcDSkzjjNzQAaZxb-ocxv6SfTexY9rz2pWUkSG-_lZMg-IGBoh_yZ9oyAOQhC4o0kjQVECPMZc6ab_CNESbFzvMJ2go2FB6A1MgMJDNzXOLJVUvA-S2jlcF6PdZiqrsLQZ988_Y/s270/hutton.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="187" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_CVY-WojURaGGpwQLcx26Q8cOVGOhYeNLjZuwI0979KPMNMngDj1RfcDSkzjjNzQAaZxb-ocxv6SfTexY9rz2pWUkSG-_lZMg-IGBoh_yZ9oyAOQhC4o0kjQVECPMZc6ab_CNESbFzvMJ2go2FB6A1MgMJDNzXOLJVUvA-S2jlcF6PdZiqrsLQZ988_Y/s1600/hutton.jpeg" width="187" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhICqMdjN2NBdIPsKSv3ghge90eFhs-7-JRJbLD0-WJLHWppj59bYXWymKGXHeIo7yQ76yYT9v3QXbBCsR8Zpfdlj2IJ9fyxZTYMyVaqMoqMt1ofke_ks8WJiSnfy219DJp4gy7zQW0Rl8/s1600/Royal+institute+building.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhICqMdjN2NBdIPsKSv3ghge90eFhs-7-JRJbLD0-WJLHWppj59bYXWymKGXHeIo7yQ76yYT9v3QXbBCsR8Zpfdlj2IJ9fyxZTYMyVaqMoqMt1ofke_ks8WJiSnfy219DJp4gy7zQW0Rl8/s200/Royal+institute+building.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In <b>1799,</b> the Royal Institution in England was founded at a meeting at the Soho Square house of the President of the Royal Society, Joseph Banks (1743-1820). A list was read of the names of fifty-eight gentlemen who had agreed to contribute fifty guineas each to be a Proprietor of a new Institution for diffusing the knowledge, and facilitating the general introduction, of useful mechanical inventions and improvements; and for teaching, by courses of philosophical lectures and experiments, the application of science to the common purposes of life. A group of Proprietors met to discuss the Proposals for such an Institution put together in the previous weeks by Sir Benjamin Thompson Rumford. *TIS The Royal Institution is the oldest independent research body in the world. *RI<br /><hr /><b>1825</b> The University of Virginia's first classes met on March 7, 1825. Other universities of the day allowed only three choices of specialization: Medicine, Law, and Religion. Under Jefferson's guidance, the University of Virginia became the first in the United States to allow specializations in such diverse fields as Astronomy, Architecture, Botany, Philosophy, and Political Science. Jefferson explained, "This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."<br />The year before, in the presence of James Madison, the Marquis de Lafayette toasted Jefferson as "father" of the University of Virginia at the school's inaugural banquet *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsPZt0KMTC5PjszxWictBCGFtj9p4Djbob3f_WMGwbe4Sj-YwsfALaMMjU7xY6v3C82nVBhfnuYLDlO787EoncIKN-gv9Niaw44NsU13Dq2dZ0f0CnOOqdaAlA44yiZZ2InRJAl_9QQ6BEIkHg6rZZBg8sjyOEnu4Pa60NrUqGxUn-PLxxNxbNBBLs7OE/s464/T_Jefferson_by_Charles_Willson_Peale.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsPZt0KMTC5PjszxWictBCGFtj9p4Djbob3f_WMGwbe4Sj-YwsfALaMMjU7xY6v3C82nVBhfnuYLDlO787EoncIKN-gv9Niaw44NsU13Dq2dZ0f0CnOOqdaAlA44yiZZ2InRJAl_9QQ6BEIkHg6rZZBg8sjyOEnu4Pa60NrUqGxUn-PLxxNxbNBBLs7OE/s320/T_Jefferson_by_Charles_Willson_Peale.jpg" width="228" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><hr /><div><b>1876</b> Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for the telephone in the US. Below is the drawing accompanying his patent application.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mOJPIFZ-5IN9MzKyU9NuWoxlD3ZzawRTL7TImtHK7i62BwpFWZnsQ1GkUP7VcbeCP0LPEWJAqiHPsqjsDyCAFTtQM3vBT8dDIkc19V1_wTSz3dDkbA8OMoBCB_mG1cnv670t1p7bAJsp_pisA1CibMRQGxGLlPIb1uABVvDq5uHfVNjOjc6v-WQy/s500/bell-patents-telephone-360.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="360" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mOJPIFZ-5IN9MzKyU9NuWoxlD3ZzawRTL7TImtHK7i62BwpFWZnsQ1GkUP7VcbeCP0LPEWJAqiHPsqjsDyCAFTtQM3vBT8dDIkc19V1_wTSz3dDkbA8OMoBCB_mG1cnv670t1p7bAJsp_pisA1CibMRQGxGLlPIb1uABVvDq5uHfVNjOjc6v-WQy/s320/bell-patents-telephone-360.jpg" width="230" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><hr /><b>1907</b> Nature Magazine carried an article from Francis Galton entitled Vox Populi, regarding what is now called "crowd wisdom." In a rural fair in Plymouth England, there had occurred a spectacle in which the locals could guess the dressed weight of an Oxen to be slaughtered. Tickets cost six pence, but the grand prize was the butchered carcass of the animal, and there seems to have been several smaller prizes. Galton arranged to acquire the cards after the vote. The 787 guesses ranged from around 1000 pounds to about 1500. The median Guess was 1207 pounds.... and when they weighed the beast, "and the weight of the dressed ox proved to be 1198 lb.; so the vox populi was in this case 9 lb., or 0.8 per cent of the whole weight too high." You can almost here the surprise in Galton, who was not, as my grandson would say, "a fan" of the common man. *<a href="http://wisdomofcrowds.blogspot.com/2009/12/vox-populi-sir-francis-galton.html" target="_blank">wisdomofcrowds.blogspot</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXACR8vJySzyXDBhj65Uh6149JPKH_NDok-BMUs8sqUjCgo0qyYL4SoKSiJcbEQ6GhfeVlmO6zo1zANLunw8_8WL-hLtwLOS4QzZDFiaVBjCBU6SaRBRKbBwEN6pklwocYThuUO38BLn_jhdsziqbudF3bAw02GrxFfyTueu2rCfcCmGb2Dn0MSNRO/s476/galton%20vox%20populi.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="476" data-original-width="425" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXACR8vJySzyXDBhj65Uh6149JPKH_NDok-BMUs8sqUjCgo0qyYL4SoKSiJcbEQ6GhfeVlmO6zo1zANLunw8_8WL-hLtwLOS4QzZDFiaVBjCBU6SaRBRKbBwEN6pklwocYThuUO38BLn_jhdsziqbudF3bAw02GrxFfyTueu2rCfcCmGb2Dn0MSNRO/s320/galton%20vox%20populi.png" width="286" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><hr /><div><b>1912</b> Roald Amundsen announces his discovery of the South Pole (located 14 December 1911).the Norwegian Antarctic expedition of 1910–12 which was the first to reach the South Pole, famously beating Robert Scott's expedition by 33-34 days.</div><div><br /></div><div>Amundsen is recognized as the first person to have reached both poles. He is also known as having the first expedition to traverse the Artic's Northwest Passage (1903–06).*On This Day</div><div>Norway Flag at the South Pole:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5-Aqc8sbeifruIZEj6bFCk2cHN59vcMNG6cQl4MKVd5EFIzvtWH-PxurwYxuJvLWZPlofXikBqCEwJDTsORsuvIYxz46NKtCnhn0GSkPnfRKw977lGg-l4j9jnuu66-xg-YBQ6mvrQ8JwPmt9lhqLi9rawET5-NyUBukaUiShgfHAGOYj_6FTgMQhHb4/s390/Norway%20flag%20south%20pole%20amundson.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="390" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5-Aqc8sbeifruIZEj6bFCk2cHN59vcMNG6cQl4MKVd5EFIzvtWH-PxurwYxuJvLWZPlofXikBqCEwJDTsORsuvIYxz46NKtCnhn0GSkPnfRKw977lGg-l4j9jnuu66-xg-YBQ6mvrQ8JwPmt9lhqLi9rawET5-NyUBukaUiShgfHAGOYj_6FTgMQhHb4/s320/Norway%20flag%20south%20pole%20amundson.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /><b>1918</b> Jan Lukasiewicz in his “Farewell Lecture” as Rector of Warsaw University announces the work on three-valued logic which he had worked out the summer before. [Selected Works, 84–86.] His parenthesis-free notation was discovered in 1924 and first used in print in 1929 . Today this “Reverse Polish Notation” is widely used. See Hewlett-Packard Personal Computer Digest, vol.7 (1980). *VFR</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOn1KcotYTmuX7MPQpDlCubkYe3MFo_Uffy5D7Ck5-xvAzooO2Ms0USyDjKufnmV0SDkZFfxC1w0xKhE12PvkpafSozHq4UMU1AvRpF8kZHkKhZFUD2YP7QdWNzPBhnViOHMVg5Ip20rsLAFEIFYh_2FGCex7NQ0i4VQ9AsIRbjlIW___Eu4GK9kIRkA/s424/Jan%20%C5%81ukasiewicz.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOn1KcotYTmuX7MPQpDlCubkYe3MFo_Uffy5D7Ck5-xvAzooO2Ms0USyDjKufnmV0SDkZFfxC1w0xKhE12PvkpafSozHq4UMU1AvRpF8kZHkKhZFUD2YP7QdWNzPBhnViOHMVg5Ip20rsLAFEIFYh_2FGCex7NQ0i4VQ9AsIRbjlIW___Eu4GK9kIRkA/s320/Jan%20%C5%81ukasiewicz.jpg" width="249" /></a></div><br /><b><hr /></b></div><div><b>1929 </b>In 1928,Alexander Fleming discovered the green mould he was working with produced a substance that could kill many common bacteria that infect humans. He called this new, exciting substance "mould juice".</div><div><br /></div><div>It took him a couple of months to come up with a better name and on 7 March 1929, he named it penicillin. *The Nobel Prize</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6IMRs5KLtjyz7IMckhBHRwcCqSxVHUCCa4nZU5P0raBMdyGcfALG6D-qUAQDO4o5t_kNibmqNH8zOuFS-agrHqIJOn03sCjbx4Ew7IqTMR0Z3xe1NsTSquuJsOMyEPQcBwTVFuAD2VY_iMZBRJ5Unltv_DlNKE0nTaY-P4dRj0tT5fH5hYIhIcWZnDfg/s188/alexander%20fleming.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="131" data-original-width="188" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6IMRs5KLtjyz7IMckhBHRwcCqSxVHUCCa4nZU5P0raBMdyGcfALG6D-qUAQDO4o5t_kNibmqNH8zOuFS-agrHqIJOn03sCjbx4Ew7IqTMR0Z3xe1NsTSquuJsOMyEPQcBwTVFuAD2VY_iMZBRJ5Unltv_DlNKE0nTaY-P4dRj0tT5fH5hYIhIcWZnDfg/w320-h223/alexander%20fleming.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><hr /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLpVPHct3ezpucUJoa_qCdyKKlXBzENbe3XaYdr2Rig2mvEYwH59AFpG2ADIKz4r_XwMZ2j6Uy_mLxEC8KSeQVmVSOyFDSbLEoWZvz7prluzV89FEX2gOt8KEqUOJbpqCvlswpDbyzxWM/s1600/monoploy_1935.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLpVPHct3ezpucUJoa_qCdyKKlXBzENbe3XaYdr2Rig2mvEYwH59AFpG2ADIKz4r_XwMZ2j6Uy_mLxEC8KSeQVmVSOyFDSbLEoWZvz7prluzV89FEX2gOt8KEqUOJbpqCvlswpDbyzxWM/s400/monoploy_1935.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><div><div>In 1935, Monopoly was first marketed by Charles Darrow, with the symbol of Rich Uncle Pennybags. He had invented the game on 7 Mar 1933. (See Note Below) A patent was issued for the game 31 Dec 1935, assigned to Parker Brothers, Inc.(No. 2,026,082). The patent described a "Board Game Apparatus... intended primarily to provide a game of barter, thus involving trading and bargaining" in which "much of the interest in the game lies in trading and in striking shrewd bargains." Illustrations showed the playing board, pieces, 22 "Title cards of the respective Real Estate holdings," Utilities, Chance and Community Chest cards, and scrip money. On the throw of the dice, the players may move onto Real Estate locations which may be acquired.*TIS</div><div>The history of the board game Monopoly can be traced back to the early 20th century. The earliest known design was by the American Elizabeth Magie created in 1903. A series of board games was developed from 1906 through the 1930s that involved the buying and selling of land and the development of that land. By 1934, a board game had been created much like the version of Monopoly sold by Parker Brothers and its parent companies through the rest of the 20th century, and into the 21st. Several people, mostly in the Midwestern United States and near the East Coast, contributed to the game's design and evolution.</div><div>By the 1970s, the idea that the game had been created solely by Charles Darrow had become popular folklore: it was printed in the game's instructions and even in the 1974 book The Monopoly Book: Strategy and Tactics of the World's Most Popular Game by Maxine Brady.*Wik</div></div><hr /><b>1929</b> The previously known "mold juice" was renamed. "Alexander Fleming discovered the green mold he was working with produced a substance that could kill many common bacteria that infect humans. He called this new, exciting substance "mould juice". Only after a couple of months, on 7 March 1929, did he name it penicillin." * @NobelPrize</div><hr /><div>1946 Bikini Atoll islanders are evacuated by the US government to make way for a nuclear testing site. *On This Day</div><div><hr /><b>1957</b> Teenager John H Conway in his first year at Cambridge writes to H S M Coxeter to ask a question about the {5,3,3} Polytope in four-dimensions. In the five page letter Conway tells the Professor that "Over the past year my copy of your edition of Ball's 'Mathematical Recreations' has accumulated an astonishing number of notes and some corrections... but one or two may seem important." *Siobhan Roberts, King of Infinite Space</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZ_NYLjVqu7EvXbcKl1NmoYR0SFrTobzpRFs06dKbpPQ2vMD1ohiXthp6jrDDskjHehtrxU-9SId0KuvCmWl9zD7HmbM5Nx7h5NrdC6wNmQLp2356AIeSzUMHZ8UbCy1le0IlHxaeJNBuso0vjtYJo9yKsx6K1JbmUK2DihkTk1SgjNUHulfl_h4Xcvo/s1000/coxeter%20book.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="656" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZ_NYLjVqu7EvXbcKl1NmoYR0SFrTobzpRFs06dKbpPQ2vMD1ohiXthp6jrDDskjHehtrxU-9SId0KuvCmWl9zD7HmbM5Nx7h5NrdC6wNmQLp2356AIeSzUMHZ8UbCy1le0IlHxaeJNBuso0vjtYJo9yKsx6K1JbmUK2DihkTk1SgjNUHulfl_h4Xcvo/s320/coxeter%20book.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><hr /><div>1962 Ground-breaking report "Smoking and Health" published by the British Royal College of Physicians, first major report to warn of the dangers of smoking. *On This Day</div><div><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDVg2qhX7d2NJMmrOVo_b8ZO1KIFMtV-2mOToGBB-4QLjqKxY1aHKV-0PVvMpTimd-gZORlTnGQy0UjbrG5wstcg3kHieiz7jMF56vgADTZ3OyAGphqxugKeD3ZTtlJk60209nz8cZMvI/s1600/comet+kohotuk.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDVg2qhX7d2NJMmrOVo_b8ZO1KIFMtV-2mOToGBB-4QLjqKxY1aHKV-0PVvMpTimd-gZORlTnGQy0UjbrG5wstcg3kHieiz7jMF56vgADTZ3OyAGphqxugKeD3ZTtlJk60209nz8cZMvI/s320/comet+kohotuk.jpg" /></a></div><b>1973</b> Comet Kohoutek, formally designated C/1973 E1, 1973 XII, and 1973f, was first sighted on March 7, 1973 by Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutek.( <i>M. J. Hendrie, gives the "discovery" as March 18, while observing plates taken on March 7th and 9th. *Journal of the British Astronomical Association, vol.110, no.1, p.9-19</i>) It attained perihelion on 28 December that same year. *Wik<br />Image is <span style="font-family: "geneva";">photograph from the Joint Observatory for Cometary Research, South Baldy Mountain, New Mexico, on December 7, 1973, about 3 weeks before perihelion.</span><br /><hr />In 1979, scientists discovered a ring around Jupiter while examining photographs taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. The rings of Saturn had been known since 1610. Astronomers had recognized rings around Uranus in 1977. *TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikqhd2Uxv4Bij6vvW1S54Sdv0QzInz20VCNv8ZX64ZvMpPRhwC6z5lug4suB1gp-q-x8P0e3czg1ChuNatM6O9vJd18nV8_pKMZYS6V4FhDFpjXLAAaXJHwGGXDKQlyrIRrhsTNdz2oFnDUgpNLFq6hEdim3IE-aq4rQedc-kxpBzFpZJBIa7OrZfV/s255/jupiter%20ring.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="198" data-original-width="255" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikqhd2Uxv4Bij6vvW1S54Sdv0QzInz20VCNv8ZX64ZvMpPRhwC6z5lug4suB1gp-q-x8P0e3czg1ChuNatM6O9vJd18nV8_pKMZYS6V4FhDFpjXLAAaXJHwGGXDKQlyrIRrhsTNdz2oFnDUgpNLFq6hEdim3IE-aq4rQedc-kxpBzFpZJBIa7OrZfV/s1600/jupiter%20ring.jpeg" width="255" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr /><b><br /></b></div><div><b>1989</b> In a review of Profscam: Professors and the Demise of Higher Education by Charles J. Sykes in The Los Angeles Times, the reviewer wrote that this is how Sykes would word an advertisement at a big research university: “WANTED: University professor. Good salary. Little work. Lots of prestige. Possible lifetime security. Not much contact with students. Plenty of time to research your obscure interests. Good chance for government grants and corporate consulting.” *VFR</div><hr /><div><b>1996</b> 1st surface photos of Pluto (photographed by Hubble Space Telescope). The image below shows comparison of first photos, and those almost two decades later. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyZkNbw9NasJMd_sDIDpjnaus229MaTemNvpAsCjVUWtY9xz9goMjvpLiKy3IUGjj_CNUahm3PVu8bvh6oOkxbJ67aklSDTlylyo_79iN1pzPY3ganshKONJkuUlc0hI3YoB3moVVMJfd8t0bKYFdUIOGnlo8gN6ARArJFVmfB4yQSI2iMVsyi41UX/s2000/pluto_photos.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyZkNbw9NasJMd_sDIDpjnaus229MaTemNvpAsCjVUWtY9xz9goMjvpLiKy3IUGjj_CNUahm3PVu8bvh6oOkxbJ67aklSDTlylyo_79iN1pzPY3ganshKONJkuUlc0hI3YoB3moVVMJfd8t0bKYFdUIOGnlo8gN6ARArJFVmfB4yQSI2iMVsyi41UX/s320/pluto_photos.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiztyHwKLagU93FA_SYnSXb0NnFnhVCsWBg0k-7T4VNfqF8PdVP-NhiNLsuqGU5qFmZjZhEBAXINEaZJMWa3x8NC9tgb4Zbg3SG0wB-0-iw0QppKrmCB-D0pbZ-2G9DJRwDcnUR58Rv_W0/s400/john+herschel+gravestone.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiztyHwKLagU93FA_SYnSXb0NnFnhVCsWBg0k-7T4VNfqF8PdVP-NhiNLsuqGU5qFmZjZhEBAXINEaZJMWa3x8NC9tgb4Zbg3SG0wB-0-iw0QppKrmCB-D0pbZ-2G9DJRwDcnUR58Rv_W0/s400/john+herschel+gravestone.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />1792 (1st Baronet) Sir John (Frederick William) Herschel (7 Mar 1792; 11 May 1871 at age 79) was an English astronomer. As successor to his father, Sir William Herschel, he discovered another 525 nebulae and clusters. John Herschel was a pioneer in celestial photography, and as a chemist contributed to the development of sensitized photographic paper (independently of Talbot). In 1819, he discovered that sodium thiosulphate dissolved silver salts, as used in developing photographs. He introduced the terms positive image and negative image. Being diverse in his research, he also studied physical and geometrical optics, birefringence of crystals, spectrum analysis, and the interference of light and sound waves. To compare the brightness of stars, he invented the astrometer. *TIS [He was buried in Westminster Abbey.]<br /><br /><br /><hr />1824 Delfino Codazzi (7 March 1824 in Lodi, Italy<br />Died: 21 July 1873 in Pavia, Italy) was an Italian mathematician who worked in differential geometry.*SAU<br /><hr />1837 Henry Draper (7 Mar 1837, 20 Nov 1882) American physician and amateur astronomer who made the first photograph of the spectrum of a star (Vega), in 1872. He was also the first to photograph a nebula, the Orion Nebula, in 1880. For his photography of the transit of Venus in 1874, Congress ordered a gold medal struck in his honour. His father, John William Draper, in 1840 had made the first photograph of the Moon.*TIS</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggfSQxaqc8z0XeNnzNiZl1J-9WjMGVU5ZVaCcLUz_ZRdpFSwjiCElBKMgaFU5j_SOLfUOVtEMSQuJNdtxnb6lyjUbuY3NgjIKLPE7paT8U8E3DLRuhNJE767fUMw5o26brNo4a_gFyqWTZbOVEke-M5id9gxEDkCJFkXPk-dLwCJPnIy5j2K17fg5r/s800/draper3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="800" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggfSQxaqc8z0XeNnzNiZl1J-9WjMGVU5ZVaCcLUz_ZRdpFSwjiCElBKMgaFU5j_SOLfUOVtEMSQuJNdtxnb6lyjUbuY3NgjIKLPE7paT8U8E3DLRuhNJE767fUMw5o26brNo4a_gFyqWTZbOVEke-M5id9gxEDkCJFkXPk-dLwCJPnIy5j2K17fg5r/w400-h170/draper3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Avenir Book", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12px; text-align: start;">Two photographs of the Great Nebula in Orion, by Henry Draper, 1880 (left), and 1882 (right) *LindaHallOrg</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /><hr />1870 Ernst Leonard Lindelöf, (7 March 1870, Helsinki (in Swedish: Helsingfors)–4 June 1946, Helsinki) was a Finnish topologist after whom Lindelöf spaces are named; he was the son of Leonard Lorenz Lindelöf and brother of the philologist Uno Lorenz Lindelöf.<br />Lindelöf studied at the University of Helsinki, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1893, became a docent in 1895 and professor of Mathematics in 1903. He was a member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters.<br />In addition to working on mathematical topics as diverse as differential equations and the gamma function, Lindelöf actively promoted the study of the history of Finnish mathematics.*Wik<br /><hr />1886 Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor OM (7 March 1886 – 27 June 1975) was a British physicist, mathematician and expert on fluid dynamics and wave theory. His biographer and one-time student, George Batchelor, described him as "one of the most notable scientists of this (the 20th) century". His final research paper was published in 1969, when he was 83. In it he resumed his interest in electrical activity in thunderstorms, as jets of conducting liquid motivated by electrical fields. The cone from which such jets are observed is called the Taylor cone for his namesake. In the same year Taylor was appointed to the Order of Merit. He suffered a stroke in 1972 which effectively put an end to his work; he died in Cambridge in 1975.*Wik Tayler was the grandson of George Boole, and is responsible for introducing Donald Coxeter to Alicia Boole Stott. Here is more on <a href="http://pballew.blogspot.com/2014/10/those-amazing-boole-girls.html" target="_blank">"Those Amazing Boole Girls"</a>, and their successors.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ0MLFk1OjQwN_ZNooX9RmOX0N4T3LxsJ0jLwFkPqiZJMh4vmV4sWQVOkgFsKC_IenaLMzhh_9xvl3MjBDrt7JXNYMiYnOmAlge_NV8lmAQND-LNjpG8Rw_FG7biMU9v6hkzL1ydxo924a1pB6EsESBwUQse7FeauQSVKnEExRRS2VPU0H_NPvhbrCq_4/s250/G_I_Taylor.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="250" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ0MLFk1OjQwN_ZNooX9RmOX0N4T3LxsJ0jLwFkPqiZJMh4vmV4sWQVOkgFsKC_IenaLMzhh_9xvl3MjBDrt7JXNYMiYnOmAlge_NV8lmAQND-LNjpG8Rw_FG7biMU9v6hkzL1ydxo924a1pB6EsESBwUQse7FeauQSVKnEExRRS2VPU0H_NPvhbrCq_4/s1600/G_I_Taylor.jpg" width="250" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1893 Anna Margaret Mullikin (March 7, 1893 - August 24, 1975) She was born in Baltimore, Maryland and attended Goucher College, which was then a women's college located in the same city. While there she managed her class basketball team, participated on the swimming team, and earned her A.B. degree in 1915. That same year her name was mentioned in the American Mathematical Monthly [Vol. 22, No. 5 (May 1915),pp. 165-166] for solving the following geometry problem:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/abstracts/mullikin/geometry_problem.gif" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/abstracts/mullikin/geometry_problem.gif" width="188" /></a></div><br /><blockquote>A quadrilateral of any shape whatever is divided by a transversal into two quadrilaterals. The diagonals of the original figure and those of the two resulting (smaller) figures are then drawn. Show that their three points of intersection are collinear.<br /><br />The published solution was by Vola Barton, also from Goucher College, with the remark "Also solved by Anna Mullikin."</blockquote>In 1918 she entered the graduate program in mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, earning her master's degree in 1919. She continued her graduate studies at Penn during the 1919-1920 academic year under the direction of the topologist, Robert L. Moore, while also teaching at the Stevens School in Germantown, Pennsylvania, another private preparatory school for girls. In the fall of 1920 she moved to the University of Texas along with Moore, who had convinced the Texas math department to appoint her as an instructor. Mullikin stayed in Texas for only the one academic year before returning to Philadelphia to complete the requirements for her degree from the University of Pennsylvania, with Moore still as her advisor. She received her Ph.D. in mathematics in 1922. Mullikin did not pursue mathematical research after earning her Ph.D. She spent the rest of her professional career as a high school mathematics teacher, first at William Penn High School for Girls in Philadelphia for one year, and then at Germantown High School where she remained until her retirement in 1959. She was appointed head of the mathematics department in 1952. In 1956 she was a joint author with Ethel and Ewart Grove for the textbook Algebra and Its Use. *Agnes Scott College<br /><hr />1900 Fritz Wolfgang London (7 Mar 1900; 30 Mar 1954 at age 53) German-American physicist who, with Walter Heitler, devised the first quantum mechanical treatment of the hydrogen molecule, while working with Erwin Schrödinger at the University of Zurich. In a seminal paper (1927), they developed a wave equation for the hydrogen molecule with which it was possible to calculate approximate values of the molecule's ionization potential, heat of dissociation, and other constants. These predicted values were reasonably consistent with empirical values obtained by spectroscopic and chemical means. This theory of the chemical binding of homopolar molecules is considered one of the most important advances in modern chemistry. The approach is later called the valence-bond theory. *TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTYo71Yz3T0Z2_qWOtZ2XVEQ6iPEYI5d2qP7Qsin7BxKGbbPxYFGlU07NVon7shvkKDlHCytnI5P8y2AbPuZguPhJTWORkTzuQPAEcEcX9QV1ZgPLDIRL3qtI6f0n1t217U8d-a0sbVPpA_-ooN9pISiA1tZiQ7vq5y9DFRUWRUap-7d2vk6lWjlC5orc/s225/London,Fritz.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="180" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTYo71Yz3T0Z2_qWOtZ2XVEQ6iPEYI5d2qP7Qsin7BxKGbbPxYFGlU07NVon7shvkKDlHCytnI5P8y2AbPuZguPhJTWORkTzuQPAEcEcX9QV1ZgPLDIRL3qtI6f0n1t217U8d-a0sbVPpA_-ooN9pISiA1tZiQ7vq5y9DFRUWRUap-7d2vk6lWjlC5orc/s1600/London,Fritz.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1905 John Macnaghten Whittaker I(7 March 1905 in Cambridge, England - 29 Jan 1984 in Sheffield, England) was the son of Edmund Whittaker. He studied at Edinburgh University and Cambridge. After posts at Edinburgh and Cambridge he became Professor at Liverpool though his tenure was interrupted by service in World War II. He left Liverpool to become Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University. He worked in Quantum Mechanics and Complex Analysis. *SAU<br /><hr />1922 Olga Aleksandrovna Ladyzhenskaya (March 7, 1922, Kologriv – January 12, 2004, St. Petersburg) was a Soviet and Russian mathematician. She was known for her work on partial differential equations (especially Hilbert's 19th problem) and fluid dynamics. She provided the first rigorous proofs of the convergence of a finite difference method for the Navier-Stokes equations. She was a student of Ivan Petrovsky. She was awarded the Lomonosov Gold Medal in 2002.*Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizitcr350vxNC72JEzh6Phb8yi89x6D5Sq1RrMjh-wUxJzBXqSOTv1EMdqJxWClbdNI3Mcel6rgy2B7NJozg21Nu9uW-2vAZait2H3Of4Bvt6hcTyYrY3ONhaQJjcT6MSLNjjG5Iiaeovoo5ot4uWLCFeT3fIX0kB3xVkZChHmRPjihNlLjQr5GIfNec0/s440/olga%20Ladyshenskaya.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizitcr350vxNC72JEzh6Phb8yi89x6D5Sq1RrMjh-wUxJzBXqSOTv1EMdqJxWClbdNI3Mcel6rgy2B7NJozg21Nu9uW-2vAZait2H3Of4Bvt6hcTyYrY3ONhaQJjcT6MSLNjjG5Iiaeovoo5ot4uWLCFeT3fIX0kB3xVkZChHmRPjihNlLjQr5GIfNec0/s320/olga%20Ladyshenskaya.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><b><hr /></b></div><div><b>Allan Hale </b>(born 1958) American astronomer and writer who independently co-discovered (with Thomas Bopp) the unusually bright Comet Hale-Bopp (23 Jul 1995), the farthest comet ever to be discovered by amateurs. After service in the navy, he worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1983-86) as an engineering contractor on several projects, including Voyager II. After earning a Ph.D. in astronomy, he founded the Southwest Institute for Space Research (now named the Earthrise Institute). His interests include near-Earth objects and their possible impact on Earth, and the search for planets outside our solar system. Hale advocates for improved science literacy in society; for better career opportunities for graduating scientists; and develops international collaboration for observation projects.</div><div>Hale-Bop Art bu Daniel Durda, my former student and accomplished Astronomer himself.(These rwo things may not be directly related)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhzjYTHhtLPBhq9I6wVmydr8EryYaYCeVsJdUEMNYtvv0_kSCWTpopkNeuOWS1-MGnrzC0R5SNXJMY07m7FJYnIUcI2JP4nTihhDacVEUhw0OM3UWSwuotVLaztGnGrEOy5GGDOwV2txpnNqIrOpJodgShDfame4CiK0kifjiKYtx9UP7wwjycu34tQUY/s320/Durda%20Hale-bopp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="227" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhzjYTHhtLPBhq9I6wVmydr8EryYaYCeVsJdUEMNYtvv0_kSCWTpopkNeuOWS1-MGnrzC0R5SNXJMY07m7FJYnIUcI2JP4nTihhDacVEUhw0OM3UWSwuotVLaztGnGrEOy5GGDOwV2txpnNqIrOpJodgShDfame4CiK0kifjiKYtx9UP7wwjycu34tQUY/s1600/Durda%20Hale-bopp.jpg" width="227" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK4Xy-6FjbJjnL7RaUDTSV5dVcsePJjzkJ28Po_n8jDAPR9P8XD3j-4tx0xnL3Hrij_lti4ftSnNfvs4LdNs4HagIt1e4FcmquFNTVywaY8utIGsiplNG6h7VcJwzlj2oudqLqhLqQC8s/s1600/bayer%2527s+uranometria.jpe" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK4Xy-6FjbJjnL7RaUDTSV5dVcsePJjzkJ28Po_n8jDAPR9P8XD3j-4tx0xnL3Hrij_lti4ftSnNfvs4LdNs4HagIt1e4FcmquFNTVywaY8utIGsiplNG6h7VcJwzlj2oudqLqhLqQC8s/s200/bayer%2527s+uranometria.jpe" width="140" /></a></div>1625 Johann Bayer (? 1572, 7 Mar 1625) German astronomer who cataloged the stars visible to the naked eye in his book Uranometria (1603). Therein, he established the convention, still in use, of naming each star in a constellation using one of the 24 lower-case Greek letters (known as the Bayer designation), such as Alpha Canis Majoris. This was the first star atlas to cover the entire celestial sphere. In one plate, he introduced twelve new southern constellations, which he named, including Apus, Chamaeleon, Hydrus and Phoenix. Bayer's primary occupation was as a lawyer; he pursued astronomy as an amateur interest. When he dedicated his Uranometria to two leading citizens of Augsburg, where he lived, he received an honorarium of 150 gulden. *TIS<br /><hr /><b>1809 Jean-Pierre Blanchard</b> (<span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">4 July 1753 – 7 March 1809)</span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> </span>, a French balloonist, was born July 4, 1753. The Golden Age of Ballooning began on Nov. 21, 1783, when Pilâtre de Rozier and François d'Arlandes soared aloft in a hot-air balloon made by the Montgolfier brothers. They launched from the Château de la Muette just outside Paris and floated for some 5 miles. Just over a week later, Jacques-Alexandre Charles and Nicolas Robert ascended to 3000 feet from the Tuileries in Paris, this time in a hydrogen balloon. Blanchard was caught up immediately in balloon frenzy, designed his own hydrogen balloon, complete with "oars" to swim through the air and an always-open parachute to slow descent should the gas bag spring a leak, and headed for the skies . He made his first ascent in a hydrogen balloon on Mar. 2, 1784, lifting off from the Champ de Mars. If there is a surviving contemporary image of that ascent, I have not seen it.</div><div><br /></div><div>The difference between Blanchard and the Montgolfier brothers and Jacques Charles is that Blanchard was in it for the money. He was the first barnstorming balloonist who charged admission for his ascents and seems to have given the public (who showed up by the thousands) their money's worth, especially on the first ascent, when a military student demanded to come along and attacked Blanchard and the balloon with a sword when he was refused. The somewhat bloodied Blanchard proceeded with the flight anyway, which I am sure delighted the crowd.</div><div><br /></div><div>Seeking larger paydays, Blanchard travelled with his balloon to England in August of 1784 and began to organize public ascents there. He made one ascent from Chelsea, for which (so it is recorded) 400,000 people showed up. He made the ascent with an English physician, who was added to the gondola to increase local interest. An engraving recorded the event, which took place on Oct. 16, 1784. Blanchard then ascended with another physician, John Jeffries (an ex-American, actually), on Nov. 30, 1784, and this time they wafted all the way from London to Kent. </div><div><br /></div><div>This set the stage for Blanchard's goal all along, to balloon across the English Channel. Pilâtre de Rozier had the same idea; he was sitting on the other side of the channel with his hydrogen balloon, waiting for favorable winds to take him westward to Dover. Blanchard won the battle of the winds. He and Jeffries took off from Dover on Jan. 7, 1785 (fourth image). They almost ended up in the sea, as their bag of hydrogen was providing insufficient lift, and they threw nearly everything overboard, including most of their clothes, to maintain altitude. But the balloon for some reason recovered its buoyancy, and they made it to Calais and beyond, landing at Guines, to the great excitement of the local populace.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFX-4vBspL-Ve_xRCiLIUq1DlBliPchsMlOO49BL_gR2LJAnXBHWZ00DuWVX_QAwNj4u-zK2iPcbX98kKWEwVcK7LI7VDQUhRVgfAkcKbHCuz9l6v3aX3tsyUmvPBW5DzihY5pn0PeZaZ8np0Ui0palJFXSRpa9waRPZx1HDo6NeXJabjIRM5AGk8Ygcw/s600/blanchard1%20Chelsea.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="415" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFX-4vBspL-Ve_xRCiLIUq1DlBliPchsMlOO49BL_gR2LJAnXBHWZ00DuWVX_QAwNj4u-zK2iPcbX98kKWEwVcK7LI7VDQUhRVgfAkcKbHCuz9l6v3aX3tsyUmvPBW5DzihY5pn0PeZaZ8np0Ui0palJFXSRpa9waRPZx1HDo6NeXJabjIRM5AGk8Ygcw/s320/blanchard1%20Chelsea.jpeg" width="221" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivQT0czAirscInLlfMJCV_P6CJ42W9ed6rk2bOavZZAZ5KEdl8repyzexZHpyxyhEc5XPtfHcVL8s2xVHT70WQM4AMjp9W97LV8umKv23_wgSPaz7XuUwDUo0tGyKyI-LIp5aG9EVSU9BGTaVhaGEdlGeP0It2B8qfqmvJbQ_8kQgLhXBTTr-RCUNDZEI/s600/blanchard3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="401" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivQT0czAirscInLlfMJCV_P6CJ42W9ed6rk2bOavZZAZ5KEdl8repyzexZHpyxyhEc5XPtfHcVL8s2xVHT70WQM4AMjp9W97LV8umKv23_wgSPaz7XuUwDUo0tGyKyI-LIp5aG9EVSU9BGTaVhaGEdlGeP0It2B8qfqmvJbQ_8kQgLhXBTTr-RCUNDZEI/s320/blanchard3.jpeg" width="214" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div>1889 Angelo Genocchi (5 March 1817 – 7 March 1889) was an Italian mathematician who specialized in number theory. He worked with Giuseppe Peano. The Genocchi numbers are named after him. G(t)= 2t/(et+1)for integer values of t. The first few are 1, −1, 0, 1, 0, −3, 0, 17...(A001469 in OEIS)</div><div>Genocchi was President of the Academy of Sciences of Turin.*Wik The unsigned coefficients of Genocchi numbers give expansion of x*tan(x/2). *PB</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioF-UJ29T8YzXDX5oRguQ_DT78HiBIQZtuT2AtFILKJmnwIp9L9V6XSq3UIUNDNrlN6BSg0_lPbaqdEo6fC3WGUkPbi3ZEPYWs4vMKIPLobU5lHVG0E1f7ZuzHMmSSif33ScIyhST-PGBjASIbsaoWuXQffibhElZC6eZLT2L_uxKBE9it-s_Rqz_uLvQ/s326/Angelo_Genocchi.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="261" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioF-UJ29T8YzXDX5oRguQ_DT78HiBIQZtuT2AtFILKJmnwIp9L9V6XSq3UIUNDNrlN6BSg0_lPbaqdEo6fC3WGUkPbi3ZEPYWs4vMKIPLobU5lHVG0E1f7ZuzHMmSSif33ScIyhST-PGBjASIbsaoWuXQffibhElZC6eZLT2L_uxKBE9it-s_Rqz_uLvQ/s320/Angelo_Genocchi.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr />1922 Axel Thue(19 Feb 1863 in Tönsberg, Norway - 7 March 1922 in Oslo, Norway) Thue studied Diophantine equations, showing that, for example, y<sup>3</sup> - 2x<sup>2</sup> = 1 cannot be satisfied by infinitely many pairs of integers. Edmund Landau, in 1922, described Thue's work as, ".. the most important discovery in elementary number theory that I know. "<br />Thue's Theorem states, " If f (x, y) is a homogeneous polynomial with integer coefficients, irreducible in the rationals and of degree > 2 and c is a non-zero integer then f (x, y) = c has only a finite number of integer solutions." *SAU</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnT1lvPFJnKdPSyXzc6ZoS5NVFc_9WsnIRmAQwuARsuYk9eKUaPpM78jYJjs_-h-_CynEYdaiYUFWy72gIk4gVrM54kNgt2Csjii2-0bz6JLIM75WNzLgtQOQ2uHmyOHHQOQt2F_HuCekPi62p-VTesTOKLgxZY1mP96RdY7Mpf8SWtYWbYShmM6E6XjI/s326/Thue.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="268" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnT1lvPFJnKdPSyXzc6ZoS5NVFc_9WsnIRmAQwuARsuYk9eKUaPpM78jYJjs_-h-_CynEYdaiYUFWy72gIk4gVrM54kNgt2Csjii2-0bz6JLIM75WNzLgtQOQ2uHmyOHHQOQt2F_HuCekPi62p-VTesTOKLgxZY1mP96RdY7Mpf8SWtYWbYShmM6E6XjI/s320/Thue.jpeg" width="263" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1964 Samuel Stanley Wilks (June 17, 1906 – March 7, 1964) was an American mathematician and academic who played an important role in the development of mathematical statistics, especially in regard to practical applications.<br />Born in Little Elm, Texas (Little Elm was once a quiet farm town, and today is one of the fastest growing municipalities in Texas) and raised on a farm, Wilks was educated at the University of Iowa, where he acquired his Ph.D. under Everett F. Linquist; his thesis dealt with a problem of statistical measurement in education, and was published in the Journal of Educational Psychology. Wilks became an instructor in mathematics at Princeton University in 1933; in 1938 he assumed the editorship of the journal Annals of Mathematical Statistics in place of Harry C. Carver. Wilks assembled an advisory board for the journal that included major figures in statistics and probability, among them Ronald Fisher, Jerzy Neyman, and Egon Pearson.<br />Wilks was named professor of mathematics and director of the Section of Mathematical Statistics at Princeton in 1944, and became chairman of the Division of Mathematics at the University in 1958. He was noted for his work on multivariate statistics and unit-weighted regression.<br />From the start of his career, Wilks favored a strong focus on practical applications for the increasingly abstract field of mathematical statistics; he also influenced other researchers, notably John Tukey, in a similar direction. Drawing upon the background of his thesis, Wilks worked with the Educational Testing Service in developing the standardized tests like the SAT that have had a profound effect on American education. He also worked with Walter Shewhart on statistical applications in quality control in manufacturing.<br />During World War II he was a consultant with the Office of Naval Research. Both during and after the War he had a profound impact on the application of statistical methods to all aspects of military planning.<br />The American Statistical Association named its Wilks Memorial Award in his honor.<br />Wilks' lambda distribution is a probability distribution related to two independent Wishart distributed variables. It is important in multivariate statistics and likelihood-ratio tests. *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNqb686R0YMbYF4ftcnTWME9RT1HH9I0BT7VpC4p8xn_cRhbIzMBWgKA7iK7ivtT7LxaByJneG_Oj17Ooq8WGwE73NpLs59aTx5NyWZkgjNN8c5lYkwYpEb65LeVY45smNuLYvYIAruYuWokc6EGwl_W6LBo9Q9r40a_qc_XNVIGWhAAxq2dfVWx8-jr0/s326/Wilks_2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="285" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNqb686R0YMbYF4ftcnTWME9RT1HH9I0BT7VpC4p8xn_cRhbIzMBWgKA7iK7ivtT7LxaByJneG_Oj17Ooq8WGwE73NpLs59aTx5NyWZkgjNN8c5lYkwYpEb65LeVY45smNuLYvYIAruYuWokc6EGwl_W6LBo9Q9r40a_qc_XNVIGWhAAxq2dfVWx8-jr0/s320/Wilks_2.jpeg" width="280" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><hr />1966 Georg Faber (5 April 1877 in Kaiserslautern, Germany - 7 March 1966 in Munich, Germany) Faber's most important work was on the polynomial expansion of functions. This is the problem of expanding an analytical function in an area bounded by a smooth curve as a sum of polynomials, where the polynomials are determined by the area. These polynomials are now known as 'Faber polynomials' and first appear in Faber's 1903 paper Über polynomische Entwickelungen published in Mathematische Annalen. Another important paper which he also published in Mathematische Annalen, this time in 1909, was Über stetige Funktionen. In this paper he introduced the 'hierarchical basis' and explicitly used it for the representation of functions. In fact Faber was building on the idea of Archimedes who computed approximately using a hierarchy of polygonal approximations of a circle. Only in the 1980s was Faber's idea seen to be an important ingredient for the efficient solution of partial differential equations. One further achievement of Faber is worthy of mention. In 1894 Lord Rayleigh made the following claim:" ... given a fixed area of ox-hide to make a drum, the ground tone is lowest if you make your drum circular. " Two mathematicians independently verified Rayleigh's conjecture, Faber and Edgar Krahn. *SAU</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKoo8w8YjWF6Gg_4cFBdzCYB1KKlP4Ni3Y0aGgw27ufPeJQI-M_xJT2NU9CMF7yISodIt5MxPM70hw-EOjh9L21xDKyTVxE0_Gik-OOWWmWUkV-j-hVM6zQldT2WF5Oqefp8NGjXSwe8GSf7Q3I6179MPesiu1ZaTRifnOjBdhZhCiDogcffKreHD0i5c/s326/faber_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="244" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKoo8w8YjWF6Gg_4cFBdzCYB1KKlP4Ni3Y0aGgw27ufPeJQI-M_xJT2NU9CMF7yISodIt5MxPM70hw-EOjh9L21xDKyTVxE0_Gik-OOWWmWUkV-j-hVM6zQldT2WF5Oqefp8NGjXSwe8GSf7Q3I6179MPesiu1ZaTRifnOjBdhZhCiDogcffKreHD0i5c/s320/faber_1.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />1997 E.M. Purcell (30 Aug 1912; 7 Mar 1997) American physicist who shared, with Felix Bloch of the United States, the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1952 for his independent discovery (1946) of nuclear magnetic resonance in liquids and in solids. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has become widely used to study the molecular structure of pure materials and the composition of mixtures. The method detects and measures the magnetic fields of atomic nuclei. *TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw01o0V5le_3x5FX77oUywfJ2A85O-cpd-zvYRIUgEZ7hMOc6ayk-PxnyuGS4Cd1dirhVcg21tXZFAR15EI0du1YfZI2X3sya93Akg2No3JTzcgcNEKiatm06p244mWQDyPBSjIzMTZkHoHov5pqtaV7OJbgpyIBX6gxOYKyFFLlnURatcA1h2wZVst6U/s382/Edward_Mills_Purcell.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="270" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw01o0V5le_3x5FX77oUywfJ2A85O-cpd-zvYRIUgEZ7hMOc6ayk-PxnyuGS4Cd1dirhVcg21tXZFAR15EI0du1YfZI2X3sya93Akg2No3JTzcgcNEKiatm06p244mWQDyPBSjIzMTZkHoHov5pqtaV7OJbgpyIBX6gxOYKyFFLlnURatcA1h2wZVst6U/s320/Edward_Mills_Purcell.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />2008 David Gale (December 13, 1921 – March 7, 2008) was a distinguished American mathematician and economist. He was a Professor Emeritus at University of California, Berkeley, affiliated with departments of Mathematics, Economics, and Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. He has contributed to the fields of mathematical economics, game theory, and convex analysis.*Wik<br /><hr /><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-51590367508242823342024-03-06T06:30:00.001+00:002024-03-06T06:30:00.143+00:00Infinite Radical Sequences, Still He Persisted.<p> </p><p><i>I hope women of the world can forgive my usurpation of the phrase from the Women's Movement, but the idea applies as I return again to the topic of infinite radicals.</i><br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLlFEIv_jUC4cQ4YJ67NpBCiv_xYN6jLk1IK_qFOEhbOuPpS2u2s_g5DrNtCW6-suEN61BKfVCOODCi21SmmhrjbGISk-o9yvdTSoKJWgryNx6XjhxExQU-s-pcwVdPqImyylc4QtW5dU/s1600/3+as+iterated+radical.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="59" data-original-width="359" height="63" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLlFEIv_jUC4cQ4YJ67NpBCiv_xYN6jLk1IK_qFOEhbOuPpS2u2s_g5DrNtCW6-suEN61BKfVCOODCi21SmmhrjbGISk-o9yvdTSoKJWgryNx6XjhxExQU-s-pcwVdPqImyylc4QtW5dU/s400/3+as+iterated+radical.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>It is said that <span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">Ramanujan posed the above problem to the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Journal of Indian Mathematical Society</i><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">:in 1911. I use it on my "On This Day in Math" blog for a number fact on January third since it is the third day of the year. Because the problems of analysis from infinite series often dances at the edge (or outside) my understanding of pure mathematics, I always question my assumptions about them, and so for several years I have asked about a seeming extension (or perhaps contraction) of this infinite sequence. What happens when we chop off one layer from the front. My thinking went like this:</span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">If we take the expression and square both sides we get \( 9= 1+2 \sqrt{1+3 \sqrt{1+...}} \)</span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">And doing the obvious arithmetic to clear the preamble before the first radical we arrive at </span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">\(4= \sqrt{1+3 \sqrt{1+...}} \)</span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Now if we repeat the process of squaring and simplifying the result a second time we get </span></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">\(5= \sqrt{1+4 \sqrt{1+...}} \) and thus, as they say, "to Infinity". </span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">Just to make it easier, I have included in the remainder of this post some earlier thoughts about different infinite nested radicals exploring them on my on... </span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">___________________ Reposted material from Dec, 2009 ________________________________</span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Recently (2009) someone on the Calculus EDG asked about the value of<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_BPC7ZX9Zj1VY0XMwElhh8Tn_jC60lrvDnbk4QjgJnfffj_j2HdTR7Chi181A_aCjzqx6IAlXsDayn6EyKkowxDHSH1G4AgZ5bPJ36QmdakXq-ykRwRlDR8BkWbv980ctT7AX6yZHyFg/s1600-h/itroot2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415926464605166338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_BPC7ZX9Zj1VY0XMwElhh8Tn_jC60lrvDnbk4QjgJnfffj_j2HdTR7Chi181A_aCjzqx6IAlXsDayn6EyKkowxDHSH1G4AgZ5bPJ36QmdakXq-ykRwRlDR8BkWbv980ctT7AX6yZHyFg/s320/itroot2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 45px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 159px;" /></a>. I sent a link to some work I had done a while ago exploring the same idea, and extending to finding the value of </span></span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtsMuHwHdnbbuaIdU8OuihbpgZOTTmRWOh3MCYQ-B0IEQIk14alF0gp3fnGSl6gKIKgHZ4mKmHYnVPItvBzi4T5N0vtMIl506NjSH2eQwcNXdmH12CkpLjcdm6uoPGKgVyeXMPDA6txVw/s1600-h/itrootseq.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415927044224038946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtsMuHwHdnbbuaIdU8OuihbpgZOTTmRWOh3MCYQ-B0IEQIk14alF0gp3fnGSl6gKIKgHZ4mKmHYnVPItvBzi4T5N0vtMIl506NjSH2eQwcNXdmH12CkpLjcdm6uoPGKgVyeXMPDA6txVw/s320/itrootseq.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 48px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 217px;" /></a>. I have picked out some parts below, but you can see the rest at<a href="http://pballew.net/iteroots.doc"> this link</a>. (apparently this link has been lost in the internet . I tried the Wayback machine but it seems to be an incomplete copy. Ir you are way more savvy than me, and who isn't really, then maybe you'll do better and share what you find.) This is a very old Word Document so give it some time to load. Hopefully it is worth while. Dave Renfro then sent me a copy of some papers about the topic, including this one from <a href="http://pballew.net/1935Herschfeld.pdf">a 1935 American Mathematical Monthly</a>. </span></span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">When you take the iterated square root of a number, such as \(x = \sqrt{n+ \sqrt{n+ ...}} \) and then square both sides, you get \(x^2 = x + n\). This means that we can find solutions using basic quadratic solution approaches, and then find solutions that produce integer values of x. The positive solution becomes \( \frac{\sqrt{4n+1}+1}{2} \) </span></span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">One of the nice things I discovered was that the iterated square roots of 2 was not the only number that gave an integer answer. In fact, 2, 6, 12, 20, 30.... all were equal to integer values... This sequence is the <a href="http://www.pballew.net/arithme2.html#pronic">pronic</a> or oblong numbers, which are twice the triangular numbers. These numbers can be expressed as (n)(n+1) . It took me a moment to realize why they are the ones that would work. These are numbers that, when multiplied by four and increased by 1, become perfect squares, \( 4 (n^2+n)+ 1 = 4n^2 + 4n+1 = (2n+1)^2 \). And the square root, being an odd (2n+1) number so that when 1 is added, we get a number divisible by 2. </span></span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">It seems, according to the Herschfeld article, that the problem was a common topic in the Columbia classes of Dr. Edward Kasner. Kasner, of course, is known for his part in the creation of the term "googol" for 10^100. If your interested in any of these topics, check either or both the links above . </span></span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I had not yet tried to consider the roots of the cube root of (a+cube root(a+ .... etc)) and so I wanted to take a shot.. By the same process I had used before, the value would be the solution to x^3-x-n=0 . </span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">If the iterated value was 1, the value approaches about x=~1.32472. For n=2 the value is x=~1.52138. By the time we get to n=6, we get x=2. The actual solution for any n is<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZVKtpniFdS7oQ91HRj8zMbuMnTqKjnNIOqwwRHS-q4wkuNGIK9mQu2OtTXPGliBpbeLf-oxedB899hndo2t4UYPMWHrrR85ZGzytg6tPSZSmmWlnjMZ7FdWdzQpIt_HuBVxz_hHHzeM/s1600-h/iterseq.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415926757853910226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZVKtpniFdS7oQ91HRj8zMbuMnTqKjnNIOqwwRHS-q4wkuNGIK9mQu2OtTXPGliBpbeLf-oxedB899hndo2t4UYPMWHrrR85ZGzytg6tPSZSmmWlnjMZ7FdWdzQpIt_HuBVxz_hHHzeM/s320/iterseq.gif" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 62px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a></span></span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">OK... that really isn't very much fun to play with, but after some experimenting, I came up with the fact that the following sequence of numbers produced integer values when iterated; 6, 24, 120, 210... ; or perhaps it is more revealing to write them a different way (1*2*3) , (2*3*4), (3*4*5)... so they were sort of the three dimensional pronic numbers, the products of three consecutive integers. (I have never seen a name for these, so I'm introducing hexonic, because they are all divisible by six. Sphenic is also appropriate since it is the Greek root for wedge shaped, but it seems overused for any number with three distinct factors.)</span></span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I could not manipulate the above equation to make it clear that these were the only values as I had with the quadratic, but it got me thinking, what if I did fourth roots ? </span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> (This is the point where a more clever mathematician would have said hmmmm, squares are solved by x<sup>2</sup> - x -n=0; and and cubes by </span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">x<sup>3</sup> - x -n=0, maybe there is a pattern) </span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Extending the solutions for square and cube roots, I tried 1*2*3*4 = 24.... but the solution of \(n^4 - n- 24=0\) was NOT 2; in fact, it was about 2.1617??? (Yep, guess who picked the wrong pattern to pursue? </span></span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Exploring I found that n=2 was a solution to \(n^4 - n- 14=0\). And n=3 was a solution when the constant was 78. The sequence is 14, 78, 252, 620, 1290,... These values follow the form n*(n-1)*(n^2+n+1)</span></span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I realized, somewhat belatedly, that you could generate these sequences by simply using n<sup>k</sup> - n ( \(2^4-2=14, 3^4-3 = 78, etc \)for integer values of k, and factoring the same would give you the simplified form of the expression. And it seemed true for all the others. The pronic numbers 2, 6, 12 are \(2^2-2, 3^2-3, 4^2-4\) and I'll let you convince yourself that the cubes root iterations works the same.</span></span></p><div><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">After struggling with solving n^3 - n -k=0 I realized that I could just start with values of n, and find out what k came out to be. A very late "aha" moment. So for n=2, 2<sup>3</sup> - 2 = ??? and six pops out like Alg I. </span></span></div><div><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">The fourth powers no longer followed the pronic, hexonic, and whatever name I would have given n(n=1)(n+2)(n+3). But they do seem to follow a pattern of a pronic times number of the form (n^2 + n +1) And a little algebra factoring n^4-n will show why.<br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">There is a familiar quotation about forests and trees that seems to apply here, but it came to me somewhat late. </span></span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"></span></span><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">But sometimes, that's how my mind works... do it the hard way first.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-83732622661848954502024-03-06T06:00:00.005+00:002024-03-09T18:28:50.115+00:00On This Day in Math - March 6<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSRYj5MVHAyjF9LfDW0c7rP267bO-1MlBmVjOpeACxaLOWhR6Wc" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSRYj5MVHAyjF9LfDW0c7rP267bO-1MlBmVjOpeACxaLOWhR6Wc" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span class="st"><i>Santa Sindone</i> in Turin</span><span class="rg_ctlv"><b></b>.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />Nobody since Newton has been able to use geometrical methods to the same extent for the like purposes; and as we read the Principia we feel as when we are in an ancient armoury where the weapons are of gigantic size; and as we look at them we marvel what manner of man he was who could use as a weapon what we can scarcely lift as a burden.<br />~William Whewell<br /><br />The 65th day of the year; 65 is the smallest hypotenuse of two different primitive Pythagorean triangles (and of two other triangles that are not primitive) with all integral sides. (<i>Don't just sit there, find them!</i>)<br />John Golden@mathhombre not only found them, he made the image below. </p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd0dUcEyFHrNjxWmv4KHQWLELJ8ldP7dlLyNN1t1c6HCip4Eb_rZF-ppcTDXV5TMCKK0blnwlyWSNUwTNLoBHPqtQMwUSBts2CBOaKIWhd9qferU_EnGxNpwmpzzC0NhzYWIDaW4L1FB4/s900/65+as+pythag+hypot.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="670" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd0dUcEyFHrNjxWmv4KHQWLELJ8ldP7dlLyNN1t1c6HCip4Eb_rZF-ppcTDXV5TMCKK0blnwlyWSNUwTNLoBHPqtQMwUSBts2CBOaKIWhd9qferU_EnGxNpwmpzzC0NhzYWIDaW4L1FB4/s320/65+as+pythag+hypot.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">And \( 65 = 1^5 + 2^4 + 3^3 + 4^2 + 5^1 \) *jim wilder @wilderlab</span></div><div><br />OR, \(65= 0^2 + 1^4 + 2^5 + 3^3 + 4^1 + 5^0 \) *@Expert_says<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzzHb26Br43LkTr6NbT2VZV-OiRCftSb29ZHfJo88whGnawcF1S3-jIRVx2cNx2dAR7G7RScdwqaOdAdvc84nCh7x2j4y8bpzOBfM232Uwr-XrFsD1INaGqlV4R-uXx-NEJlhQhbigIWU/s1600/5x5magic+square.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzzHb26Br43LkTr6NbT2VZV-OiRCftSb29ZHfJo88whGnawcF1S3-jIRVx2cNx2dAR7G7RScdwqaOdAdvc84nCh7x2j4y8bpzOBfM232Uwr-XrFsD1INaGqlV4R-uXx-NEJlhQhbigIWU/s320/5x5magic+square.png" /></a><br />65 is the constant of a 5x5 normal magic square.<br />A magic square with the integers 1 through 25 has a sum of 65 in each row, column, and major diagonal.<br /><br />Euler found 65 integers, which he called "numeri idonei," that could be used to prove the primality of certain numbers.[idoneal numbers (also called suitable numbers or convenient numbers) are the positive integers D such that any integer expressible in only one way as \(x^2 ± Dy^2\) (where x<sup>2</sup> is relatively prime to Dy<sup>2</sup>) is a prime, prime power, twice one of these, or a power of 2. In particular, a number that has two distinct representations as a sum of two squares (such as 65) is composite. Every idoneal number generates a set containing infinitely many primes and missing infinitely many other primes.]<br /><div><br /></div><div>65 is the difference of fourth powers of two consecutive primes. And a note about fourth powers of primes. For any prime greater than five, the last digits of a p^4 either ends in an odd digit followed by six, or an even digit followed by one.<br /><hr /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span></div><b>1619 </b> Edmund Gunter appointed Gresham Professor of Astronomy. In 1619 the wealthy but earnest Sir Henry Savile put up money to fund Oxford University's first two science faculties, the chairs of astronomy and geometry. Gunter applied to become professor of geometry but Savile was famous for distrusting clever people, and Gunter's behavior annoyed him intensely. As was his habit, Gunter arrived with his sector and quadrant, and began demonstrating how they could be used to calculate the position of stars or the distance of churches, until Savile could stand it no longer. "Doe you call this reading of Geometric?" he burst out. "This is mere showing of tricks, man!" and, according to a contemporary account, "dismissed him with scorne." He was shortly thereafter championed by the far wealthier Earl of Bridgewater, who saw to it that on 6 March 1619 Gunter was appointed professor of astronomy in Gresham College, London. (Henry Briggs, who received the position of Gresham Professor of Geometry when Gunter was passed over also supported Gunter, and nominated him for the Astronomy position.) This post he held till his death. Gunter created the first logarithmic scale. Gunter's scale or Gunter's rule, generally called the "Gunter" by seamen, is a large plane scale, usually 2 feet (0.61 m) long by about 1½ inches broad (600 mm by 40 mm), and engraved with various scales, or lines. On one side are placed the natural lines (as the line of chords, the line of sines, tangents, rhumbs, etc.), and on the other side the corresponding artificial or logarithmic ones. By means of this instrument questions in navigation, trigonometry, etc., are solved with the aid of a pair of compasses. It is a predecessor of the slide rule, a calculating aid used from the 17th century until the 1970s.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFk5eNpNovvxfkLF8cVIwjnK_s1A8xnYZFMkH5O1Kyx9BnNTgF0z51Du11__r24hkAg034dgyxd-g3FmtFMAKqF6Za_WVUDkarp-Y1etHEPuhoW-eF80PKlJAGupQcG1J6hDRYLGHaVeQ/s1600/chainrod.gif" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFk5eNpNovvxfkLF8cVIwjnK_s1A8xnYZFMkH5O1Kyx9BnNTgF0z51Du11__r24hkAg034dgyxd-g3FmtFMAKqF6Za_WVUDkarp-Y1etHEPuhoW-eF80PKlJAGupQcG1J6hDRYLGHaVeQ/s320/chainrod.gif" /></a></div>He is also known for Gunter's chain , a geodetic measuring device used for land survey. When the Northwest territory (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois etc) was created, the decreed official measure was the Gunther Chain.*Wik On a visit to Stratford on Avon while at Hall's croft, the home of Shakespeare's daughter Susanna and her husband, Dr John Hall, I came across an early map of the town and the only legend shown was in Gunter's Chains. Watching an English Cricket match one day in Dec of 2006, I realized that the length of the bowling area (between the two wickets) is one chain also. (I have no record of where I got the image above, or if it is part of a larger image. If you have info. please share.)</div><hr /><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">In 1646,</span></span><span style="color: #202122;">Joseph Jenckes Sr. also spelled Jencks and Jenks, was a bladesmith, blacksmith, mechanic, and inventor who was instrumental in establishing the Saugus Iron Works in Massachusetts Bay Colony where he was granted the first machine patent in North America </span>from the General Court of Massachusetts.</div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit;">He received a 14-year patent for a new kind of water-driven machine to make scythes, sawmill saw blades, and other edged tools.</span></div><div>A master mechanic, an operator of an extensive foundry and metal works, and an expert blacksmith; Established first iron & steel works in Lynn, Massachusetts. </div><div>You may sometimes see this mis-written as first patent in US. In 1641 the Massachusetts General Court gave Samuel Winslow an exclusive right to utilize a new process of making salt for 10 years. The case is unofficially known of as the first "patent" in America. </div><div>Jenckes was raised in a family of London cutlers and found employment west of London at a sword factory. After his wife and daughter died, and about the time the sword factory closed, he left his only surviving child with family and immigrated to New England.</div><div>The son he left behind in England, Joseph Jenckes Jr., joined him at Saugus and later founded the town of Pawtucket in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Other notable descendants include a co-founder of Brown University and a governor of colonial Rhode Island.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8VwniFqBPDhovpOZkKz3b46_9_Rx5Uq9wkC-7_-5mQEqnVrjzZ2A7ekSdKv-JNw0aLJtgp4gy1oBk_BO1bFl5yksFa-_WzQJfGgk4gKtsraynD_Imc_HvHbDgKdswLKeYOOp05K_RO21CK4ezTW5Uw7UAha7Ut2CxjK5Jy95-9yXNzxv-Q5Hn9cfY/s312/Iron_Works_-_Saugus_MA_-_1930_Marker.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="220" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8VwniFqBPDhovpOZkKz3b46_9_Rx5Uq9wkC-7_-5mQEqnVrjzZ2A7ekSdKv-JNw0aLJtgp4gy1oBk_BO1bFl5yksFa-_WzQJfGgk4gKtsraynD_Imc_HvHbDgKdswLKeYOOp05K_RO21CK4ezTW5Uw7UAha7Ut2CxjK5Jy95-9yXNzxv-Q5Hn9cfY/s1600/Iron_Works_-_Saugus_MA_-_1930_Marker.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><div><br /></div><hr /><div>In <b>1661,</b> the Royal Society, London, England, elected Sir Robert Moray as their first president. *TIS<br /><hr /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnBvqwMl3g5gWDa6JhCS3iwu2WqlFE1LbipdxH_dEhYyM7xu32Nl8ss3xthxkGDmW1EdTb-MGu0iWv8E69DxBJZ5vFU3qHwOFOzyBrzBLOsb-z2UfyBL9qfRXz9cB2ru2uK2sQjGwWWcs/s1600/ROyal+Soc+Philos+trans.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnBvqwMl3g5gWDa6JhCS3iwu2WqlFE1LbipdxH_dEhYyM7xu32Nl8ss3xthxkGDmW1EdTb-MGu0iWv8E69DxBJZ5vFU3qHwOFOzyBrzBLOsb-z2UfyBL9qfRXz9cB2ru2uK2sQjGwWWcs/s1600/ROyal+Soc+Philos+trans.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/royalsociety">@<b>royalsociety</b></a></td></tr></tbody></table><b>1665</b> first appearance of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The Journal des sçavans (later renamed Journal des savants), founded by Denis de Sallo, was the earliest academic journal published in Europe, that from the beginning also carried a proportion of material that would not now be considered scientific. The first edition appeared as a twelve page quarto pamphlet on Monday, 5 January 1665. This was shortly before the first appearance of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, on 6 March 1665. *Wik<br /><hr /><b>1689</b> Edmond Halley first wrote about diving equipment in a paper of 6 March 1689, perhaps prompted by his work on the Thames survey undertaken around that time. Halley proposed a mobile diving bell built on four wheels, and while he didn’t build that particular bell, he did build another as part of his salvage work on the wreck of the Guynie frigate. *halleyslog</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB7NTr7B3p36AOnAq2pMAsHNsC4bXItQKGNoZzRu0010ihEUPwX6RR2hS22JlaysmtMrv0iFrGyMFcUcxGiW8N0eRFB90LBJd7YTOCJ-GVgLfkNmg10iuD0S2qI0hqpTVwTEEGjqFBqqXoi7uvDxHibBNRT24HBgihNRHhgUmrcrHddGa3RYfQrIs-/s591/halleys-diving-bell.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB7NTr7B3p36AOnAq2pMAsHNsC4bXItQKGNoZzRu0010ihEUPwX6RR2hS22JlaysmtMrv0iFrGyMFcUcxGiW8N0eRFB90LBJd7YTOCJ-GVgLfkNmg10iuD0S2qI0hqpTVwTEEGjqFBqqXoi7uvDxHibBNRT24HBgihNRHhgUmrcrHddGa3RYfQrIs-/s320/halleys-diving-bell.jpg" width="271" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcK_C1Wixo_ITuolKwWw5DGhVvy-eohT2N0e3u0F9SjYH4Zpi7MoYSsKuBgXqq6bHTOfBYlAVPE_10ltIKnyPD6Uno35rbxfAK0zwFtJ4NsNdOfMUzQ72Hy4_EdfrLazqu3S7MRtgfL2I/s1600/hooke+memorial.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcK_C1Wixo_ITuolKwWw5DGhVvy-eohT2N0e3u0F9SjYH4Zpi7MoYSsKuBgXqq6bHTOfBYlAVPE_10ltIKnyPD6Uno35rbxfAK0zwFtJ4NsNdOfMUzQ72Hy4_EdfrLazqu3S7MRtgfL2I/s200/hooke+memorial.jpg" width="73" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*http://laurenroyal.com/</td></tr></tbody></table><b>1703</b> Robert Hooke is buried at the church of St Helen, Bishopsgate, London. He had died on March 3. The only known portrait of Robert Hooke, which hung in Gresham College, mysteriously disappeared shortly after his death.<i> </i>A memorial window to him was destroyed by a bomb in 1992.<br />Hooke was elected to the Royal Society in 1663 and became its curator for the rest of his life. He was Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, and lived there as a bachelor until his death in 1703.<br />For those who do not know his story, Lisa Jardines, biography is wonderful. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrXCsTZUYW1bIsTE0IEWLg1-PtZW2lWfDeUmoRCecjzKtAe3RzMDPCXSGFZ-6VWjVr5inK5zwQ2SgGJcz8ngR4hbnF0EBguhCebcenH8qmTqo9V-mV8H8fiMp_1hcLFG9SToYDL9aPAB36g2HGD6MOrO2i0-ikwjOlQUT40Wu5VLnYp3ndKt5bXfsDgJI/s218/hooke%20bio%20jardine.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="145" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrXCsTZUYW1bIsTE0IEWLg1-PtZW2lWfDeUmoRCecjzKtAe3RzMDPCXSGFZ-6VWjVr5inK5zwQ2SgGJcz8ngR4hbnF0EBguhCebcenH8qmTqo9V-mV8H8fiMp_1hcLFG9SToYDL9aPAB36g2HGD6MOrO2i0-ikwjOlQUT40Wu5VLnYp3ndKt5bXfsDgJI/s1600/hooke%20bio%20jardine.jpg" width="145" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /><b>1741 </b>Euler writes to Goldbach that he has proved “a theorem of Fermat’s” according to which primes p = 4n + 3 cannot divide a sum of two squares \( a^2 + b^2 \) except when both a and b are divisible by p. Correspondence of Euler and Goldbach.<br /><hr /><b>1766</b> d’Alembert writes Lagrange to tell him Euler is leaving Berlin Academy:<br /><blockquote>Mr Euler is leaving, he says, for St.Petersburg because of some unhappiness he has had in Berlin. I wrote to him to dissuade him. If he leaves, and you want to replace him, you have only to write me and I will do my best to serve you.</blockquote>Before 1766, Frederick II of Prussia had more than once invited both d’Alembert and Lagrange to move to Berlin. The d'Alembert had declined the offer and suggested the name of his Turinese friend. But Lagrange, even though he was on good terms with Euler, did not relish a "cohabitation" with him in the Berlin Academy. It seems he may have feared Euler would overshadow him. *Mauro Allengranza, Stack Exchange<br /><hr /><b>1805</b> Legendre introduced least squares. Gauss had them ten years earlier but had not published, so some controversy ensued. *VFR It was on this day that he published the little 80 page appendix, <i>Nouvelle me'thodes pur la determination des orbites des cometes.</i> "Of all the principals that can be proposed for this purpose, I think there is none more general, more exact, or easier to apply,... it consists of making the sum of the squares of the errors a minimum." *Stephen M. Stigler, The History of Statistics.</div><div>Legendre appears to have discovered the method in early 1805, and Robert Adrain may have "discovered" it in Legendre's 1805 book (Stigler, 1977, 1978), but in 1809 Gauss had the temerity to claim that he had been using the method since 1795, and one of the most famous priority disputes in the history of science was off.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOsrZaqFnf3RJhY5Wo4ygZxUTDtAudSI0AmFH63mSu6rGTk0OdGI9OhVI11fypihUlYkmTkuQ0IjW5kAb28VmNeG2dlqT5Xz1kXIr0R16sm0dhyS_HD3mEXnsZOJx-D3PkjYZ2fEzx1196Ggsg_f8Th4grV2ml-3VEgLSH1o5ik36tdZ6-ENyDwXyYzwM/s400/Legendre.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOsrZaqFnf3RJhY5Wo4ygZxUTDtAudSI0AmFH63mSu6rGTk0OdGI9OhVI11fypihUlYkmTkuQ0IjW5kAb28VmNeG2dlqT5Xz1kXIr0R16sm0dhyS_HD3mEXnsZOJx-D3PkjYZ2fEzx1196Ggsg_f8Th4grV2ml-3VEgLSH1o5ik36tdZ6-ENyDwXyYzwM/s320/Legendre.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1815</b> <span class="st">Wilhelm Olbers, an amateur German astronomer who was a doctor by profession, discovered the periodic comet now named for him. This amateur astronomer would discover many comets, and his calculating method would change the science. He became a lifelong friend of Gauss after their correspondence regarding the discovery of Ceres in January of 1802. He would allow Guass to name the planet (now, asteroid, a term not in use then) that he discovered in 1807, Vesta. *Wik</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFf49Z0VjrkhLTPmZNeorGiAxJJhtOBUzbtxHnjSSOUH2kAuIa6JQ-wrpXiACneg322Vt-SaDzMsW3H3dDKhivRW3qpPDVSx6PPHVRsNnkf4Wt3Ikox2d-Tf14RnYFsFuc3o82EApNZGtzrKdNVPszWj6onON9VC52QSBfYnL9iSK1PR8A7UAgNi-X/s272/Comet_13P_Olbers_by_William_R._Brooks.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="272" data-original-width="220" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFf49Z0VjrkhLTPmZNeorGiAxJJhtOBUzbtxHnjSSOUH2kAuIa6JQ-wrpXiACneg322Vt-SaDzMsW3H3dDKhivRW3qpPDVSx6PPHVRsNnkf4Wt3Ikox2d-Tf14RnYFsFuc3o82EApNZGtzrKdNVPszWj6onON9VC52QSBfYnL9iSK1PR8A7UAgNi-X/w259-h320/Comet_13P_Olbers_by_William_R._Brooks.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sketch of 13P/Olbers on 14 October 1887 by William Robert Brooks</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1832</b> Gauss responds to his “old, unforgettable friend,” Farkas (Wolfgang) Bolyai, that he has been working on non-Euclidean geometry “in part already for 30–35 years.” In the same letter Gauss points out several flaws in Euclid. *VFR Bolyai had included the work of Janos, his son, on non-Euclidean Geometry in a letter to Gauss on the 20th of June 1831.. and again on the 16th of January 1832 Farkas sent the Appendix to Gauss again with another letter in which he wrote: ``My son appreciates Your critique more than that of whole Europe and it is the only thing he is waiting for''. In his response, One of Gauss' well-known sentences was: ``if I praised your son's work I would praise myself''. The letter deeply afflicted and upset János Bolyai, although it reflects appreciation, too: ``... I am very glad that it is my old friend's son who so splendidly preceded me'' *Komal Journal</div><div>Bolyai ends his work by mentioning that it is not possible to decide through mathematical reasoning alone if the geometry of the physical universe is Euclidean or non-Euclidean; this is a task for the physical sciences.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFZSQl35cZtyZ_GV1w2Fdy3ddgEAWR7F_XrBqzWhJUI-BlBz44vq7SSZsTDbCHnSgEck6i92nXIHeQUTW42BUabTSoMF2LbOYA-1kckI8P_TTna4VkY0vYjj8ss_FpVwd6G64hhIB3yUtRngMgqiWU4Tz1wN4k24V5P9yGipJJPEF4K5i2TzIsxmUXSdM/s400/janos%20bolyai%20geometry%20of%20space.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="338" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFZSQl35cZtyZ_GV1w2Fdy3ddgEAWR7F_XrBqzWhJUI-BlBz44vq7SSZsTDbCHnSgEck6i92nXIHeQUTW42BUabTSoMF2LbOYA-1kckI8P_TTna4VkY0vYjj8ss_FpVwd6G64hhIB3yUtRngMgqiWU4Tz1wN4k24V5P9yGipJJPEF4K5i2TzIsxmUXSdM/s320/janos%20bolyai%20geometry%20of%20space.png" width="270" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr />In <b>1869</b>, Dmitry Mendeleev published his first version of the periodic table of the elements. He was a Russian chemist who developed the periodic classification of the elements. In his final version of the periodic table (1871) he left gaps, foretelling that they would be filled by elements not then known and predicting the properties of three of those elements. *TIS Mendeleev had written the properties of elements on pieces of card and tradition has it that after organizing the cards while playing patience he suddenly realized that by arranging the element cards in order of increasing atomic weight that certain types of element regularly occurred.*Royal Society of Chemistry</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU3TvwY6Y6yf9Y_KfqtNlHwOn3zLNZU_Cs2XbWXT9jitcYOCNivCkPOLb756wjEj1DTF14Zi-hNhDPnwSqvQXEiFOyunAil2aOxD93tSrY3jZWobVMAouIDwxpx-ZGIFydWpAW8XAoJrt-BFK1PUQnBVZGxgeNLsQA6i4tIX0SQX9MZWmps0MG78GjGbI/s330/Mendelejevs_periodiska_system_1871.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="330" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU3TvwY6Y6yf9Y_KfqtNlHwOn3zLNZU_Cs2XbWXT9jitcYOCNivCkPOLb756wjEj1DTF14Zi-hNhDPnwSqvQXEiFOyunAil2aOxD93tSrY3jZWobVMAouIDwxpx-ZGIFydWpAW8XAoJrt-BFK1PUQnBVZGxgeNLsQA6i4tIX0SQX9MZWmps0MG78GjGbI/s320/Mendelejevs_periodiska_system_1871.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1896</b> Dutch cryogenic physicist, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, writes to James Dewar in England to explain the reason he had not made any recent experiments in cooling gases: "..you will be astonished to hear. The municipality of Leiden has made objections as to my working with condensed gases and has not been content with asking that additional means of precaution are taken, but is gone so far to claim in August last that my cryogenic laboratory be removed from the city! " *archive of the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifjb6jOrRUU-Q-bOYquGE-H7_78GgzcPdZZ3wt1JNtOQj4luDrNIRrmTROlPIWbz5j8YCEOmm167cteBs5b6cI-LIsf-DhbpiKOK2t4hSgut3xmEuAk_jHKH0QNcESgIb0f2KQMBh-RDMtNCK2KwXLd-TgNfV1QyCg0fJfYqFL1ciVWAjLEOz4V-mpJP8/s440/Kamerlingh%20onnes%20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifjb6jOrRUU-Q-bOYquGE-H7_78GgzcPdZZ3wt1JNtOQj4luDrNIRrmTROlPIWbz5j8YCEOmm167cteBs5b6cI-LIsf-DhbpiKOK2t4hSgut3xmEuAk_jHKH0QNcESgIb0f2KQMBh-RDMtNCK2KwXLd-TgNfV1QyCg0fJfYqFL1ciVWAjLEOz4V-mpJP8/s320/Kamerlingh%20onnes%20.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><hr /><div><div><b> 1896</b> Detroit Free Press reported:</div><div>"The first horseless carriage seen in this city was out on the streets last night. It is the invention of Charles B. King, a Detroiter, and its progress up down Woodward Avenue about 11 o’clock caused a deal of comment, people crowding around it so that its progress was impeded. The apparatus seemed to work all right, and went at the rate of five or six miles an hour at an even rate of speed."</div></div><div>King would later work at several start-up automakers and launch King Motor Cars in 1910 — becoming the first U.S. automaker to offer cars with the steering wheel on the left and the first affordable V-8. His company eventually became part of Studebaker.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD5vUb9WH6nnGwhi7iOg1_wUuuYXU-MBcRIZNY2osWi-U3BUy4CE1MPN8XHa9yb86WztiBn_dtd0iPy7DfDEALJEympUzD0NCMBq12UEXQd_22dQicF3JfC6uebWTTx9bh0V3zKSN8Sxhuhp8e2-Cju4Wvop_f15d-eP3xUvLAUX1rKfeskHQDp6SD/s750/first%20auto%20detroit.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="750" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD5vUb9WH6nnGwhi7iOg1_wUuuYXU-MBcRIZNY2osWi-U3BUy4CE1MPN8XHa9yb86WztiBn_dtd0iPy7DfDEALJEympUzD0NCMBq12UEXQd_22dQicF3JfC6uebWTTx9bh0V3zKSN8Sxhuhp8e2-Cju4Wvop_f15d-eP3xUvLAUX1rKfeskHQDp6SD/s320/first%20auto%20detroit.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Yahoo</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><hr /><div>1<b>899</b> "Aspirin" (acetylsalicylic acid) patented by Felix Hoffmann at German company Bayer. Hoffmann was a young pharmacist working for the German pharmaceutical company Bayer. The trademark name is aspirin. Hoffmann, who was said to be seeking an effective pain reliever for his father's rheumatism, successfully synthesized acetylsalicylic acid in August 1897.</div><div>Hoffmann first claimed to be the "inventor" of aspirin (as opposed to just the synthesizer) in a footnote to a German encyclopedia published in 1934</div><div>In 1949, ex-Bayer employee Arthur Eichengrün published a paper in Pharmazie, in which he claimed to have planned and directed Hoffman's synthesis of aspirin along with the synthesis of several related compounds. He also claimed to be responsible for aspirin's initial surreptitious clinical testing. Finally, he claimed that Hoffmann's role was restricted to the initial lab synthesis using his (Eichengrün's) process and nothing more. Eichengrün died the same month he published in Pharmazie.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjicmpooR7rlUEj_pg5yz0gWDaCFKv1nzs2OPklFlDCY6VhtEUGEMd92-iEpJzITT8-knBQ0llEr-EsHpjXbvIdoiUoPKT8ep17YGbk_dV61EKx9Udi-bxefzC77CouDSmm3UotpaZE0U41BA985tU4ah6qkSsfm8mpnilfCUOSxenGCY4G2NBleX_rXiM/s421/Felix_Hoffman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjicmpooR7rlUEj_pg5yz0gWDaCFKv1nzs2OPklFlDCY6VhtEUGEMd92-iEpJzITT8-knBQ0llEr-EsHpjXbvIdoiUoPKT8ep17YGbk_dV61EKx9Udi-bxefzC77CouDSmm3UotpaZE0U41BA985tU4ah6qkSsfm8mpnilfCUOSxenGCY4G2NBleX_rXiM/s320/Felix_Hoffman.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><hr />In <b>1913</b>, this date was written by Niels Bohr on his first paper describing his new ideas on atomic structure, and mailed to his mentor, Ernest Rutherford. It was one of three historic papers he wrote on this subject. *TIS</div><div>In Bohr’s model, electrons moved around the atomic nucleus in circular orbits, but those orbits had set discrete energies, and electrons could gain or lose energy only by moving from one orbit to another, absorbing or emitting radiation as necessary. While it is still taught in introductory physics classes, the Bohr model is not quite correct. Nonetheless, this pioneering work earned Bohr the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics, “for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them.” </div><div>Bohr model of Carbon Atom</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmD3bwWYKH3Y7qeejdUYCeFXYsqdYRPerdoufZ8_LBG7pq627_8JfKd6oYTLq1tOtBH1FADM6Ull9AG4oj5IYmjcJsFceRqFOSkaYRrsv2x0IKlNwTTudw-JztO_z94j0jX1kursPWheu1TOjgDiK9g4IgQRfj8JtSgK2AkywBx9IbhS3D8c38ENT-OWo/s263/bohr%20model%20carbon.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="263" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmD3bwWYKH3Y7qeejdUYCeFXYsqdYRPerdoufZ8_LBG7pq627_8JfKd6oYTLq1tOtBH1FADM6Ull9AG4oj5IYmjcJsFceRqFOSkaYRrsv2x0IKlNwTTudw-JztO_z94j0jX1kursPWheu1TOjgDiK9g4IgQRfj8JtSgK2AkywBx9IbhS3D8c38ENT-OWo/s1600/bohr%20model%20carbon.jpeg" width="263" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /></div><div>On this day in <b>1930</b>, Kurt Gödel received his Ph.D. from the University of Vienna for a dissertation, directed by Hans Hahn, that showed the completeness of first order logic (every valid first order formula is provable).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiytv-I7twDBUOqGU-uEFKJlXBliXy5SEqju-sFD4vETob74hipJEfnb8BTBYqJVVgXYwIZzzORUIOpA0hWQWt5SqDKotGVWhVkwYGzPm7W7yXbmlGy7WLVY3YiJ2HqxfKGrKeqsgft_GFzSY9DBN6Hjvpw9eyeyPzVbowlsGKLVjb1nEW43PYx4qkXyE/s270/Kurt_g%C3%B6del.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="212" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiytv-I7twDBUOqGU-uEFKJlXBliXy5SEqju-sFD4vETob74hipJEfnb8BTBYqJVVgXYwIZzzORUIOpA0hWQWt5SqDKotGVWhVkwYGzPm7W7yXbmlGy7WLVY3YiJ2HqxfKGrKeqsgft_GFzSY9DBN6Hjvpw9eyeyPzVbowlsGKLVjb1nEW43PYx4qkXyE/s1600/Kurt_g%C3%B6del.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><hr /><div><b><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRYbXd6PjjvhnKOV5jsc7t-nX1VyjC-szop8Iaq4ZVnrRs6n9H3e9sD7F0OLVzcPtLMRtSxwIYoUj0y7CIfh_dIKipGx2bRXrQsasWgdilFHx8Ru4e2EuOOv4giRMMZlwHaSGc7Pc1PSh4jJKUdI_0GWnJa06T0qWKerGco407wYAwg5PeGkWVQ0Un/s1997/silly%20putty.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1997" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRYbXd6PjjvhnKOV5jsc7t-nX1VyjC-szop8Iaq4ZVnrRs6n9H3e9sD7F0OLVzcPtLMRtSxwIYoUj0y7CIfh_dIKipGx2bRXrQsasWgdilFHx8Ru4e2EuOOv4giRMMZlwHaSGc7Pc1PSh4jJKUdI_0GWnJa06T0qWKerGco407wYAwg5PeGkWVQ0Un/s320/silly%20putty.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Thought Co</td></tr></tbody></table><br />1950 </b>Silly Putty goes on sale in the US. Though invented in 1943 by James Wright, Silly Putty was not a toy until Peter Hodgson packaged the goo in plastic eggs and sold them in 1950. </div><div><div>In February 1950, Hodgson took Silly Putty to the International Toy Fair in New York, but most people there did not see the potential for the new toy. Luckily, Hodgson did manage to get Silly Putty stocked at both Nieman-Marcus and Doubleday bookstores.</div><div><br /></div><div>A few months later, a reporter for The New Yorker stumbled across Silly Putty at a Doubleday bookstore and took home an egg. Fascinated, the writer wrote an article in the "Talk of the Town" section that appeared on August 26, 1950. Immediately, orders for Silly Putty started pouring in.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><hr /><b>1953</b> James Watson and Francis Crick submitted to the journal Nature their first article on the structure of DNA. It was published in the 25 Apr 1953 issue. "We wish to put forward a radically different structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid. This structure has two helical chains each coiled around the same axis... Both chains follow right-handed helices... The novel feature of the structure is the manner in which the two chains are held together by purine and pyrimidine bases... They are joined together in pairs, a single base from one chain being hydrogen-bonded to a single base from the other chain, so that the two lie side by side with identical z-co-ordinates. One of the pair must be a purine and the other a pyrimidine in order for bonding to occur."*TIS</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijvxx0HfHK6b5Py2T4QEBQyjjjrtwSPn95uboH8ltXxsCJE1HEhqTBMFm6Nji9m7jgBv902MSbr23GkOMDWWKUdSOqzgwIDcrnB9XIjng66aqjeGprkNKk7xtgQoqRUd1T5TyCfp0_Ef21_TJkkhDnnNu5fEKlcTgn-YHKMOcYRN03Rn3O4vqOYG1g/s275/crick%20signed%20Nature.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijvxx0HfHK6b5Py2T4QEBQyjjjrtwSPn95uboH8ltXxsCJE1HEhqTBMFm6Nji9m7jgBv902MSbr23GkOMDWWKUdSOqzgwIDcrnB9XIjng66aqjeGprkNKk7xtgQoqRUd1T5TyCfp0_Ef21_TJkkhDnnNu5fEKlcTgn-YHKMOcYRN03Rn3O4vqOYG1g/s1600/crick%20signed%20Nature.jpeg" width="275" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*The DNA Store</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /><b>1967</b> A study of twelve industrial nations revealed that mathematics achievement is highest in Japan, lowest in the U.S. *VFR </div><div>In 2017 Pew Research reported: Feb 15, 2017 — U.S. students continue to rank near the middle, and behind many other advanced industrial nations, in international math, science and reading</div><hr /><div><b>1986</b> USSR's Vega 1 flies by Halley's Comet at 8,889 km. Vega 1<span style="background-color: white;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> encountered Comet Halley on March 6, 1986, and Vega 2 three days later. The flyby velocity was 77.7 km/s. Although the spacecraft could be targeted with a precision of 100 km, the position of the spacecraft relative to the comet nucleus was estimated to be known only to within a few thousand kilometers. </span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLpy_Pw_M3wys8D8njZE9_Jvu6zphAPO9jAovZYlncLnaHO8BIXvNAL-cQTyPlJ6GCTFoA7yXfHyjPCQAXVFW63eOPiNuVpbX2vldhf6WHH9AaiNdWAYMHpJ8KA3ktqCyZ_cmpkb8MH9Fk5DuofBygz9rokVlM7Vn3whU0JKkKMq9Z7eczlRn3Pr4G/s263/halley%20from%20Vega%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="263" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLpy_Pw_M3wys8D8njZE9_Jvu6zphAPO9jAovZYlncLnaHO8BIXvNAL-cQTyPlJ6GCTFoA7yXfHyjPCQAXVFW63eOPiNuVpbX2vldhf6WHH9AaiNdWAYMHpJ8KA3ktqCyZ_cmpkb8MH9Fk5DuofBygz9rokVlM7Vn3whU0JKkKMq9Z7eczlRn3Pr4G/s1600/halley%20from%20Vega%201.jpeg" width="263" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Space.com</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /><hr /><b>1992 </b>Michelangelo Virus Strikes: Concerns over the Michelangelo virus sparked a scare among everyone from personal computer users to world governments. As many as 5 million computers reportedly were at danger of contracting the virus, set to erase data on the March 6 anniversary of the artist's birth. In fact, Michelangelo spread to only a few thousand machines. *CHM<br /><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span></b></div><div><b style="font-weight: bold;">1787 </b><b>Joseph Ritter von Fraunhofer </b>(6 March 1787 – 7 June 1826) was a German physicist and optical lens manufacturer. He made optical glass, an achromatic telescope, and objective lenses. He also invented the spectroscope and developed diffraction grating. In 1814, he discovered and studied the dark absorption lines in the spectrum of the sun now known as Fraunhofer lines. *Wik</div><div>The Great Dorpat Refractor built by Joseph Fraunhofer and completed in 1824 was the first modern, achromatic, refracting telescope. At the start of the 19th century, progress in astronomy was stifled by the lack of astronomical quality telescopes of sufficient aperture and manageability. There were long-focus, nonachromatic refractors, reflectors with speculum metal mirrors, and achromatic refractors of small aperture and mediocre design. Contributing to the construction and success of the Great Dorpat Refractor were P. L. Guinand's development of a process for making large disks of homogenous flint glass, Fraunhofer's improvement of the design and fabrication of the optical and mechanical components of the telescope, and F. G. W. Struve's skilled and dedicated use of the telescope and its accessories. The successors of the Great Dorpat Refractor were the giant refractors which were the mainstay of astronomy in the 19th century and which were not displaced until the early 20th century when the age of the giant reflectors began.*Astrophysics Data System</div><div><br /></div><div>Illustration of solar spectrum drawn and colored by Joseph von Fraunhofer with dark lines named after him (1987 DBP's stamp on 200th anniversary of birthday of Fraunhofer):</div><div>Fraunhofer demonstrating the spectroscope:</div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEO-MKZcHSBrjxuO0QJ5Fq_JkvfiqNnBDV4-GXAokjcS9IylHj-rlHJLquAfhr1MNN56kH-8QqJ-L1BnAO7zRZqzwJ0D6M_cGGUatxfFFQ7cazVN7sD5SSVHtkKQv0jJdk940iZlIeRZxoza4125gHKW78b8nAlcR-l7NGAkNByRDlk46EjiUxXtZWkMM/s330/Fraunhofer%20spectroscope.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="330" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEO-MKZcHSBrjxuO0QJ5Fq_JkvfiqNnBDV4-GXAokjcS9IylHj-rlHJLquAfhr1MNN56kH-8QqJ-L1BnAO7zRZqzwJ0D6M_cGGUatxfFFQ7cazVN7sD5SSVHtkKQv0jJdk940iZlIeRZxoza4125gHKW78b8nAlcR-l7NGAkNByRDlk46EjiUxXtZWkMM/s320/Fraunhofer%20spectroscope.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3XiExHLEtdhS3e4kA1AKn-AvJICZOQKE6TM3I2WEefSchlrV4HNwXGwa4lhzc6zcJaxDuHeoBLspNe4Pe_JnD-jf1rjcDh-7hkxJOajwOxMbNeT-tZXai6nwzMaNsoB2DVABeK4-ZFQ5YprOKVEkZv-E92tWecMYZnu0Oi1d6klAk285GgSu8rYQjfI/s390/Fraunhofer%20stamp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="244" data-original-width="390" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3XiExHLEtdhS3e4kA1AKn-AvJICZOQKE6TM3I2WEefSchlrV4HNwXGwa4lhzc6zcJaxDuHeoBLspNe4Pe_JnD-jf1rjcDh-7hkxJOajwOxMbNeT-tZXai6nwzMaNsoB2DVABeK4-ZFQ5YprOKVEkZv-E92tWecMYZnu0Oi1d6klAk285GgSu8rYQjfI/s320/Fraunhofer%20stamp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><b><hr /></b></div><b>1847 Johann Georg Hagen</b> (6 Mar 1847, 5 Sep 1930) Austrian Jesuit priest and astronomer who made a catalog of variable stars (1890-1908). Working at the Vatican Observatory he reexamined for accuracy the listing of all of the NGC (New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters) objects north of about -30 degrees. He published lists of errata in the NGC. During his observations, he observed dark nebulae, tenuous dark clusters of interstellar matter sometimes known as Hagen's clouds. These strange clouds have not been recorded by others, and are now attributed to optical illusions associated with visual observations. Jesuits have been involved in astronomy since 1551 when Fr. Christoph Clavius, SJ, a mathematician and astronomer helped Pope Gregory XIII reform the calendar.*TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGav1uVQjPtvYeOs1MUpuw4pj2l5ZNocOBN1xaoOuosrC6MkrBRD2gdW2jZm6H5myGmBTgVqCpsJKGaNwm9YfhXU3mcW8r4zFKSsB78rhRfC_M1t2don-IWvU0tKqnEkoegq9b8KNfL6FlcYoslufG80zwPpj6kwv7-TTXPf1BYl7qqb_KmuTOjj9NEpg/s244/Johann_Georg_Hagen_(1847%E2%80%931930).png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="244" data-original-width="206" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGav1uVQjPtvYeOs1MUpuw4pj2l5ZNocOBN1xaoOuosrC6MkrBRD2gdW2jZm6H5myGmBTgVqCpsJKGaNwm9YfhXU3mcW8r4zFKSsB78rhRfC_M1t2don-IWvU0tKqnEkoegq9b8KNfL6FlcYoslufG80zwPpj6kwv7-TTXPf1BYl7qqb_KmuTOjj9NEpg/s1600/Johann_Georg_Hagen_(1847%E2%80%931930).png" width="206" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1866 Ettore Bortolotti </b>(6 March 1866 in Bologna, Kingdom of Sardinia (now Italy)<br />- 17 Feb 1947 in Bologna, Italy) Italian mathematician who worked in various areas in analysis. He was interested in the history of mathematics. .... recent work by Fowler has added much to our understanding of the concept of continued fractions as present in ancient Greek mathematics. Nevertheless, this work of Fowler does not diminish the value of Cataldi's contibutions.*SAU . He revealed the importance of Evangelista Torricelli’s infinitesimal results and vindicated Cataldi’s claim to the discovery of continued fractions. *VFR</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_mCOZCdbSzGCARSEVK4xMosxCS2LZABHGZkd9cKG-A6kzpuzw8bmoDasy1jmuTaHQhpVe5nwIV_NX0JMPfnZCnlqslVOu80pJopWbHCOrCIVT1z2E9tmTVffOQNx3DNtTuHpEMfNa8a88Wx1NEMkwaIaKvMUc4kB55uJNNcO-WkOE_TtG58dXSUxVXkY/s326/bortolotti_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="257" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_mCOZCdbSzGCARSEVK4xMosxCS2LZABHGZkd9cKG-A6kzpuzw8bmoDasy1jmuTaHQhpVe5nwIV_NX0JMPfnZCnlqslVOu80pJopWbHCOrCIVT1z2E9tmTVffOQNx3DNtTuHpEMfNa8a88Wx1NEMkwaIaKvMUc4kB55uJNNcO-WkOE_TtG58dXSUxVXkY/s320/bortolotti_1.jpg" width="252" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><hr /><b>1988 Annie Hutton Numbers</b> (6 March 1897 in Edinburgh, Scotland - 10 April 1988 in High Wycombe, England) After a brief spell teaching she was appointed as Assistant Lecturer and Demonstrator at the Department of Chemistry at Edinburgh University. While on the staff of the University, Numbers undertook research towards the degree of Ph.D. which she took in 1926 for the thesis The influence of substituents on the optical rotatory power of compounds. She left her post at the Department after 1930 to become a teacher in Ipswich and then in High Wycombe, retiring in 1965. *SAU</div><div>Annie Hutton Numbers was a scientist, teacher and lifelong-learner. She graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1918 with the degree of MA (Hons) in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. In 1917 she joined the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, where she was a member for 16 years. *Wik</div><div><br />Who wouldn't want to have a math teacher whose name was Ms. Numbers?</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEz73TG4q5B2xzERgZ9SzsbWvmRNznmmJXamViQSTDJV-f4v6NwV1bAFE6GD_PYy9Kt4D4SveCBX4FYgNSeCDTaYmNBFyxD0L9IJI0lfxz-xCZ9QSmxidziMp8Qd32SkcSrHUF3DNJgo13Jf7ad0s2-NgmmG8AZQ76BLuKiUiyX8tDXO7MRux0uU8o7k0/s130/annie%20hutton%20numbers.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="130" data-original-width="103" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEz73TG4q5B2xzERgZ9SzsbWvmRNznmmJXamViQSTDJV-f4v6NwV1bAFE6GD_PYy9Kt4D4SveCBX4FYgNSeCDTaYmNBFyxD0L9IJI0lfxz-xCZ9QSmxidziMp8Qd32SkcSrHUF3DNJgo13Jf7ad0s2-NgmmG8AZQ76BLuKiUiyX8tDXO7MRux0uU8o7k0/w254-h320/annie%20hutton%20numbers.jpeg" width="254" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /></div></div><div><b>1901 Naum Ilyich Akhiezer</b> (6 March 1901 – 3 June 1980) was a Soviet mathematician of Jewish origin, known for his works in approximation theory and the theory of differential and integral operators. He is also known as the author of classical books on various subjects in analysis, and for his work on the history of mathematics. He is the brother of the theoretical physicist Aleksander Akhiezer.*Wik</div><div><hr /></div><div><b>1937 Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova </b>( 6 March 1937- ) Soviet cosmonaut who was the first woman to fly in space, and is the only solo woman. She had worked in tyre and textile factories. She was selected (1961) as a cosmonaut for her expert skill in parachuting. She trained in a special woman-in-space program, and was the only one of the four women participants to complete a space mission. She was launched in Vostok 6 on 16 Jun 1963, two days after Valery F. Bykovsky in Vostok 5. Tereshkova made 48 orbits of Earth in 71 hours. The two cosmonauts landed on the same day, 19 Jun. Tereshkova left the program shortly after her return. She was honored with the title Hero of the Soviet Union. She went into space two decades before America's first woman astronaut, Sally Ride.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHwTIBvCTImH7OlVIIeqGva5GdgsM1soSNFYHXqtGiGNjFUZBworDkxasQc0MoZ8Qd7NWI6JgJIeVXtEpHvuuETkLRiBnA859JlRTC7p0g1iY7lqPQsnJbSAPVpgO9RkzSxr_DMdKM1gYNnATE6-X85oCSxlzVN4MhC5XqzHoyrg_LOXk_t2rwVnG9aA/s333/Valentina_Tereshkova.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHwTIBvCTImH7OlVIIeqGva5GdgsM1soSNFYHXqtGiGNjFUZBworDkxasQc0MoZ8Qd7NWI6JgJIeVXtEpHvuuETkLRiBnA859JlRTC7p0g1iY7lqPQsnJbSAPVpgO9RkzSxr_DMdKM1gYNnATE6-X85oCSxlzVN4MhC5XqzHoyrg_LOXk_t2rwVnG9aA/s320/Valentina_Tereshkova.jpg" width="317" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><hr /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span></b></div><b>1683 Guarino Guarini</b> (17 Jan 1624; 6 Mar 1683) Italian architect and theologian whose study of mathematics led him to a career in architecture in which he created the most fantastic geometric elaboration of all baroque churches. In his Santissima Sindone, Guarini created a diaphanous dome - a geometrical optical illusion in the dome made through the use of the actual structure which creates the illusion that the dome recedes farther up into space than it really does. He wrote two architectural treatises and other works that concentrate on his mathematical knowledge. Therein, Guarini discusses Desargue's projective geometry, which reveal a scientific basis for his daring structures. He worked primarily in Turin and Sicily, with his influence stretching into Germany, Austria and Bohemia.*TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqeVEyyUPOKpzUJ1OuWaHQCjuXBZRIdQdyk-XZKBh28kNzOJZilwPm3rRLWChEVSMBSPTHQnpaF7cDcb4KGszMKVaGndo5jOJ7fwlDqBmpROm3sAVrQArYJ7Tg1ArIgMkVWP-DDWjZ2vWEvGP6Xyw8Yt4lMHXo8S2g2fg4ft3p_64rEZ-G6yxxUrZhG7s/s275/guarini%20holy%20shroud%20chapel.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqeVEyyUPOKpzUJ1OuWaHQCjuXBZRIdQdyk-XZKBh28kNzOJZilwPm3rRLWChEVSMBSPTHQnpaF7cDcb4KGszMKVaGndo5jOJ7fwlDqBmpROm3sAVrQArYJ7Tg1ArIgMkVWP-DDWjZ2vWEvGP6Xyw8Yt4lMHXo8S2g2fg4ft3p_64rEZ-G6yxxUrZhG7s/s1600/guarini%20holy%20shroud%20chapel.jpeg" width="275" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"></div><div><b>1838 John Stevens</b> (June 26, 1749 – March 6, 1838) American engineer and lawyer who invented the screw propeller (1802) (The screw propellor and the multitubular boiler engine. His Phoenix was the first oceangoing steamboat (1809), and he operated the Juliana, the first steam-boat ferry. His interest in applying steam steam power to transportation began in the late 1780s. Stevens petitioned the U.S. Congress to establish a U.S. patent law (enacted 1790) and registered patents for his improved boiler and engine designs (1792). The sea voyage of the Phoenix paddle-wheel steamboat was from New York City to Philadelphia. On 11 Oct 1811, the Juliana, began operations as a ferry between New York, NY, and Hoboken, NJ. He demonstrated the first steam locomotive in the U.S. on his estate (1825)</div></div><div><div>Fig. 1 The Original Twin-Screw Engine and Boiler</div><div>of Col. John Stevens. Built in Hoboken, N.Y., in 1804.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPa-V_mwuRvbbD2MuezElyPNFGRuk9yj5eT-kccKtNX7Vrwqdpydov3ZP3u48Y8BkBbkv6NBqpu3qMIlNZN93LNZfk7hpYI2ToTiJBLO-yaTQ25YEwZyTUfJzgm7CXRB7xaI7wckOqxg_644tjdAl0jPyBUslo60D0zQy4VwLkV1zRg6sAXuT9NG32Obg/s635/twin%20screew%20stevens.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="635" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPa-V_mwuRvbbD2MuezElyPNFGRuk9yj5eT-kccKtNX7Vrwqdpydov3ZP3u48Y8BkBbkv6NBqpu3qMIlNZN93LNZfk7hpYI2ToTiJBLO-yaTQ25YEwZyTUfJzgm7CXRB7xaI7wckOqxg_644tjdAl0jPyBUslo60D0zQy4VwLkV1zRg6sAXuT9NG32Obg/s320/twin%20screew%20stevens.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><hr /></b></div><div><b>1866 William Whewell</b> (24 May 1794, 6 Mar 1866 at age 71) British scientist, best known for his survey of the scientific method and for creating scientific words. He founded mathematical crystallography and developed Mohr's classification of minerals. He created the words scientist and physicist by analogy with the word artist. They soon replaced the older term natural philosopher. (actually the use of scientist was a very slow process often not well received.(My blog about the long struggle of <a href="https://pballew.blogspot.com/2023/05/how-term-scientist-came-to-be.html" target="_blank">the word is here</a>) Other useful words were coined to help his friends: biometry for Lubbock; Eocene, Miocene and Pliocene for Lyell; and for Faraday, anode, cathode, diamagnetic, paramagnetic, and ion (whence the sundry other particle names ending -ion). In meteorology, Whewell devised a self-recording anemometer. He was second only to Newton for work on tidal theory. He died as a result of being thrown from his horse. *TIS<br />In a single letter to Faraday on 25 April, 1834; he invented the terms cathode, anode and ion. The letter is on display at the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, UK.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHgRpogK1t-KV3kQrWbcn1RZDmAnuFWV8ar4SvoxkqwT_0Ty3LYtnie6oIaacS-j0rjfX1e1367mCKBG1AJPTHS2yanCVmd4KGWa8rB1CZYCcnMYuVb1LyDSNqiOjY5p0J45z6x_7O3uCZvL8igaknFmMWlXEj6Gf2JWFArL79BSkwdwb5wckgcYRf1Ug/s400/whewell%20to%20Faraday%20anode%20cathode.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="230" data-original-width="400" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHgRpogK1t-KV3kQrWbcn1RZDmAnuFWV8ar4SvoxkqwT_0Ty3LYtnie6oIaacS-j0rjfX1e1367mCKBG1AJPTHS2yanCVmd4KGWa8rB1CZYCcnMYuVb1LyDSNqiOjY5p0J45z6x_7O3uCZvL8igaknFmMWlXEj6Gf2JWFArL79BSkwdwb5wckgcYRf1Ug/s320/whewell%20to%20Faraday%20anode%20cathode.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxGLGL265nZgXRLHBOBsU6FNw-zCTf4PmWYdMtEfTZbTifDZdAe-DQI4SJe05_zvkGDzBKagm-ngtQkdnB0YD81IPTV4UxY7ImFANTZlZNgVcQxWq04es1c7TsC8SAdIdFZPKSTQG24vRSjsfo27FNvJLdPb_EB2Y3mgGlKXjJd0OEIdJ8ZzTUTKWMNPk/s1200/william-whewell-quote.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxGLGL265nZgXRLHBOBsU6FNw-zCTf4PmWYdMtEfTZbTifDZdAe-DQI4SJe05_zvkGDzBKagm-ngtQkdnB0YD81IPTV4UxY7ImFANTZlZNgVcQxWq04es1c7TsC8SAdIdFZPKSTQG24vRSjsfo27FNvJLdPb_EB2Y3mgGlKXjJd0OEIdJ8ZzTUTKWMNPk/s320/william-whewell-quote.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /><hr /><b>1939 Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann</b> (12 Apr 1852, 6 Mar 1939 at age 86) He showed π transcendental <i>not the root of any algebraic equation with rational coefficients</i>), consequently the circle cannot be squared. (constructing a square with the same area as a given circle using ruler and compasses alone.) In 1873, Lindemann visited Hermite in Paris and discussed the methods which Hermite had used in his proof that <i>e</i>, the base of natural logarithms, is transcendental. Following this visit, Lindemann was able to extend Hermite's results to show that pi was also transcendental. *TIS(the image is of his tombstone.... note the square and circle with Pi inside.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikkvZjickRLkz2R300poRgZv-V5K5MBKWYMe7iQKpykDx5RjfdxUjmkXqFS9BHATXtB1QlFU5zmblRvI4IiFoXCEXmdHzh7rizS4Bo_t_PMkLxzOyoaJdbOO8k3v5R5S2H2iOdn-51CfY/s1600/lindem01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400px" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikkvZjickRLkz2R300poRgZv-V5K5MBKWYMe7iQKpykDx5RjfdxUjmkXqFS9BHATXtB1QlFU5zmblRvI4IiFoXCEXmdHzh7rizS4Bo_t_PMkLxzOyoaJdbOO8k3v5R5S2H2iOdn-51CfY/s400/lindem01.jpg" width="284px" /></a><br /><hr /><br /><b>2005 Hans Bethe</b> (2 Jul 1906, 6 Mar 2005 at age 98), German-born American theoretical physicist who helped to shape classical physics into quantum physics and increased the understanding of the atomic processes responsible for the properties of matter and of the forces governing the structures of atomic nuclei. Bethe did work relating to armor penetration and the theory of shock waves of a projectile moving through air. He studied nuclear reactions and reaction cross sections (1935-38). In 1943, Oppenheimer asked Bethe to be the head of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project. After returning to Cornell University in 1946, Bethe became a leader promoting the social responsibility of science. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics (1967) for his work on the production of energy in stars. *TIS</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEZndgHnmAY5jt8t4GVLr1_FRERrGmT-NiWvGSVQO7IFtnV00Rb98rTDLTcdmBEis92Wkyp_3_lZ3GT2sg8n53ViX_iNeOnv7Jr8pv0qBLBnMil_hU6Sfdnqn1x0waxexZFRcbQ-pjmo3J8M6sDnqLFYOy4sF5p4oKnriEya_3wCg9wY2LqT18ymGIpVw/s413/Hans_Bethe.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEZndgHnmAY5jt8t4GVLr1_FRERrGmT-NiWvGSVQO7IFtnV00Rb98rTDLTcdmBEis92Wkyp_3_lZ3GT2sg8n53ViX_iNeOnv7Jr8pv0qBLBnMil_hU6Sfdnqn1x0waxexZFRcbQ-pjmo3J8M6sDnqLFYOy4sF5p4oKnriEya_3wCg9wY2LqT18ymGIpVw/s320/Hans_Bethe.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><b>1944 Aleksandr Petrovich Kotelnikov</b> (20 Oct 1865 in Kazan, Russia - 6 March 1944 in Moscow, USSR) In 1927 he published one of his most important works, The Principle of Relativity and Lobachevsky's Geometry. He also worked on quaternions and applied them to mechanics and geometry. Among his other major pieces of work was to edit the Complete Works of two mathematicians, Lobachevsky and Zhukovsky. He received many honours for his work, being named Honoured Scientist in 1934, then one year before he died he was awarded the State Prize of the USSR. *SAU</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaLCGutq9YaXLudzh1EA6exaSyfUbIwbehO_KEzAWA674v02gwYTKZeLnm4EXs5zwidnh1FBhfo4JCLYR_HqeKwYI7vMaQy0v-zxHrFWD4I2dUd6AdVzjqOM5qcgOCE807ULWb15y5eA8dhrntabXoYM8e_-yNCwToUXS9jPo-f971e3Gj84EyBLUOGfs/s326/kotelnikov_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="295" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaLCGutq9YaXLudzh1EA6exaSyfUbIwbehO_KEzAWA674v02gwYTKZeLnm4EXs5zwidnh1FBhfo4JCLYR_HqeKwYI7vMaQy0v-zxHrFWD4I2dUd6AdVzjqOM5qcgOCE807ULWb15y5eA8dhrntabXoYM8e_-yNCwToUXS9jPo-f971e3Gj84EyBLUOGfs/s320/kotelnikov_2.jpg" width="290" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><hr /><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br /></div><p>*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-64748028445440082912024-03-05T06:00:00.010+00:002024-03-08T02:27:41.573+00:00On This Day in Math - March 5<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Erdglobus_Mercator_Detail_8.jpg/200px-Erdglobus_Mercator_Detail_8.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Erdglobus_Mercator_Detail_8.jpg/200px-Erdglobus_Mercator_Detail_8.jpg" width="326" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Terrestrial globe by Mercator dating from 1541. It is now in the museum collection of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbania, Italy, and is one of about 22 existing Mercator globes.*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />But in the present century, thanks in good part to the influence of Hilbert, we have come to see that the unproved postulates with which we start are purely arbitrary. They must be consistent, they had better lead to something interesting.<br />~Julian Lowell Coolidge<br /><br /><br />The 64th day of the year; 64 is the smallest power of two with no prime neighbor. (What is next value of 2<sup>n</sup> with no prime neighbor?) Also the smallest even square number without a prime neighbor.<br /><br />64 is also the smallest non-trivial positive integer that is both a perfect square and a perfect cube.<br /><br />64 can be expressed as the sum of primes using the first four natural numbers once each, 41 + 23 = 64, It can also be done with its reversal, 46 = 41 + 3 + 2.<br /><br />There were 64 disks in Eduard Lucas' myth about the Towers of Hanoi.<br /><br /> 64 is also the number of hexagrams in the I Ching, and the number of sexual positions in the Kama Sutra. (I draw no conclusions about that information)<br /><br />There are 64 ordered permutations of nonempty subsets of {1,..., 4}: Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century combinatorialists call this the number of (nonnull) "variations" of 4 distinct objects.</p><div>64 is a superperfect number—a number such that σ(σ(n)) = 2n. The sum of the divisors (including itself) of 64 is 127, and the sum of the divisors of 127, 1 and 127, add up to 128= 2*64. It is the last Year Day that is Super-Perfect.<br /><br />And I was told that 64 is the maximum number of strokes used in a Kanji character.</div><div><br /></div><div>Most mathematicians know the story of 1729, the taxicab number which Ramanujan recognized as a cube that was one more than the sum of two cubes, or the smallest number that could be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. But not many know that 94 is part of the second such \(64^3 + 94^3 = 103^3 + 1^3 \) </div><hr /><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p>In 1223 BC, the oldest recorded eclipse occurred, according to one plausible interpretation of a date inscribed on a clay tablet retrieved from the ancient city of Ugarit, Syria (as it is now). This date is favored by recent authors on the subject, although alternatively 3 May 1375 BC has also been proposed as plausible. Certainly by the 8th century BC, the Babylonians were keeping a systematic record of solar eclipses, and possibly by this time they may have been able to apply numerological rules to make fairly accurate predictions of the occurrence of solar eclipses. The first total solar eclipse reliably recorded by the Chinese occurred on 4 Jun 180 BC*TIS<br /></p><p> The Ugarit eclipse darkened the sky for 2 minutes and 7 seconds on May 3, 1375 B.C., according to an analysis of a clay tablet, discovered in 1948. Then, a report in the journal Nature in 1989 suggested, in fact, the eclipse actually occurred on March 5, 1223 B.C. That new date was based on an historical dating of the tablet as well as an analysis of the tablet’s text, which mentions the visibility of the planet Mars during the eclipse.</p><p>The Ugaritic texts are a corpus of ancient cuneiform texts discovered since 1928 in Ugarit (Ras Shamra) and Ras Ibn Hani in Syria, and written in Ugaritic, an otherwise unknown Northwest Semitic language. Approximately 1,500 texts and fragments have been found to date. The texts were written in the 13th and 12th centuries BC.</p><p>A tablet in the collection.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYfRg7Txff7wGqv4Yj1ObHZj2khJGmeGzT7HOisthRrnrM6CT841oL0ovUUY9R_f7_G3KT7LmoCY7lq_jDjWfJ0mSUpnaoIFxmkJ3RR-g6rQSmebMgOBUD3Bj7RLRe90SHBGufFL_zAdh8N4lDCU-VqfyySwQD3wlGU5Q1VFvJUAs9iHiXxLz7TG8zzFc/s710/Ugarit-Hittite-King-Letter-Legal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="710" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYfRg7Txff7wGqv4Yj1ObHZj2khJGmeGzT7HOisthRrnrM6CT841oL0ovUUY9R_f7_G3KT7LmoCY7lq_jDjWfJ0mSUpnaoIFxmkJ3RR-g6rQSmebMgOBUD3Bj7RLRe90SHBGufFL_zAdh8N4lDCU-VqfyySwQD3wlGU5Q1VFvJUAs9iHiXxLz7TG8zzFc/s320/Ugarit-Hittite-King-Letter-Legal.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>In 1590, Tycho Brahe discovered a comet in the constellation Pisces.*TIS Prior to his death in 1601, he was assisted for a year by Johannes Kepler, who went on to use Tycho's data to develop his own three laws of planetary motion.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkhXl6za2gcYX-QGEm8c2xhSSeROSeXSsR8fWO2FtXdsHu9l17xTS3TlRAp7cN3_6wW49hsG_iD_QXQ103XsD1xau6wnKfCwd3qJ5WtxTOmMTXA5dqs-Ga_QVqfKdsmdfMnuxPRO4xGADA0os6JEjs20DJ700uiqpRP4X3wqWoOMmh7MYN1HrVxmFW/s519/tycho%201590%20comet.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="519" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkhXl6za2gcYX-QGEm8c2xhSSeROSeXSsR8fWO2FtXdsHu9l17xTS3TlRAp7cN3_6wW49hsG_iD_QXQ103XsD1xau6wnKfCwd3qJ5WtxTOmMTXA5dqs-Ga_QVqfKdsmdfMnuxPRO4xGADA0os6JEjs20DJ700uiqpRP4X3wqWoOMmh7MYN1HrVxmFW/w640-h208/tycho%201590%20comet.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>In 1616, Copernican theory was declared "false and erroneous" in a decree delivered by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, and issued by the Catholic Church in Rome. Further, no person was to be permitted to hold or teach the theory that the earth revolves around the sun. When Galileo subsequently violated the decree, he was put on trial and held under house arrest for the final eight years of his life. *TIS Copernican theory was declared "false and erroneous" by the 11 theologians, appointed by the Pope to examine it, on 24 February 1616. Bellarmine, who was not one of these 11, was ordered by the Pope to convey this decision to Galileo, which he did verbally on 26 February 1616. The Decree of the Index was issued on 5 March 1616 in which "…the books by Nicolaus Copernicus and Diego Zúñiga be suspended until corrected…" This decree was signed by the Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord Cardinal of St. Cecilia, Bishop of Albano P. (Paolo Sfondrati) and Fra Francisco Magdelenus Capiferreus, O.P., Secretary. *Thony Christie, <i>My thanks to Thony for the correction</i> More detail about this event can be found on the <a href="http://pballew.blogspot.com/2013/02/on-this-day-in-math-february-26.html" target="_blank">Feb 26 Post</a> about Galileo<br /></p><p>Original 1543 Nuremberg edition of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (English translation: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNHzXEkFlDKrWdy0IRGdd8JTcaWBhbdfj5oPSveZvbFb-f6T-ISQFsv8fY9se-NM8wdjcCrFufyiysWIrp7ZUSdxnaoZpL7gyoKtwTaeslyQQdZou1zBYA7zWzdI_5tCswIMKXHVO25vKq5Si9tGFCnEGowtZA5KogxZoSmNIetJIinnBQNKV7DLvAaDc/s440/De_revolutionibus_1543.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNHzXEkFlDKrWdy0IRGdd8JTcaWBhbdfj5oPSveZvbFb-f6T-ISQFsv8fY9se-NM8wdjcCrFufyiysWIrp7ZUSdxnaoZpL7gyoKtwTaeslyQQdZou1zBYA7zWzdI_5tCswIMKXHVO25vKq5Si9tGFCnEGowtZA5KogxZoSmNIetJIinnBQNKV7DLvAaDc/s320/De_revolutionibus_1543.png" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1639 Debeaune to Mersenne: “I do not think that one could acquire any solid knowledge of nature in physics without geometry, and the best of geometry consists of analysis, of such kind that without the latter it is quite imperfect.” *VFR<br /></p><hr /><p>1673 Hooke presents Arithmetic Engine to Royal Society. After a presentation of a calculating machine by Leibniz on January 22, (after which Leibniz complained to Oldgenburg that Hooke's examination of the machine had shown "almost indecent interest") Hooke became interested in creating a better machine and announced such intention to the Royal Society. Working with Richard Shortgrave, Harry Hunt and John Pell he produced a machine which would multiply to twenty places over the next six weeks. His diary entry seemed to indicate the demonstration went well, but within a few days he seemed to have dismissed such machines entirely. *Stephen Inwood, Forgotten Genius<br />Image of Leibniz calculator: </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCPoqqBJefs69tItbPIQ_fg5pvKQkyEF2SxRFUMg3fuVnmGJlAsxOAiqjIM5eSJUnFRo1Guo4D5_9z-5aFjs0w1fivuQRtTYg_hNqYD7ycC9im1fbNL6KkEARFbtfaJ-DmboUTWq76Akko1VP_I-zi_N2Vo8ue0HBZBsSJ1YT-mY6dSqga-BqhKOPL/s1110/leibniz%20calculator.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="1110" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCPoqqBJefs69tItbPIQ_fg5pvKQkyEF2SxRFUMg3fuVnmGJlAsxOAiqjIM5eSJUnFRo1Guo4D5_9z-5aFjs0w1fivuQRtTYg_hNqYD7ycC9im1fbNL6KkEARFbtfaJ-DmboUTWq76Akko1VP_I-zi_N2Vo8ue0HBZBsSJ1YT-mY6dSqga-BqhKOPL/w400-h200/leibniz%20calculator.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1684 Halley's father mysteriously went missing and five weeks later was found murdered on the banks of the Medway. *Kate Morant, halleyslog.wordpress.com<br /></p><hr /><p>On March 5, 1750, Euler read his own Recherches sur la Précession at the Berlin Academy. Two days later he wrote d'Alembert giving an extended account of his struggle to derive the precession and giving d'Alembert credit for re-inspiring his efforts to solve it. * Curtis Wilson, Historia Mathematica, Volume 35, Issue 4, November 2008, Pages 329–332<br /></p><p><br /></p> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWDFCphKKU8uKHRt_3CrnA_W6OchVSOMnQ_JH8fpOt6BTd7JP7h3GKbFZpDFYf9SVrjt1T265TaIUwz-C6BtGxsRVG7QRhMzQ6De1rfQ6jrZXaD3HuxDy9DpZ_5UJ8KSSSwc4DjhDb1iB6OWFsyB9dLaQhgcvBMhYcAuK0WJEnn3S5BOiAKZ-xSX4FRt0/s141/precession%20top.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="102" data-original-width="141" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWDFCphKKU8uKHRt_3CrnA_W6OchVSOMnQ_JH8fpOt6BTd7JP7h3GKbFZpDFYf9SVrjt1T265TaIUwz-C6BtGxsRVG7QRhMzQ6De1rfQ6jrZXaD3HuxDy9DpZ_5UJ8KSSSwc4DjhDb1iB6OWFsyB9dLaQhgcvBMhYcAuK0WJEnn3S5BOiAKZ-xSX4FRt0/w400-h289/precession%20top.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><hr /><p>1831 Birth of "The Average Man". Adolphe Quetelet read a memoir to the Brussels Academy Royal. The newborn l'homme moyen would not be officially named by Quetelet until July. *Statistics on the Table: The History of Statistical Concepts and Methods By Stephen M. Stigler <br /></p><p>image: First edition of Quetelet's principal work in which he presented his conception of the homme moyen (“average man”) as the central value about which measurements of a human trait are grouped according to the normal distribution. Sur l’Homme et le Développement de ses Facultés, ou Essai de Physique Sociale. Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_grFR-aNayWoaOFp35PGEPyMRx0f6_y-thGZd0nTodUludy6ev6ftqS996F1hYpjlzjWeO88dKMByPmKtPbphWMFc0PDnEH3YJrAuC5HiXwQFrCl0U7yOREDuGuFDhvac9VzhOJzgJbtlp9gtJ-kS0PWX8LXX1O-89xccxORl4-DmkUpZ-xeXbdiD/s3597/average%20man.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3597" data-original-width="3127" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_grFR-aNayWoaOFp35PGEPyMRx0f6_y-thGZd0nTodUludy6ev6ftqS996F1hYpjlzjWeO88dKMByPmKtPbphWMFc0PDnEH3YJrAuC5HiXwQFrCl0U7yOREDuGuFDhvac9VzhOJzgJbtlp9gtJ-kS0PWX8LXX1O-89xccxORl4-DmkUpZ-xeXbdiD/s320/average%20man.jpg" width="278" /></a></div><p><br /></p><hr /><p>On this day in <b>1835</b> a ceremony to honor The Genius and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton was organized by the citizens of the Lincolnshire, his area of birth, a few years after the centennial of his death. By unanimous choice, the committee selected as the speaker, the 19 year-old George Boole.</p><p>All present were struck by the youthful age of the speaker and not a little amazed by both his knowledge of the subject and his confident lecturing style. *SAU</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkRlraXqBgHmjB-b353sj0M0eHkweQkimQhFan3pibr77UxGkkOCBk5pbQcT9I3ZFxZ3w_sYEQUF8_PdVnEP2FVse446Qj1t9_e62rIqYnFF3A9GMKvWLOPrHmaxG4S4AP7H15_4jWHg406NYdULampPeDyDU8WLIFcdyyPTuHip_2VPQOMJIvIR-SM3s/s318/george%20boole.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="318" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkRlraXqBgHmjB-b353sj0M0eHkweQkimQhFan3pibr77UxGkkOCBk5pbQcT9I3ZFxZ3w_sYEQUF8_PdVnEP2FVse446Qj1t9_e62rIqYnFF3A9GMKvWLOPrHmaxG4S4AP7H15_4jWHg406NYdULampPeDyDU8WLIFcdyyPTuHip_2VPQOMJIvIR-SM3s/s1600/george%20boole.jpeg" width="318" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p></p><hr /><p></p><p>1876 Sylvester, at age 61, appointed professor of mathematics at Johns Hopkins University. This was the real beginning of graduate mathematics education in the United States. *VFR<br /></p><hr /><p>1960 Gao–Guenie (H5 ordinary chondrite) meteorites fell in Burkina Faso on March 5, 1960 at 17:00 (local time). After three separate detonations, several thousands of stones rained down over an area of about 70 square kilometres (27 sq mi). The sound of the fall was heard as far as Ouagadougou, which is 100 kilometers (62 mi) away. Eyewitnesses said that some trees were broken and henhouses destroyed. The largest stones recovered weigh up to 10 kilograms (22 lb)*Wik <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuPPY4bLk_jWCvVUFch-MJAvYi6VIjCksIvBu7pa1wLsjl9Od8r2ZJ21Y5n58Zznc-VyLXlc3fn7TeykMwcfP0ODlC4ctj74RuWAthbeAklgFGGC4fvciUXD1ZGxVHTG7cRgsw5W1RNvWfJFZnJw65lG5Pmx5ZOjSlceXCno4pDslJBlE1v-1ZxxDTDvc/s435/GaoGuenieMeteorite.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="435" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuPPY4bLk_jWCvVUFch-MJAvYi6VIjCksIvBu7pa1wLsjl9Od8r2ZJ21Y5n58Zznc-VyLXlc3fn7TeykMwcfP0ODlC4ctj74RuWAthbeAklgFGGC4fvciUXD1ZGxVHTG7cRgsw5W1RNvWfJFZnJw65lG5Pmx5ZOjSlceXCno4pDslJBlE1v-1ZxxDTDvc/s320/GaoGuenieMeteorite.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1963 On this day in 1963, the Hula-Hoop, a hip-swiveling toy that became a huge fad across America when it was first marketed by Wham-O in 1958, is patented by the company’s co-founder, Arthur “Spud” Melin. An estimated 25 million Hula-Hoops were sold in its first four months of production alone. *http://www.history.com<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy3boQMcPEsdvkT3OLNC85a3YNfiOXyk4IT9iT5MENN_pirkNSikgu5z-BWE6rimp7QLRxhft_PJ-zWNRM8ZeDmvlkqVHodtomi5hFrr1NF8Y4fSn7WAX75DSa5TlWY3OXEp4S9dY_pemV2f3qUqFWLYT1vxXoWLvIPuSK4RYR8vhlCaxVWFYkKacW/s900/hula%20hoop.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="676" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy3boQMcPEsdvkT3OLNC85a3YNfiOXyk4IT9iT5MENN_pirkNSikgu5z-BWE6rimp7QLRxhft_PJ-zWNRM8ZeDmvlkqVHodtomi5hFrr1NF8Y4fSn7WAX75DSa5TlWY3OXEp4S9dY_pemV2f3qUqFWLYT1vxXoWLvIPuSK4RYR8vhlCaxVWFYkKacW/w300-h400/hula%20hoop.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p></p><hr /><p></p><p><b>1981 </b>Today in 1981 the ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, is launched by Sinclair Research and would go on to sell over 1 1⁄2 million units around the world. The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public. It was hugely successful; more than 1.5 million units were sold. In the United States it was initially sold as the ZX-81 under licence by Timex. It had a smashing 1Kb of Ram. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4rL39G5AiiAvhB-iehE6t8QoZEoqrtdlLsdaW4yjogfc9upSQwDRIGBxeALZmDX8435q9caet0tWpzkN9KLY1WfWW-kRn-Z-Xq2nMjt2ASE9XoTdp8ya_Bjlir9LwkvgsvW8pl3hODpo6wDq--VlOHABhZFgxlFDoc7Ilt3fmInjY4QdfhO14Y-bo/s528/zx81.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="528" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4rL39G5AiiAvhB-iehE6t8QoZEoqrtdlLsdaW4yjogfc9upSQwDRIGBxeALZmDX8435q9caet0tWpzkN9KLY1WfWW-kRn-Z-Xq2nMjt2ASE9XoTdp8ya_Bjlir9LwkvgsvW8pl3hODpo6wDq--VlOHABhZFgxlFDoc7Ilt3fmInjY4QdfhO14Y-bo/s320/zx81.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b><p></p><hr /><p>1993 Talking Laptop Helps Blind Student Earn B.S.:<br />In an early demonstration of the impact computers could have on people's lives, the Los Angeles Times reports that a blind student was taking advantage of a talking laptop computer to help him complete courses necessary to graduate from UCLA. After 15 years of going to college on and off, the computer provided Robert Antunez the independence and aid he needed to complete a bachelor's degree in political science. *CHM<br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjowWh9iMJTcQpoRg8EpDthKYIs7LDbNXEiE3EHAOmZ5hzYQQrhlD7uw0x8sRnCDc_5INmz24vxsYKKGtopgM9-9pLofstHrt6QvTmybIE7W7AMrYBVn4LmaQM6yQSWVwNHcUMElWDO4m2tf697q07baP_EBCyCqAmfyJ4Zu98aH9OHk8QxgprVxfyIVdo/s600/march-5-yoshiba%20t1000.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjowWh9iMJTcQpoRg8EpDthKYIs7LDbNXEiE3EHAOmZ5hzYQQrhlD7uw0x8sRnCDc_5INmz24vxsYKKGtopgM9-9pLofstHrt6QvTmybIE7W7AMrYBVn4LmaQM6yQSWVwNHcUMElWDO4m2tf697q07baP_EBCyCqAmfyJ4Zu98aH9OHk8QxgprVxfyIVdo/s320/march-5-yoshiba%20t1000.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">1995 The Yahoo! search engine officially launches on the Internet. 13 months later, Yahoo! will hold its IPO at a price of $13 per share. Yahoo!’s stock will peak at $475 in January 2000, and fall to $8.02 in September 2001.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFslzy7m-N6YLBiz04pTSAC_JZdKPsVNx7b30LW8QHyq0CGB1-rRn7fvuqFU5XL2NoRCBXdeQwuRwqifGslN9IIFX39BxWun5QD2mXQG1aFxPBRUXODuXlbYUxt1nes_f4-RsrVPVMp2BKhgswJGanog-Doku9IBRhWB5bvY2HynZ2ranTvsQfcp2pR-M/s250/Yahoo_Logo.svg_.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="48" data-original-width="250" height="48" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFslzy7m-N6YLBiz04pTSAC_JZdKPsVNx7b30LW8QHyq0CGB1-rRn7fvuqFU5XL2NoRCBXdeQwuRwqifGslN9IIFX39BxWun5QD2mXQG1aFxPBRUXODuXlbYUxt1nes_f4-RsrVPVMp2BKhgswJGanog-Doku9IBRhWB5bvY2HynZ2ranTvsQfcp2pR-M/s1600/Yahoo_Logo.svg_.png" width="250" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">==================================================================</div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p>1512 Gerardus Mercator (5 Mar 1512- 2 Dec 1594) Flemish cartographer whose most important innovation was a map, embodying what was later known as the Mercator projection, on which parallels and meridians are rendered as straight lines spaced so as to produce at any point an accurate ratio of latitude to longitude. He also introduced the term atlas for a collection of maps. *TIS A nice blog about the Mercator projection, which he suggests should be called the Mercator Wright projection is at the <a href="http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/its-not-the-mercator-projection-its-the-mercator-wright-projection/" target="_blank">Renaissance Mathematicus</a> blogsite.<br />For those interested in a quick look at the math involved in the Mercator-Wright projection, this <a href="http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/09/15/mercator-projection/" target="_blank">Endeavour</a> blog by John D. Cook may help.<br /></p><p>Mercator 1569 world map (Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata) showing latitudes 66°S to 80°N</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZf79CelY8PVXgmW0vFvnz73jrLIh5gNCe25HhjM6zqWqkSyLVT9qnaZmL0gW-6Q-kfuPRDKOiUYm3KXsbsdZERFqISyG_dNErQCLPzdcBJAZGoebFNBDThCCWZu3Lq3sWBDJ8WpUU115PaXMigS3esKkG4tyN_-6hyphenhyphenbIHBIAHBj7oMQH3mYuXMn0Xqmo/s525/Mercator_1569.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="525" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZf79CelY8PVXgmW0vFvnz73jrLIh5gNCe25HhjM6zqWqkSyLVT9qnaZmL0gW-6Q-kfuPRDKOiUYm3KXsbsdZERFqISyG_dNErQCLPzdcBJAZGoebFNBDThCCWZu3Lq3sWBDJ8WpUU115PaXMigS3esKkG4tyN_-6hyphenhyphenbIHBIAHBj7oMQH3mYuXMn0Xqmo/s320/Mercator_1569.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQd55hLviuzeWstj4i3z4qZTcUfetQSGwbwQerhQSefqODYAjuo1zngcVK2YoKyM77BD5v94QH81rJGjXtDwUvm-mhbyLMJSikqc3DDAoyo-1BiF4apLE3ZfMDoAmY9WOq9_IQJtO3uDFywlZdLyrONyyzVH8fTTYz4ISxaa_TqKFsCDh50c2IFAO4S8Y/s326/Mercator_Gerardus_5.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="242" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQd55hLviuzeWstj4i3z4qZTcUfetQSGwbwQerhQSefqODYAjuo1zngcVK2YoKyM77BD5v94QH81rJGjXtDwUvm-mhbyLMJSikqc3DDAoyo-1BiF4apLE3ZfMDoAmY9WOq9_IQJtO3uDFywlZdLyrONyyzVH8fTTYz4ISxaa_TqKFsCDh50c2IFAO4S8Y/s320/Mercator_Gerardus_5.jpeg" width="238" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1575 William Oughtred (5 Mar 1575; 30 Jun 1660 at age 85) English mathematician and Episcopal minister who invented the earliest form of the slide rule, two identical linear or circular logarithmic scales held together and adjusted by hand. Improvements involving the familiar inner rule with tongue-in-groove linear construction came later. He also introduced the familiar multiplication sign x in a 1631 textbook, along with the first use of the abbreviations sin, cos and tan.*Tis There is an <a href="http://www.oughtred.org/history.shtml" target="_blank">Oughtred Society </a>dedicated to the history and preservation of slide rules.<br /></p><p>William Oughtred's most important work was first published in 1631, in Latin, under the title Arithemeticæ in Numeris et Speciebus Institutio, quae tum Logisticæ, tum Analyticæ, atque adeus totius Mathematicæ quasi Clavis est (i.e. "The Foundation of Arithmetic in Numbers and Kinds, which is as it were the Key of the Logistic, then of the Analytic, and so of the whole Mathematic(s)"). It was dedicated to William Howard, son of Oughtred's patron Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel.</p><p>This is a textbook on elementary algebra. It begins with a discussion of the Hindu-Arabic notation of decimal fractions and later introduces multiplication and division sign abbreviations of decimal fractions. Oughtred also discussed two ways to perform long division and introduced the "~" symbol, in terms of mathematics, expressing the difference between two variables. Clavis Mathematicae became a classic, reprinted in several editions. It was used as a textbook by John Wallis and Isaac Newton among others. A concise work, it argued for a less verbose style in mathematics, and greater dependence on symbols. </p><p>The first edition of John Wallis's foundational text on infinitesimal calculus, Arithmetica Infinitorum (1656), carries a long letter of dedication to William Oughtred.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiKeEwCZdOCGjvg8_0CZOcBuxyW3keMRa8MquHUuLup6m_rBAKhCpTMgoF_bfdHl1DeDSrCfxe1YkNrY09yI0uvJmM9c0r2wYvy324e2yiggqpTPsF_WNRyn_uN43PdOq4BGcOFbX2XQ9bBUrOOQuW6So-J1iVopzlnzRcFkEGsZCkFjj0h9ibZlNj-zw/s530/Oughtred_-_Clavis_mathematicae,_1652.tiff.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiKeEwCZdOCGjvg8_0CZOcBuxyW3keMRa8MquHUuLup6m_rBAKhCpTMgoF_bfdHl1DeDSrCfxe1YkNrY09yI0uvJmM9c0r2wYvy324e2yiggqpTPsF_WNRyn_uN43PdOq4BGcOFbX2XQ9bBUrOOQuW6So-J1iVopzlnzRcFkEGsZCkFjj0h9ibZlNj-zw/s320/Oughtred_-_Clavis_mathematicae,_1652.tiff.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirftJ2VCWR2WHFYu2rj8aXY8itir9eyD0RAJX_jRIp1Lxm3-TbjB9T4MX7fkf5CHusKeq1B1aqVZ40jnBhCSWLBCMCzAjIFwCcsN5O82osUB5VL_xuDGUYT1_BxIdxZ68MQsEBm2iFzWjZlBEBpR16qcWYCPxugNSyOo9_RvXX_5QbvYKkuDK7XEFtOsE/s497/Portret_van_William_Oughtred,.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirftJ2VCWR2WHFYu2rj8aXY8itir9eyD0RAJX_jRIp1Lxm3-TbjB9T4MX7fkf5CHusKeq1B1aqVZ40jnBhCSWLBCMCzAjIFwCcsN5O82osUB5VL_xuDGUYT1_BxIdxZ68MQsEBm2iFzWjZlBEBpR16qcWYCPxugNSyOo9_RvXX_5QbvYKkuDK7XEFtOsE/s320/Portret_van_William_Oughtred,.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1624/25 John Collins (5 March 1624 in Wood Eaton (4km north of Oxford), England - 10 Nov 1683 in London, England) was an accountant and publisher who corresponded extensively with the mathematicians of his day. Collins's importance is, as Barrow said, being "the English Mersenne" . He corresponded with Barrow, David Gregory, James Gregory, Newton, Wallis, Borelli, Huygens, Leibniz, Tschirnhaus and Sluze.<br />Collins published books by Barrow and Wallis and left a collection of 2000 books and an uncounted number of manuscripts.<br />He did publish works of his own, however. For instance he published works on sundials, trigonometry for navigation and the use of the quadrant. He had a paper on cartography published and also wrote on accounting, compound interest and annuities. His major works were An introduction to merchant's accounts (1652), The sector on a quadrant (1658), Geometrical dialling (1659), The mariner's plain scale new plained (1659) and, in 1664, he published Doctrine of Decimal Arithmetick. *SAU<br /></p><p>About twenty-five years after Collins's death his books and papers came into the possession of William Jones, F.R.S. They included a voluminous correspondence with Newton, Leibniz, Gregory, Barrow, John Flamsteed, Wallis, Slusius, and others. From it was selected and published in 1712, by order of the Royal Society, the Commercium Epistolicum, of material relevant to Newton's priority over Leibniz in the discovery of the infinitesimal calculus; specimens of results from the use of the fluxional method were transmitted 20 July 1669 through Barrow to Collins, and by him made widely known. *Wik</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicjLP5pZ_0AcjqImqSff2hzBs6vCiQIJ3FmHBbqrf3Zzxeu5Bd5Q5rQSqB0M2jRs9zH6MHnG8Rk46sA9c4SzPX3xBuF-uByUiovuKwDcS-KIr2iY0rUAjuyq2KNrQ-b-iyuPN49QYjjxLwIrARV4z5INVVNhrQWnAHvntH4t3hYE1mw6ljdhtkD0_N60U/s326/collins_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="225" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicjLP5pZ_0AcjqImqSff2hzBs6vCiQIJ3FmHBbqrf3Zzxeu5Bd5Q5rQSqB0M2jRs9zH6MHnG8Rk46sA9c4SzPX3xBuF-uByUiovuKwDcS-KIr2iY0rUAjuyq2KNrQ-b-iyuPN49QYjjxLwIrARV4z5INVVNhrQWnAHvntH4t3hYE1mw6ljdhtkD0_N60U/s320/collins_2.jpg" width="221" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhan7072XO2bH_0Jkot5mFACNKPk6PJpbvpSnBVJvr36YEhHZfTBwS-rz05qbT6vMC_2XuQWkIEA0_OUr8sU6NV-bz2w5I3X-tUVJg7zif5cP_JiRPNYUoW_14w_Hxurwn0nKRrNx_V-kITRAAZKHuZyaFyzFYOYVub1C9oSmKAEikwfpyUDeUE_p8fpJY/s410/John_Collins_Commercium_Epistolicum.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhan7072XO2bH_0Jkot5mFACNKPk6PJpbvpSnBVJvr36YEhHZfTBwS-rz05qbT6vMC_2XuQWkIEA0_OUr8sU6NV-bz2w5I3X-tUVJg7zif5cP_JiRPNYUoW_14w_Hxurwn0nKRrNx_V-kITRAAZKHuZyaFyzFYOYVub1C9oSmKAEikwfpyUDeUE_p8fpJY/s320/John_Collins_Commercium_Epistolicum.png" width="258" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1779 Benjamin Gompertz (March 5, 1779 – July 14, 1865), was a self educated mathematician, denied admission to university because he was Jewish. Nevertheless he was made Fellow of the Royal Society in 1819. Gompertz is today mostly known for his Gompertz law (of mortality), a demographic model published in 1825. The model can be written in this way:<br /><br />N(t) = N(0) e<sup>-c (e<sup>{at}</sup>-1)</sup>,<br /><br />where N(t) represents the number of individuals at time t, and c and a are constants.<br /><br />This model is a refinement of the demographic model of Malthus. It was used by insurance companies to calculate the cost of life insurance. The equation, known as a Gompertz curve, is now used in many areas to model a time series where growth is slowest at the start and end of a period. The model has been extended to the Gompertz–Makeham law of mortality.<br /></p><hr /><p>1794 Jacques Babinet (5 March 1794 – 21 October 1872) was a French physicist, mathematician, and astronomer who is best known for his contributions to optics. A graduate of the École Polytechnique, which he left in 1812 for the Military School at Metz, he was later a professor at the Sorbonne and at the Collège de France. In 1840, he was elected as a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences. He was also an astronomer of the Bureau des Longitudes.<br />Among Babinet's accomplishments are the 1827 standardization of the Ångström unit for measuring light using the red Cadmium line's wavelength, and the principle (Babinet's principle) that similar diffraction patterns are produced by two complementary screens. He was the first to suggest using wavelengths of light to standardize measurements. His idea was first used between 1960 and 1983, when a meter was defined as a wavelength of light from krypton gas.<br />In addition to his brilliant lectures on meteorology and optics research, Babinet was also a great promoter of science, an amusing and clever lecturer, and a brilliant, entertaining and prolific author of popular scientific articles. Unlike the majority of his contemporaries, Babinet was beloved by many for his kindly and charitable nature. He is known for the invention of polariscope and an optical goniometer. *Wik<br /></p><p>The polariscope is an optical inspection device used to detect internal stresses in glass and other transparent materials such as plastics. A goniometer is an instrument that either measures an angle or allows an object to be rotated to a precise angular position. The term goniometry derives from two Greek words, γωνία (gōnía) 'angle' and μέτρον (métron) 'measure'. The protractor is a commonly used type in the fields of mechanics, engineering, and geometry.</p><p>The first known description of a goniometer, based on the astrolabe, was by Gemma Frisius in 1538.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3aRNWe7tnJeH9IPku9T5qOJA15YunGfIrYHjWzbs6Zug-zAv1Jw43ZUxMzEOWwVllwT6Q3HwP60L6fQEZsJYgxe7ZhWsnP8cwmJySVIUtsVlyaWuK4p5DfsUO7SP2gbUhzyIMQGPrDBLB26AR9lqn-rGSu37zaHv8XwT94k9UkVL6kRbMdgOxQIWpU2A/s279/Jacques_Babinet.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="197" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3aRNWe7tnJeH9IPku9T5qOJA15YunGfIrYHjWzbs6Zug-zAv1Jw43ZUxMzEOWwVllwT6Q3HwP60L6fQEZsJYgxe7ZhWsnP8cwmJySVIUtsVlyaWuK4p5DfsUO7SP2gbUhzyIMQGPrDBLB26AR9lqn-rGSu37zaHv8XwT94k9UkVL6kRbMdgOxQIWpU2A/s1600/Jacques_Babinet.jpg" width="197" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbXk4_YxveuxhsoC63X2MHwWCIGmRrkslQAITn03ruXACC3qkn8fawCXPvataVjT3DTEdj7sAQ2F2x-LFwBQDrBQNvp3aunA8Ve3jdY4qDM5ZFBiFhdvVZh22qu9BUUIK23wWn1-l9NDB7XIroxxVCbXzGLynb1kEJOEBQZFhe-Y_gfk4WeDtic8xJfdg/s330/Goniometer%20babinet.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbXk4_YxveuxhsoC63X2MHwWCIGmRrkslQAITn03ruXACC3qkn8fawCXPvataVjT3DTEdj7sAQ2F2x-LFwBQDrBQNvp3aunA8Ve3jdY4qDM5ZFBiFhdvVZh22qu9BUUIK23wWn1-l9NDB7XIroxxVCbXzGLynb1kEJOEBQZFhe-Y_gfk4WeDtic8xJfdg/s320/Goniometer%20babinet.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1815 Angelo Genocchi (5 March 1817 – 7 March 1889) was an Italian mathematician who specialized in number theory. He worked with Giuseppe Peano. The Genocchi numbers are named after him. G(t)= 2t/(e<sup>t</sup>+1)for integer values of t. The first few are 1, −1, 0, 1, 0, −3, 0, 17...(<a href="http://oeis.org/A001469" target="_blank">A001469</a> in OEIS)<br />Genocchi was President of the Academy of Sciences of Turin.*Wik The unsigned coefficients of Genocchi numbers give expansion of x*tan(x/2). *PB</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif1oocVpRdA-Ji2qlDlXxQkZ_0GPDIe6ChAjw_SY9zmz0BGb_Kuy0KQtJFhlbecYdHNnHgJNX6wtFumY68mNwU53hINPp1Q_9OI6A1objfmAd996xBtzZT8y8vDskzJPYTE2b1Qyxxs4Jdii5IcKm3xKDOhYQH1bCSsomJbsVghphLCmDQq6E-BM8myaY/s326/Angelo_Genocchi.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="261" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif1oocVpRdA-Ji2qlDlXxQkZ_0GPDIe6ChAjw_SY9zmz0BGb_Kuy0KQtJFhlbecYdHNnHgJNX6wtFumY68mNwU53hINPp1Q_9OI6A1objfmAd996xBtzZT8y8vDskzJPYTE2b1Qyxxs4Jdii5IcKm3xKDOhYQH1bCSsomJbsVghphLCmDQq6E-BM8myaY/s320/Angelo_Genocchi.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1880 Sergei Natanovich Bernstein (March 5, 1880 – October 26, 1968) was a Russian and Soviet mathematician. His doctoral dissertation, submitted in 1904 to the Sorbonne, solved Hilbert's nineteenth problem on the analytic solution of elliptic differential equations. Later, he published numerous works on Probability theory, Constructive function theory, and mathematical foundations of genetics. From 1906 until 1933, Bernstein was a member of the Kharkov Mathematical Society. *Wik<br /></p><p>He interrupted his studies in France to spend three terms at the University of Göttingen, beginning in the autumn of 1902, where his studies were supervised by David Hilbert.</p><p>Hilbert stated his nineteenth problem as a regularity problem for a class of elliptic partial differential equation with analytic coefficients. Therefore the first efforts of researchers who sought to solve it were aimed at studying the regularity of classical solutions for equations belonging to this class. For C 3 solutions, Hilbert's problem was answered positively by Sergei Bernstein (1904) in his thesis. </p><p>.On the other hand, direct methods in the calculus of variations showed the existence of solutions with very weak differentiability properties. For many years there was a gap between these results. The solutions that could be constructed were known to have square integrable second derivatives, but this was not quite strong enough to feed into the machinery that could prove they were analytic, which needed continuity of first derivatives. This gap was filled independently by Ennio De Giorgi (1956, 1957), and John Forbes Nash (1957, 1958), who were able to show the solutions had first derivatives that were Hölder continuous. By previous results this implied that the solutions are analytic whenever the differential equation has analytic coefficients, thus completing the solution of Hilbert's nineteenth problem. Subsequently, Jürgen Moser gave an alternate proof of the results obtained by Ennio De Giorgi (1956, 1957), and John Forbes Nash (1957, 1958)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3DMBARBR0ZdQDNDuXYSs0iIkyQDhZHOlDov7xlP5btNfwcSwEBVC_4vZWv-TjMpo-vR2zEEUQtTfV_BoVNvOyb3wl5KWxoqMRYvZZl53GqlnCD1N87UPaJn5B-xwkVLkpJbVb0iofH28DO379aHPaOvmiyXZRVdJDquV_7vn5jH6wMyUjzqSc5dwhFKA/s364/Sn%20bernstein.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="273" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3DMBARBR0ZdQDNDuXYSs0iIkyQDhZHOlDov7xlP5btNfwcSwEBVC_4vZWv-TjMpo-vR2zEEUQtTfV_BoVNvOyb3wl5KWxoqMRYvZZl53GqlnCD1N87UPaJn5B-xwkVLkpJbVb0iofH28DO379aHPaOvmiyXZRVdJDquV_7vn5jH6wMyUjzqSc5dwhFKA/s320/Sn%20bernstein.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1885 Pauline Sperry born in Peabody, Massachusetts. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College in 1906 she taught several years before doing graduate work at the University of Chicago under the projective differential geometer Ernest Julius Wilczynski (1876–1932). Her doctoral thesis, "Properties of a certain projectively defined two-parameter family of curves on a general surface", drew on his work as the founder of the American school of projective differential geometry. After receiving her Ph.D. in 1916 she taught at the University of California at Berkeley, becoming the first woman to be promoted to assistant professor in mathematics (in 1923). In 1950 she was fired for refusing to sign a loyalty oath. </p><p>At the height of McCarthyism, the Board of Regents required university employees to sign a loyalty oath. Sperry, Hans Lewy, and others who refused were barred from teaching without pay in 1950. In the case Tolman v. Underhill, the California Supreme Court ruled in 1952 the loyalty oath unconstitutional and reinstated those who refused to sign. Sperry was reinstated with the title emeritus associate professor and later awarded back pay. *Wik</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlQLjl7hbGSVemzBYSSaCA_P8k3ARGAtII-3IOUCl0ohRhzs25tcuzc3-a5ObF4PO8iayvbGhZqG_qklW0Y10lZWNixYhNv48U9tBPbKMwvOKKt1Yj5zeMVOTsnzRlXOnUkDlK9wjZrHnP1dU03ZGsa-t3alzNBwVmrGfR3ebkm2Nl5P9Vv2DNqegvbOE/s326/Pauline_Sperry.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="233" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlQLjl7hbGSVemzBYSSaCA_P8k3ARGAtII-3IOUCl0ohRhzs25tcuzc3-a5ObF4PO8iayvbGhZqG_qklW0Y10lZWNixYhNv48U9tBPbKMwvOKKt1Yj5zeMVOTsnzRlXOnUkDlK9wjZrHnP1dU03ZGsa-t3alzNBwVmrGfR3ebkm2Nl5P9Vv2DNqegvbOE/s320/Pauline_Sperry.jpg" width="229" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1915 Laurent-Moïse Schwartz (5 March 1915 in Paris – 4 July 2002 in Paris) was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awarded the Fields medal in 1950 for his work (developing the theory of distributions, a new notion of generalized functions motivated by the Dirac delta-function of theoretical physics). He was the first French mathematician to receive the Fields medal. For a long time he taught at the École polytechnique. *Wik<br /></p><hr /><p>1931 Vera S. Pless <span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">(nee Stepen; March 5, 1931 – March 2, 2020) </span> is an American mathematician specializing in combinatorics and coding theory. She was professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has co-authored several articles with John H. Conway, giving her an Erdős number of 2.</p><p>As a teenager, she was more interested in playing the cello than in mathematics, but she left high school two years early to go to the University of Chicago, and finished her studies there in three years.</p><p>Inspired by Irving Kaplansky to study abstract algebra, she stayed at the university for a master's degree, which she earned in 1952 not long after marrying her husband, a high-energy experimental physicist.</p><p>Two years later, bored with being a stay-at-home mother, Pless began teaching courses at Boston University, and a few years later began searching for a full-time job. Unable to obtain an academic position, she took a position at the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory in Massachusetts. where she began working on error-correcting codes.</p><p>She returned to Chicago in 1975 as a full professor of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her husband and youngest son had remained in the Boston area, and five years after the move, she and her husband divorced.</p><p>She retired in 2006 and died at her home in Oak Park, Illinois on March 2, 2020 at the age of 88.*Wik</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga2ZlhXp9MO-1kIB4XwP7JWAGX8H32pjnDiKxvjJXmKIQ8874DxrBt6XW9CbVo_R3OOA_4dbAVTtz5aY7_2ZqPsSiHiNWnCLH-RnIE_ILYuy6HnxualmjQNcPkVfCWPr2s9K1S2kLbeJQkrOF5LdG2Qiusu2h_e3I9QvEP1mwDphltjZvXiHojDg9zlzg/s242/vera%20pless.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="242" data-original-width="208" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga2ZlhXp9MO-1kIB4XwP7JWAGX8H32pjnDiKxvjJXmKIQ8874DxrBt6XW9CbVo_R3OOA_4dbAVTtz5aY7_2ZqPsSiHiNWnCLH-RnIE_ILYuy6HnxualmjQNcPkVfCWPr2s9K1S2kLbeJQkrOF5LdG2Qiusu2h_e3I9QvEP1mwDphltjZvXiHojDg9zlzg/s1600/vera%20pless.jpeg" width="208" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*AMS</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><hr /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p>1827 Pierre Simon, Marquis de Laplace (23 Mar 1749, 5 Mar 1827 at age 78) was a French mathematician, physicist, statistician and astronomer known for his mathematical analysis of the stability of the solar system (1773), alleviating Isaac Newton's concerns about perturbations between planets. He took an exact approach to science. He developed an explanation of surface tension of a liquid in terms of inter-molecular attractions, investigated capillary action and the speed of sound. He assisted Antoine Lavoisier (1783) investigating specific heat and heats of combustion, initiating the science of thermochemistry. He believed the solar system formed from a collapsing nebula. He contributed to the mathematics of probability and calculus, in which a differential equation is known by his name, and was involved in establishing the metric system.*TIS His last words were, “What we know is very slight; what we don’t know is immense.” *Eves, Revisited, 319◦<br /><br />The first American translation of his classic Traité de mécanique céleste was done by Nathanial Bowditch. The work was twelve volumes long by the time it was completed by Laplace, the first four volumes extended to 1508 quarto (small) pages. By the time Bowditch completed his translation of the four volumes, explaining the work took 3832 large pages. Perhaps we can now more clearly understand Bowditch's famous quote, "<span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">Whenever I meet in La Place with the words 'Thus it plainly appears,' I am sure that hours, and perhaps days, of hard study will alone enable me to discover </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">how</i><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> it plainly appears."</span></p><p>"</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggkTF1GYsoEER5imwURiTISJWBmoPAECybvdPcgzQVTuZ64x1sHZCVCsCBB944WaiLPX68kU-wjmXFsq5xhoMdkm57l6fWcEIntZy1cH7O7HcpFzw8P6HYkY2MVe-hcudh7-4gnyJy9rN1TrE3W2-Xlo-LRyYp5kAnEUV4YBt9UkGS7NIrMntLvYg08Hs/s300/Laplace,_Pierre-Simon.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="256" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggkTF1GYsoEER5imwURiTISJWBmoPAECybvdPcgzQVTuZ64x1sHZCVCsCBB944WaiLPX68kU-wjmXFsq5xhoMdkm57l6fWcEIntZy1cH7O7HcpFzw8P6HYkY2MVe-hcudh7-4gnyJy9rN1TrE3W2-Xlo-LRyYp5kAnEUV4YBt9UkGS7NIrMntLvYg08Hs/s1600/Laplace,_Pierre-Simon.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR014tL8xBC2T3WPKGTQdHU46mUvgX7v_-7jo_dgaawZUQUNCuEDFilL8kAEq7RF6wg-pQNyGA5UzWTghf6SWPlsuihKMaglHaq4JwLCdKcdfIRciwsYo-xjD3PkpmlhLy3itFwd6fzke9DO4ujrF3iYddl4a2F6AcQIa2wJWQ9xYTFmi2xAROl0h70js/s385/bowditch%20Laplace-1mecanique%20celeste.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR014tL8xBC2T3WPKGTQdHU46mUvgX7v_-7jo_dgaawZUQUNCuEDFilL8kAEq7RF6wg-pQNyGA5UzWTghf6SWPlsuihKMaglHaq4JwLCdKcdfIRciwsYo-xjD3PkpmlhLy3itFwd6fzke9DO4ujrF3iYddl4a2F6AcQIa2wJWQ9xYTFmi2xAROl0h70js/w275-h320/bowditch%20Laplace-1mecanique%20celeste.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1827 Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (18 Feb 1745; 5 Mar 1827 at age 82) Italian physicist who invented the electric battery (1800), which for the first time enabled the reliable, sustained supply of current. His voltaic pile used plates of two dissimilar metals and an electrolyte, a number of alternated zinc and silver disks, each separated with porous brine-soaked cardboard. Previously, only discharge of static electricity had been available, so his device opened a new door to new uses of electricity. Shortly thereafter, William Nicholson decomposed water by electrolysis. That same process later enabled Humphry Davy to isolate potassium and other metals. Volta also invented the electrophorus, the condenser and the electroscope. He made important contributions to meteorology. His study of gases included the discovery of methane. The volt, a unit of electrical measurement, is named after him.*TIS<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqltqxjObrH6_tB0T-fpCwSqxHM4zjjULLCi-ubB6Oz8-pvZD3BqTqzW9Y0fEuXeHr9XsOYOT9MVOzwzCY3iQoS1q8NglhI7nfQdGFhdGVJCIjA_U5JbvVKv65xQHX8-Vz-P4VqJpALWz1UkzCaDKxHLU2qgzvYXikC8nncT4utQxO_WrGFk1ltBrhrwg/s406/Alessandro_Volta.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqltqxjObrH6_tB0T-fpCwSqxHM4zjjULLCi-ubB6Oz8-pvZD3BqTqzW9Y0fEuXeHr9XsOYOT9MVOzwzCY3iQoS1q8NglhI7nfQdGFhdGVJCIjA_U5JbvVKv65xQHX8-Vz-P4VqJpALWz1UkzCaDKxHLU2qgzvYXikC8nncT4utQxO_WrGFk1ltBrhrwg/s320/Alessandro_Volta.jpeg" width="260" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1875 Claude-Louis Mathieu (25 Nov 1783; 5 Mar 1875) French astronomer and mathematician who worked particularly on the determination of the distances of the stars. He began his career as an engineer, but soon became a mathematician at the Bureau des Longitudes in 1817 and later professor of astronomy in Paris. For many years Claude Mathieu edited the work on population statistics L'Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes produced by the Bureau des Longitudes. His work in astronomy focussed on determining the distances to stars. He published L'Histoire de l'astronomie au XVIII siècle in 1827. *TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkY4vIf4MycVzIzpvkrJkdnkr-SqF2MZyTzCkKzJpsQ3e_12D_ZfVZjPSHEhynR5wWNB2aUq6LkwzUK7fkA6kLiBER5fmCMWCbJvHdFFe7LCSAtcbjxH68pWRstwrrZSdeb9ReyAOgyhUgA8Y4mwUfObbOS0nmOt-fu4OkpHOGquKvS9efbn6CisCOzI/s222/Claude_Louis_Mathieu%20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="222" data-original-width="150" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkY4vIf4MycVzIzpvkrJkdnkr-SqF2MZyTzCkKzJpsQ3e_12D_ZfVZjPSHEhynR5wWNB2aUq6LkwzUK7fkA6kLiBER5fmCMWCbJvHdFFe7LCSAtcbjxH68pWRstwrrZSdeb9ReyAOgyhUgA8Y4mwUfObbOS0nmOt-fu4OkpHOGquKvS9efbn6CisCOzI/s1600/Claude_Louis_Mathieu%20.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1982 Karol Borsuk (May 8, 1905, Warsaw – January 24, 1982, Warsaw) Polish mathematician. His main interest was topology.<br />Borsuk introduced the theory of absolute retracts (ARs) and absolute neighborhood retracts (ANRs), and the cohomotopy groups, later called Borsuk-Spanier cohomotopy groups. He also founded the so called Shape theory. He has constructed various beautiful examples of topological spaces, e.g. an acyclic, 3-dimensional continuum which admits a fixed point free homeomorphism onto itself; also 2-dimensional, contractible polyhedra which have no free edge. His topological and geometric conjectures and themes stimulated research for more than half a century. *Wikipedia<br /></p><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1925 Johan Ludwig William Valdemar Jensen (8 May 1859 in Nakskov, Denmark - 5 March 1925 in Copenhagen, Denmark)contributed to the Riemann Hypothesis, proving a theorem which he sent to Mittag-Leffler who published it in 1899. The theorem is important, but does not lead to a solution of the Riemann Hypothesis as Jensen had hoped. It expresses, "... the mean value of the logarithm of the absolute value of a holomorphic function on a circle by means of the distances of the zeros from the center and the value at the center. "<br />He also studied infinite series, the gamma function and inequalities for convex functions.*SAU<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVttaDJc78NRbvJEnifVOjYodZVTLAdksMpMYe3fdvMwAIJL8d5zhz9aMQXWae70SdPXsFkcK-1tnRqWCb5CFAADmydc1RC8NJ1SGCHPQILICHtHbUMUc5NLZ5nk_B-XKAYLg8mFeIGQt3LoAciZV32k3JKVMURYgxz92mKjahna2r047U8I2E0FzQKFQ/s377/Johan_Ludvig_William_Valdemar_Jensen.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVttaDJc78NRbvJEnifVOjYodZVTLAdksMpMYe3fdvMwAIJL8d5zhz9aMQXWae70SdPXsFkcK-1tnRqWCb5CFAADmydc1RC8NJ1SGCHPQILICHtHbUMUc5NLZ5nk_B-XKAYLg8mFeIGQt3LoAciZV32k3JKVMURYgxz92mKjahna2r047U8I2E0FzQKFQ/s320/Johan_Ludvig_William_Valdemar_Jensen.jpg" width="255" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1840 Franz Carl Joseph Mertens</b> (20 March 1840 in Schroda, Posen, Prussia (now Środa Wielkopolska, Poland) - 5 March 1927 in Vienna, Austria) Mertens worked on a number of different topics including potential theory, geometrical applications to determinants, algebra and analytic number theory, publishing 126 papers. Bruce C Berndt writes, "Mertens is perhaps best known for his determination of the sign of Gauss sums, his work on the irreducibility of the cyclotomic equation, and the hypothesis which bears his name. "<br />Many people are aware of Mertens contributions since his elementary proof of the Dirichlet theorem appears in most modern textbooks. However he made many deep contributions including Mertens' theorems, three results in number theory related to the density of the primes. He proved these results using Chebyshev's theorem, a weak version of the prime number theorem. *SAU<br />In his youth, Mertens moved to Berlin where he became a student at Berlin<br />University, and where he studied under Kronecker and Kummer. Mertens first worked in Krakow, and then moved to Austria. Ernst Fischer and Schrodinger, for instance, were students of Mertens at the University of Vienna. *Julio Gonzalez Cabillon, Historia Matematica Discussions<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm1aJkJThdZYpjY7uiQTeGLTvoBYxsU0J8kXs3CFyg6zu-ea_rAKm1Oi1XkYwmqrTAytY__8TOqsLstVucPQ1moa9FKADJpouiuXbk5GyamMRFYldnfkcC6PDBLWuV4Z_Umf7-HxZyZ44zoBK9Dc4BlgIUAs7R6GzCvBQFvzjiYJG0gbKxBVb6uWJfR3c/s326/Mertens.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="268" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm1aJkJThdZYpjY7uiQTeGLTvoBYxsU0J8kXs3CFyg6zu-ea_rAKm1Oi1XkYwmqrTAytY__8TOqsLstVucPQ1moa9FKADJpouiuXbk5GyamMRFYldnfkcC6PDBLWuV4Z_Umf7-HxZyZ44zoBK9Dc4BlgIUAs7R6GzCvBQFvzjiYJG0gbKxBVb6uWJfR3c/s320/Mertens.jpeg" width="263" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1885 John Radford Young </b>(1799– March 5,1885; Peckam, England) was a mathematician, professor and author, who was almost entirely self-educated. At an early age he became acquainted with Olinthus Gilbert Gregory, who perceived his mathematical ability and assisted him in his studies.<br />In 1833, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Belfast College. When Queen's College, Belfast, opened in 1849, the Presbyterian party in control there prevented Young's reappointment as Professor in the new establishment. From that time he devoted himself more completely to the study of mathematical analysis, and made several original discoveries. He appears to have been the first to use the term "circular function" when he used it in 1831 in the an edition of Elements of the Differential Calculus "Thus, ax, a log x, sin x, &c., are transcendental functions: the first is an exponential function, the second a logarithmic function, and the third a circular function"<br />In 1847, he published in the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society a paper "On the Principle of Continuity in reference to certain Results of Analysis", and, in 1848, in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy a paper "On an Extension of a Theorem of Euler". As early as 1844, he had discovered and published a proof of Newton's rule for determining the number of imaginary roots in an equation. In 1866, he completed his proof, publishing in The Philosophical Magazine a demonstration of a principle which in his earlier paper he had assumed as axiomatic. In 1868, he contributed to the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy a memoir "On the Imaginary Roots of Numerical Equations".<br />*Wik<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia8BytDxqtlLQraT4mHOIR1njcFwA20XQCMJLBMOCmoIg2r7pHpon18HtflLz_L62jIUkungkANFbEd_-jEOcKNKVW5gvgLsoGPhPw-PwCY8BUsJphsEqkdit14xAdhfVWKp2wXYhyBvdnz8rmPRquBgHxvjh5hlkWKXy9bYtcjkK0Rohxvb3b9kuHm-Y/s275/radford%20young%20biquadratic%20.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia8BytDxqtlLQraT4mHOIR1njcFwA20XQCMJLBMOCmoIg2r7pHpon18HtflLz_L62jIUkungkANFbEd_-jEOcKNKVW5gvgLsoGPhPw-PwCY8BUsJphsEqkdit14xAdhfVWKp2wXYhyBvdnz8rmPRquBgHxvjh5hlkWKXy9bYtcjkK0Rohxvb3b9kuHm-Y/s1600/radford%20young%20biquadratic%20.jpeg" width="183" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1930 Christine Ladd-Franklin</b> (1 Dec 1847; 5 Mar 1930) American scientist and logician known for contributions to the theory of colour vision accounting for the development of man's color sense which countered the established views of Helmholtz, Young, and Hering. Her position was that color-sense developed in stages. Ladd- Franklin's conclusions were particularly useful in accounting for color-blindness in some individuals. In logic, she published an original method for reducing all syllogisms to a single formula *TIS Ladd-Franklin was the first woman to have a published paper in the Analyst. She was also the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics and logic. The majority of her publications were based on visual processes and logic. Her views on logic influenced Charles S. Peirce’s logic and she was highly praised by Prior.</p><p>In 1878, Ladd was accepted into Johns Hopkins University with the help of James J. Sylvester, an English mathematician among the university's faculty who remembered some of Ladd's earlier works in the Educational Times. Ladd's application for a fellowship was signed "C. Ladd", and the university offered her the position without realizing she was a woman.[8] When they did realize her gender, the board tried to revoke the offer, but Sylvester insisted that Ladd should be his student, and so she was.[8] She held a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University for three years, but the trustees did not allow her name to be printed in circulars with those of other fellows, for fear of setting a precedent.[8] Furthermore, dissension over her continued presence forced one of the original trustees to resign. *Wik</p><p>Sylvester's letter in support of Ladd</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrMGAHM_xQFvOle4LFZvf1qkJpSmcqnYwkTdolNNy4acn3dnjzhMKWjI14neo7Q48bFFEBVtPFjbTsGmWBQHVWoZTTTh4lNpd97hIXrTC-ZOm8_Sp8a7nQUtuzTn28KHRPQP3MWsAUGAPoWAPF_1K2wHFthR37dewm63ANRaNz_mfYC2ZePir3ZJGbzDQ/s417/Christine_Ladd-Franklin.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrMGAHM_xQFvOle4LFZvf1qkJpSmcqnYwkTdolNNy4acn3dnjzhMKWjI14neo7Q48bFFEBVtPFjbTsGmWBQHVWoZTTTh4lNpd97hIXrTC-ZOm8_Sp8a7nQUtuzTn28KHRPQP3MWsAUGAPoWAPF_1K2wHFthR37dewm63ANRaNz_mfYC2ZePir3ZJGbzDQ/s320/Christine_Ladd-Franklin.gif" width="253" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-7LFVGE541qE0GGs-7WEa-PUruDol2Pm25GGcLgbj5V5SHjDRQt6ppSb8q5F0GfOc4V0cOpkeQkEjJ_8n6wPlJxMb0ROUkbNR5V_1jK2V4OKY5mLcb0To8QXLkhmsvam8iOWkB6zF12p-iFtbIRqK3rldLzKuVl94S_eWNlXS2TRrNHBOpvEqGGT6nW4/s640/sylvester%20letter%20for%20christine%20ladd.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="640" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-7LFVGE541qE0GGs-7WEa-PUruDol2Pm25GGcLgbj5V5SHjDRQt6ppSb8q5F0GfOc4V0cOpkeQkEjJ_8n6wPlJxMb0ROUkbNR5V_1jK2V4OKY5mLcb0To8QXLkhmsvam8iOWkB6zF12p-iFtbIRqK3rldLzKuVl94S_eWNlXS2TRrNHBOpvEqGGT6nW4/w640-h250/sylvester%20letter%20for%20christine%20ladd.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1954 Julian Lowell Coolidge</b> (28 Sep 1873, 5 Mar 1954 at age 80) American mathematician and educator who published numerous works on theoretical mathematics along the lines of the Study-Segre school. Coolidge received a B.A. at Harvard (1895), then in England he graduated (1897) with a B.Sc. from Balliol College Oxford. (It is interesting that this degree from Oxford was in natural science and it was the first natural science degree ever awarded by Oxford.) He taught at Groton School, Conn. (1897-9) where one of his pupils was Franklin D Roosevelt, the future U.S. president. From 1899 he taught at Harvard University. Between 1902 and 1904, he went to Turin to study under Corrado Segre and then to Bonn where he studied under Eduard Study. His Mathematics of the Great Amateurs is perhaps his best-known work. *TIS . This geometer wrote several noteworthy books on the history of geometry.*VFR<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8knnJRvMEJK9CFa03DM6jmXSZBr16tYsDACyXi_V0A5tJ7Wg-p_NUqzNL_Tdl8O7tjaUF8VHPxQ3GshsoIfgUtdN1EDvgw-sWeRtw7jJetfaCW9eaB6Lhhc4USbu0gTrepCWNFQacigJBNEVtPwt5rW5iRD97gwRwYDI2CHZWw3p83IQAiC2L6dcIb-k/s425/Histoory%20of%20conic%20sections%20coolidge.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="271" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8knnJRvMEJK9CFa03DM6jmXSZBr16tYsDACyXi_V0A5tJ7Wg-p_NUqzNL_Tdl8O7tjaUF8VHPxQ3GshsoIfgUtdN1EDvgw-sWeRtw7jJetfaCW9eaB6Lhhc4USbu0gTrepCWNFQacigJBNEVtPwt5rW5iRD97gwRwYDI2CHZWw3p83IQAiC2L6dcIb-k/s320/Histoory%20of%20conic%20sections%20coolidge.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3-ayWmI5oFBGTDPfH2feFpdGnzEo9_Rk6h1b1bRGBjSUK_XbzlQVcCEgV7YWH9osSdcKrdxYp9c-5Ujya6dCNzvAJooMwch2ouYfaKsynSaFBKI14YpYrxlNayZMLbQGui06btK9UgzWu7L6yYf8tmLU7kKnNafjwd_GkctZxXJFL8bx3sO4bldHJA4c/s342/Julian_Lowell_Coolidge_(1873-1954).tif.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="225" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3-ayWmI5oFBGTDPfH2feFpdGnzEo9_Rk6h1b1bRGBjSUK_XbzlQVcCEgV7YWH9osSdcKrdxYp9c-5Ujya6dCNzvAJooMwch2ouYfaKsynSaFBKI14YpYrxlNayZMLbQGui06btK9UgzWu7L6yYf8tmLU7kKnNafjwd_GkctZxXJFL8bx3sO4bldHJA4c/s320/Julian_Lowell_Coolidge_(1873-1954).tif.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><hr /><p><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433841880619171855.post-89831175669364366222024-03-04T06:00:00.004+00:002024-03-09T18:07:38.995+00:00On This Day in Math - March 4<p> </p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxft7ZpVJ11HJS6UW0GU0q5C6EOIbTz56Ctg0WC05CQWQjArhhGE3mB2ElHU7ueBtaK3RAtbh_EQyTR2oDMpxnydZJ4cyqL8LzNyDEubtuDnBC8bxSU1OnCz-KVpKj1fJbyqacEIS4Hzs/s1600/willet's+memorial.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxft7ZpVJ11HJS6UW0GU0q5C6EOIbTz56Ctg0WC05CQWQjArhhGE3mB2ElHU7ueBtaK3RAtbh_EQyTR2oDMpxnydZJ4cyqL8LzNyDEubtuDnBC8bxSU1OnCz-KVpKj1fJbyqacEIS4Hzs/s320/willet's+memorial.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><br />This granite memorial, to William Willett, is in a clearing in Petts Wood in south east London. On the south face of the memorial is a sundial that is "set" to British Summer Time (BST) *http://www.waymarking.com/</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />There is no philosophy which is not founded upon knowledge of the phenomena, but to get any profit from this knowledge it is absolutely necessary to be a mathematician.<br />~Daniel Bernoulli<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HtqWYLuc9njv7BDOk1IKdFTxRLr0slF3wolrAyj9i84cOHOhQQ5FpCLeAUwo_a0zDLsHrPOlgGtxaZS-QnZcz_RDYcr9kPcn1IUE_XJqQogQ0lNa7V9buxbqJtexhtXa1i47DnEaarU/s1600/100_views_edo_063.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HtqWYLuc9njv7BDOk1IKdFTxRLr0slF3wolrAyj9i84cOHOhQQ5FpCLeAUwo_a0zDLsHrPOlgGtxaZS-QnZcz_RDYcr9kPcn1IUE_XJqQogQ0lNa7V9buxbqJtexhtXa1i47DnEaarU/s200/100_views_edo_063.jpg" width="131" /></a>The 63 day of the year; in Roman Numerals 63 is LXIII. If you represent each of these letters by its number in the English alphabet you get 12+24+9+9+9=63. (<i>There is one more number that has this quality.</i>)<br /><br />At right, in honor of my many students from Misawa, Aomorishi, Japan, is Print 63 of Utagawa Hiroshige's 100 views of Edo (Koi No Bori)<br /><br />\( \phi(63) = 36\) The number of positive integers which are less than 63 and relatively prime to it.<br /><br />63 can be expressed as powers of its digits, \( 6^2 + 3^3 = 63\)</p><p>63 is the Fourth Woodall Number. Numbers of the form n*2<sup>n</sup>-1. 63 = 4*2,sup>4</sup> -1 Woodall Numbers were used in the study of testing prime numbers. There is only one more Woodall Number that is a Day of the Year.<br /><br />The Five Factorials Game, 2! * 5! / 3! + 4! - 1! = 63<br /><br />63 is the smallest whole number that can be divided by any number from 1 to 9 without repeating decimals. (What's Next?)<br /><br /></p><p>And more Math Facts For Day 63 at Number Facts for Every Year Day <a href="https://mathdaypballew.blogspot.com/2020/02/number-facts-for-every-year-day-61-90.html">(61-90) from On This Day in Math</a></p><hr /><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">EVENTS</span><br /></div><p>1675 date of Charles II’s Royal Warrant that ordered the Board of Ordnance to pay for “the support and Maintenance” of John Flamsteed, appointed “our astronomical observator” and charged:<br /></p><blockquote>“to apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find our the so much-desired longitude of places for the perfecting the art of navigation.”</blockquote><p>*Rebekah Higgitt, Teleskopos (<i>although Ms. Higgitt is not fond of historical anniversaries</i>)<br /><br />The Royal Observatory web page contains a little more information about the events that precipitated the founding of the observatory:<br /></p><blockquote>If you'd stood here on the hill in Greenwich Park on 10 August 1675 you would have seen an important event. At 3.14pm the first Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed laid the foundation stone of the new Royal Observatory, Britain’s first state-funded scientific research institution. Events had moved quickly after the initial visit by the French astronomer, Sieur de St. Pierre in December 1674. Thanks to Charles II’s French mistress, Louise de Kéroualle, rumours started to circulate at court that St. Pierre had devised a means of determining longitude at sea by using observations of the Moon’s position in relation to the background stars. Improving navigation at sea was a major challenge for 17th century merchants and their sailors who undertook long voyages across the globe to bring back precious cargoes of tea, spices, timber, porcelain and textiles. While the French astronomer’s claims were rejected by a committee of English scholars in February 1675, the emergence of this idea highlighted the need for something to be done to address this challenge which offered many lucrative financial and political benefits. On 4 March 1675, the King signed a Royal Warrant appointing Flamsteed as 'astronomical observator..[..]..so as to find out the so much-desired longitude of places for the perfecting the art of navigation'.</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg1dGuIhoB7u1Xy1UlG3dUyiUQ9Tqj-BTl3Ux-urYbuHloc5_As9sDwv41JCl3-hsputkG2B-1GA_mVYJeLKcUIGqEKZHiUZsthDnjl9Rp1H91OoIguewh_CVSvE1Q9UrgVcRKfAyfrPb8zAd_eJfhQB2btem6jJBq-bgcPvohPYB3RXkiT1LoOb2CQnI/s298/greenwich%20obser.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="169" data-original-width="298" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg1dGuIhoB7u1Xy1UlG3dUyiUQ9Tqj-BTl3Ux-urYbuHloc5_As9sDwv41JCl3-hsputkG2B-1GA_mVYJeLKcUIGqEKZHiUZsthDnjl9Rp1H91OoIguewh_CVSvE1Q9UrgVcRKfAyfrPb8zAd_eJfhQB2btem6jJBq-bgcPvohPYB3RXkiT1LoOb2CQnI/s1600/greenwich%20obser.jpeg" width="298" /></a></div><br /><p> </p><hr /><p><b>1801</b> Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States. During his two terms in office he repeatedly sponsored bills providing governmental support of science for the common good. *VFR<br /></p><hr /><p><b>1837</b> Adolphe Quetelet Predicts a meteor shower for the night of August 10th. First published prediction that Persid meteors were annual event.<br />The 1833 Leonid storm had galvanized interest in meteors, and the time was ripe. Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian statistician and founder and director of the Brussels Observatory, had mentioned mid-August meteors very tentatively six months earlier. His attention had been called to meteors by François Arago of France, who dominated European science at the time with his skill in discerning important scientific problems and suggesting experiments to solve them. What, asked Arago in the wake of the 1833 display, constituted a shower of meteors, and what was the rate of the ordinary, everynight drizzle?<br />The problem was ideal for Quetelet, whose passion was statistics. In a speech to the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Brussels on December 3, 1836, Quetelet gave his answer: averaged over the night and year, a single observer should expect to see eight sporadic (nonshower) meteors per hour. That figure is still good today. After his speech Quetelet made a brief mention of unusual August meteors, and in his 1836 annual report of the Brussels Observatory he presented the idea timidly and almost in passing: "I thought I also noticed a greater frequency of these meteors in the month of August (from the 8th to the 15th)."<br />By the following year, Quetelet had accidentally found records in his observatory of exceptional meteor displays on August 10th of 1834 and 1835 to accompany the increase he had seen in 1836. He called for scientists at the March 4, 1837, session of the Royal Academy of Brussels to watch the sky on August 10, 1837. *Sky and Telescope<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLOwEY_PanUoy9XBaHmWX-StAGVN9W5TaidYjz332P5FXbK7Qiu26v4dor16jWeAKEmWs3uZEh2YWIUi0d9c68bGvaomsn8p8_MWZzTNXHC5kmvItonzB5-8WJETrT5rgoH4KUJbQPp2V_xcKguNSYh_y-5StswEHbfl00faGo9XJEnoC2J-hGdpab/s300/persids%20shower.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLOwEY_PanUoy9XBaHmWX-StAGVN9W5TaidYjz332P5FXbK7Qiu26v4dor16jWeAKEmWs3uZEh2YWIUi0d9c68bGvaomsn8p8_MWZzTNXHC5kmvItonzB5-8WJETrT5rgoH4KUJbQPp2V_xcKguNSYh_y-5StswEHbfl00faGo9XJEnoC2J-hGdpab/s1600/persids%20shower.jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Space.com</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_jzKIFkSonovvq1jBXS9hVY2au90bEMkjb26kCK-sFVxFIGzDDERtmXThWzqeAg6jIMTRiuEPNRz9B-rKsb6QwTBAsHoOKxeSa-_zM4EwwY8M6qHP8mCtX5te4C8IqHaHMARtK_pVZDkuk-sDeLuoNdzZFEAIc8UeGcF0zdLuI7aw6TKmwwOU6nU_fcs/s600/Adolphe_Quetelet_Standbeeld.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="387" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_jzKIFkSonovvq1jBXS9hVY2au90bEMkjb26kCK-sFVxFIGzDDERtmXThWzqeAg6jIMTRiuEPNRz9B-rKsb6QwTBAsHoOKxeSa-_zM4EwwY8M6qHP8mCtX5te4C8IqHaHMARtK_pVZDkuk-sDeLuoNdzZFEAIc8UeGcF0zdLuI7aw6TKmwwOU6nU_fcs/s320/Adolphe_Quetelet_Standbeeld.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Hilbert_curve.gif" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Hilbert_curve.gif" width="200" /></a></div><p><b>1891</b> David Hilbert submits article on his space filling curve, Über die stetige Abbildung einer Linie auf ein Flächenstück to the journal Mathematische Annalen. *Wik</p><p> Applications of the Hilbert curve are in image processing: especially image compression and dithering.</p><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1929</b> When Herbert Hoover was sworn in as President of the United States, his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, became the first “First Lady” with a degree in a scientific field. Like her husband, she had graduated from Stanford with a degree in geology. *FFF pg 313<br />Ben Gross added, "I'm pretty sure that Lou Henry Hoover is the only First Lady to be featured as @LindaHall_org's #ScientistOfTheDay!" I would not doubt him. </p><p>She spoke five languages by the time she became first lady.</p><p>On March 9, 1914, the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America held a dinner to be-stow the Society’s first gold medal on Herbert Hoover (1874 – 1964) and his wife Lou Henry Hoover (1874-1944) to honor their joint translation and annotation of a treatise on mining,</p><p> De Re Metallica.</p><p> Written by the German polymath Georgius Agricola (1494-1555) , the original work was published in 1556 in medieval Latin and had never before been adequately translated and decoded into a comprehensible modern language. Agricola was revered by such intellectual giants as the explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the poet Goethe, both of whom had worked as mining managers as young men. The treatise was often consulted,but rarely completely understood until the Hoovers’ English version was first published in 1912-1913. (It was the first English translation. *PB) The footnotes contain lengthy essays on the history of metallurgy and its role in civilization. The Hoovers’ thesis is expressed at the end of their introduction: “Science is the base upon which is reared the civilization of today.” In accordance with protocol, Herbert Hoover’s name came rst on the title page, then his wife’s name. Both Hoovers held bachelors degrees in geology from Stanford. While he wasa brilliant manager, Herbert Hoover was better at mathematics than languages and almost did not graduate from Stanford because of his deficient English. He failed his German class and never learned Latin. The members of the engineering profession in the United States knew the high-profile couple well, and understood what his remarkable pragmatic talents were,and also what her extraordinary intellectual talents were. The March 14, 1914 edition of the Engineering & Mining Journal simply stated what everyone knew:“In all of Mr. Hoover’s literary work,Mrs.Hoover has been an important collaborator. In the preparation of his ‘Principles of Mining’ she revised the manuscript, read the proofs and saw the work through the press, remaining in New York for that purpose after Mr. Hoover had been called away. In the translation of Agricola, her collaboration was more important. She accompanied Mr. Hoover in his travels of investigation, joined in his studies of the history of mining, and bore the brunt of the translation of corrupt, medieval Latin into fluent and accurateEnglish.” </p><p>An interesting anecdote I heard, which perhaps,someone can verify or refute, is that after his aid work to support the restoration of Europe after WWI, in one of the countries "to Hoover" means to help.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPhQ2aFevCrLhk5jRfrLTX2KXof3PnxqzysbtUHhbq2JMcmy8-azaktN0__WooEU0_oB5_qfAzrPI9EAM1gDckgWxca7SnxMDfBaZa-k7l98hf6tdaLXN28iSenPn6AX15Af7B1EfaBJR_GlM7oTHtTO8z_Tu_66RRQu3dateytd0PKvZ3hfUGVUijYHw/s384/Lou-Henry-Hoover-WH-Portrait.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPhQ2aFevCrLhk5jRfrLTX2KXof3PnxqzysbtUHhbq2JMcmy8-azaktN0__WooEU0_oB5_qfAzrPI9EAM1gDckgWxca7SnxMDfBaZa-k7l98hf6tdaLXN28iSenPn6AX15Af7B1EfaBJR_GlM7oTHtTO8z_Tu_66RRQu3dateytd0PKvZ3hfUGVUijYHw/s320/Lou-Henry-Hoover-WH-Portrait.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1949</b> The first time the carbon-14 radioactive dating technique was used. To test the theory the method was used to determine the age of Egyptian artifacts where their age was already known. Willard Frank Libby dated a piece of wood from the Third Dynasty Pharaoh Djoser's tomb that was about 4,700 years old. This age was nearly the same as the half-life of carbon-14, they expected the concentration of carbon-14 would be half that found today. This test was successful. *about.com<br /></p><p>In 1960, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his method to use carbon-14 for age determination in archaeology, geology, geophysics, and other branches of science". He also discovered that tritium similarly could be used for dating water, and therefore wine.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFRMZn79dFWzXOuX2mRIQRar8ueW2PdlX5jsF0HP_QXx4eCtRXT3dMP31FSUzC4S8aHDrZ0JQlkS_8bCT9pabhzub2RgEVgJ4sgIRnw0O2LnZqeGtoF75jVvXCkvOwMCgeNJQdgieV5OEMOY98fHTykRGiOmRnLh5RYFPc3prOdQhBxwMDAn2wAIWxOCw/s330/Willard_Libby_in_Lab.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="330" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFRMZn79dFWzXOuX2mRIQRar8ueW2PdlX5jsF0HP_QXx4eCtRXT3dMP31FSUzC4S8aHDrZ0JQlkS_8bCT9pabhzub2RgEVgJ4sgIRnw0O2LnZqeGtoF75jVvXCkvOwMCgeNJQdgieV5OEMOY98fHTykRGiOmRnLh5RYFPc3prOdQhBxwMDAn2wAIWxOCw/s320/Willard_Libby_in_Lab.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1956</b> An Wang Sells Core Memory Patent to IBM:<br />An Wang sells his patent for ferrite core memory to IBM for \($500,000\). One of the most important inventions in computer history, ferrite core memory was widely used in digital computers from the mid-1950s until the mid-1970s. The U.S. Patent Office awarded Wang the patent for what he called a pulse transfer controlling device in 1949. Jay Forrester at MIT is considered the inventor of core memory. *CHM</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWGiAVlcMl2OhVMnoEg8GcF-iQ7Z7QWs8PE3fqu3uCfiPKIF9rVrOxZlZ6rKRdZAXws7WVtggZZWp0CoCDS_90BDKARNMRJokK5hJvM5anPtvp_yJCrxjyuPGe57xwcC7ARG7SNDHTfbKokTzCuBXNLI4aG2fx22apntp_CR-hIbskfitu9SQSKSFVUSQ/s330/wang%20magnetic%20core.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="330" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWGiAVlcMl2OhVMnoEg8GcF-iQ7Z7QWs8PE3fqu3uCfiPKIF9rVrOxZlZ6rKRdZAXws7WVtggZZWp0CoCDS_90BDKARNMRJokK5hJvM5anPtvp_yJCrxjyuPGe57xwcC7ARG7SNDHTfbKokTzCuBXNLI4aG2fx22apntp_CR-hIbskfitu9SQSKSFVUSQ/s320/wang%20magnetic%20core.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI6gklmt_-8HqFyk582SVCRG3hEM4iW7xBiJl0VYvtZszWKQayeoFsxEDq239ApRd2eI5jwt0wGz35SszCy9KYihmTjB001g2TsuRVk30NA8YzWgMr5eQTVtNgdqJeu7D6pSdchwsA461a8hrA4Cqkw8knWVhkhBIpoCdAxbYvPnr4lNbsPoUqTX9lcw0/s772/an%20wang.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="772" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI6gklmt_-8HqFyk582SVCRG3hEM4iW7xBiJl0VYvtZszWKQayeoFsxEDq239ApRd2eI5jwt0wGz35SszCy9KYihmTjB001g2TsuRVk30NA8YzWgMr5eQTVtNgdqJeu7D6pSdchwsA461a8hrA4Cqkw8knWVhkhBIpoCdAxbYvPnr4lNbsPoUqTX9lcw0/s320/an%20wang.jpg" width="249" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>In <b>1977</b>, the first Freon-cooled Cray-1 supercomputer, costing \($19,000,000\) , was shipped to Los Alamos Laboratories, NM, and was used to help the defense industry create sophisticated weapons systems. This system had a peak performance of 133 megaflops and used the newest technology, integrated circuits and vector register technology. The Cray-1 looked like no other computer before or since. It was a cylindrical machine 7 feet tall and 9 feet in diameter, weighed 30 tons and required its own electrical substation to provide it with power (an electric bill around \($35,000/month\)). The inventor, Seymour Cray, died 5 Oct 1996 in an auto accident. His innovations included vector register technology, cooling technologies, and magnetic amplifiers. *TIS</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgP1QpgN3EvI9u0-DLaL_uDuGVbN8Cl9UQ1oqQX0eJWA0gF3nOsNJ2BHFZoupOPlNNGXNv1jYFaFo1i1hyphenhyphenw2exTj42RBBooMzBdwt-DlLtyWq391XCoQy7bm8hIS0BetfPUY044EP6T_8Azq3LptXE27PxewCu0PbesytjKRuewtw6DY2uwz85D6qaskA/s450/Cray%201%20Museum.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="450" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgP1QpgN3EvI9u0-DLaL_uDuGVbN8Cl9UQ1oqQX0eJWA0gF3nOsNJ2BHFZoupOPlNNGXNv1jYFaFo1i1hyphenhyphenw2exTj42RBBooMzBdwt-DlLtyWq391XCoQy7bm8hIS0BetfPUY044EP6T_8Azq3LptXE27PxewCu0PbesytjKRuewtw6DY2uwz85D6qaskA/s320/Cray%201%20Museum.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1979</b> Voyager I photo reveals rings of Jupiter. *VFR The first evidence of a ring around the planet Jupiter is seen in this photograph taken by Voyager 1 on March 4, 1979. The multiple exposure of the extremely thin faint ring appears as a broad light band crossing the center of the picture.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTQ0KlE4ZIiO5xMycQrXsVkSL5oT6eYWg-qvRudDybM74C6-2xV" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTQ0KlE4ZIiO5xMycQrXsVkSL5oT6eYWg-qvRudDybM74C6-2xV" width="255" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">*NASA</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><hr /><p>The<b> 2007</b> Parliamentary elections held on Estonia on this day were the world’s first nationwide election where voting was allowed over the Internet. A little over 30,000 out of 940,000 registered Estonian voters participated in Internet voting that year, which was conducted from February 26-28 prior to the election. Voters had to use their state-issued ID and enter two passwords to cast their votes online. From the 3.4% of voters who voted over the Internet in 2007, nearly 44% of Estonian voters did so in their 2019 elections.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPRaZAvZXMOUpsdCnnDW4cjvQoz5bFt_yl4ke48ImGs8YZkdkvC-rvNoUJ8N4zVBOb-v1WcvjtWNsz_as8r89rEx7H7-ZCo7ds2hwxMHNp-WaadnOUsYT4p7nqTnaPw8smtqa35HnHGXVYEoWu4DLTmeq206N0q1ywLgP0Sa6k8Lad-9iYUMpUisUbC14/s300/Flag-of-Estonia-.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPRaZAvZXMOUpsdCnnDW4cjvQoz5bFt_yl4ke48ImGs8YZkdkvC-rvNoUJ8N4zVBOb-v1WcvjtWNsz_as8r89rEx7H7-ZCo7ds2hwxMHNp-WaadnOUsYT4p7nqTnaPw8smtqa35HnHGXVYEoWu4DLTmeq206N0q1ywLgP0Sa6k8Lad-9iYUMpUisUbC14/s1600/Flag-of-Estonia-.png" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><b>=============================================================</b></p><p><b>in 2012</b> Today's date could be written (yr/mo/day) as 12/3/4 (I missed this until it was pointed out to me by Don McDonald)<br /></p><p>in 2023, next month on April 5 would be 23/4/5. </p><hr /><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIRTHS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p><b>1822 Jules Antoine Lissajous</b> (4 March 1822 in Versailles, France - 24 June 1880 in Plombières, France) was a French mathematician best known for the Lissajous figures produced from a pair of sine waves. *SAU The curves are also called (and perhaps should always be called) Bowditch curves for the early American mathematician, Nathanial Bowditch, who worked with them earlier. In general, a parametric curve with equations x= A sin(k t ); y= B sin(m t), the curves can describe things as simple as a circle or ellipse to more complex open and closed curves. If the ratio of k/m is rational, the curve will eventually close.(EEB)<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7D6lFeSvpAnwtrieDEtbsoC_2yPVR44DJa_-8rwiLd7Bg4QxJJLAL_Ddx63j1aaHFXBiKrsxmKk2Xg3L6PPzpXxhagbpP3GgfC55NVpU5VupbJlYn5543htl5NU87ezSD0y7zWVV0HdQ/s1600/Lissajous_curve_5by4_svg.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7D6lFeSvpAnwtrieDEtbsoC_2yPVR44DJa_-8rwiLd7Bg4QxJJLAL_Ddx63j1aaHFXBiKrsxmKk2Xg3L6PPzpXxhagbpP3GgfC55NVpU5VupbJlYn5543htl5NU87ezSD0y7zWVV0HdQ/s1600/Lissajous_curve_5by4_svg.png" t8="true" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-color: initial; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-style: none; border-top: medium none; border-width: medium;"></div><p>Lissajous was interested in waves and developed an optical method for studying vibrations. He wanted to be able to see the waves that were created by vibrations, usually expressed in the form of sound. At first he studied waves produced by a tuning fork in contact with water, studying the ripples that were caused. Working on these ideas, he published Sur la position des noeuds dans les lames qui vibrent transversalement (1850). In 1855 he described a way of studying acoustic vibrations by reflecting a light beam from a mirror attached to a vibrating object onto a screen. *SAU<br /></p><hr /><p><b>1833 John Monroe Van Vleck</b> (March 4, 1833–November 4, 1912) was an American mathematician and astronomer. He taught astronomy and mathematics at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut for more than 50 years (1853-1912), and served as acting university president twice. The Van Vleck Observatory (at Wesleyan University) and the crater Van Vleck on the Moon are named after him. *Wik<br /></p><hr /><p><b>1854 Sir (William) Napier Shaw</b> (4 Mar 1854; 23 Mar 1945 at age 90) was an English meteorologist who applied his training in mathematics. He studied the upper atmosphere, using instruments carried by kites and high-altitude balloons. He measured (1906) the movement of air in two anti-cyclones, finding descent rates of 350 and 450 metres per day. He calculated the reduction in pressure due to a certain depression to correspond to the removal of two million million tons of air. He introduced the millibar unit for measurement of air pressure (1000 millibar = 1 bar = 1 standard atmosphere) and the tephigram to illustrate the temperature of a vertical profile of the atmosphere. He also co-authored an early work on atmospheric pollution, The Smoke Problem of Great Cities (1925).*TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWF8Ppob-vwLOZLI2jwtvsddN9uDnC5WbfVRp6l4cixGZ183ZtkMqVAF_eFbpPl7js37RcIs1q1d1P9xVjckKz9zT2lIbOcps1NiOW3fyrx-lTMfUMrAPIH233PrReqWGYzCTNUwBnxqULU8sL3_NXEh9qr7ee3DLNJ7PN5odgNW4Rs4H1RJAGtCkFW0/s149/napier%20shaw.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="105" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWF8Ppob-vwLOZLI2jwtvsddN9uDnC5WbfVRp6l4cixGZ183ZtkMqVAF_eFbpPl7js37RcIs1q1d1P9xVjckKz9zT2lIbOcps1NiOW3fyrx-lTMfUMrAPIH233PrReqWGYzCTNUwBnxqULU8sL3_NXEh9qr7ee3DLNJ7PN5odgNW4Rs4H1RJAGtCkFW0/s1600/napier%20shaw.jpeg" width="105" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikKBEyQNjbtalyQv_kFG9rf9uWtOJovTkGduAh8cA_YaHIKN0eLJr2PZVpYPLn6DDFWTGd1hyphenhyphenXWUUyo68tA46QrSGiNg0sjMaD-OZ6dfqbAyCrB5tm7Z_E_ElwLj2qTsOpThVrtyxTkJwDvSFwSa5yXmjix8PpTN_uxXBmQSj4P08dhtpt_1y0DimBMus/s473/T%C3%A9phigramme%20shaw.svg.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikKBEyQNjbtalyQv_kFG9rf9uWtOJovTkGduAh8cA_YaHIKN0eLJr2PZVpYPLn6DDFWTGd1hyphenhyphenXWUUyo68tA46QrSGiNg0sjMaD-OZ6dfqbAyCrB5tm7Z_E_ElwLj2qTsOpThVrtyxTkJwDvSFwSa5yXmjix8PpTN_uxXBmQSj4P08dhtpt_1y0DimBMus/s320/T%C3%A9phigramme%20shaw.svg.png" width="223" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 12.376px; text-align: left;">Annotated tephigram *Wik</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1862 Robert Emden</b> (4 Mar 1862, 8 Oct 1940) Swiss astrophysicist and mathematician who wrote Gaskugeln (Gas Spheres, 1907), giving a mathematical model of stellar structure as the expansion and compression of gas spheres, wherein the forces of gravity and gas pressure are in equilibrium. He expanded on earlier work by J. H. Lane (1869) and A. Ritter (1878-83) who first derived equations describing stars as gaseous chemical, spherical bodies held together by their own gravity and obeying the known gas laws of thermodynamics. For four decades, the Lane-Emden equation was the foundation of theoretical work on the structure of stars: their central temperatures and pressures, masses, and equilibria. Emden also devised a hypothesis, no longer taken seriously, to explain sunspots. *TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhxyqcYMEbpJLalRGsKOcOGhJ_WmumLxrH1mLp8l25hgBvhLtgfH3fvU_wtv41MaJrPPcHHR6z6iVrcuiWpjEo9UibtSoWzJCwkK9eflcuFI9qFFtuA2wuvQI1GAKye9e31gEFez9wadWMA6Ym_9z0ghRihZWjeMgZZK9IwpGBrTDwXPKqAJP7_6Lsb6w/s220/emden.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="220" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhxyqcYMEbpJLalRGsKOcOGhJ_WmumLxrH1mLp8l25hgBvhLtgfH3fvU_wtv41MaJrPPcHHR6z6iVrcuiWpjEo9UibtSoWzJCwkK9eflcuFI9qFFtuA2wuvQI1GAKye9e31gEFez9wadWMA6Ym_9z0ghRihZWjeMgZZK9IwpGBrTDwXPKqAJP7_6Lsb6w/s1600/emden.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIpoUVRVfUsDD_Ixil3sYqzaM2QcPmlN1-VXWGCuAZSoMc_GUEibmzYa57FWi-MFx72cFFESlX4wp38Jx8s-JQy5TQCVgTZyaHTbm5bP09AHMII72dAJ0XUR7ALALA_G5HuwYItfln00V8-gxoOsGtKb4NC3a91N78dySv2flOV9ADWGMQ7kv2EhenHbI/s279/lane%20emden%20eq.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="101" data-original-width="279" height="101" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIpoUVRVfUsDD_Ixil3sYqzaM2QcPmlN1-VXWGCuAZSoMc_GUEibmzYa57FWi-MFx72cFFESlX4wp38Jx8s-JQy5TQCVgTZyaHTbm5bP09AHMII72dAJ0XUR7ALALA_G5HuwYItfln00V8-gxoOsGtKb4NC3a91N78dySv2flOV9ADWGMQ7kv2EhenHbI/s1600/lane%20emden%20eq.png" width="279" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lane Emden Equation, *Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><b>1866 Eugène Maurice Pierre Cosserat </b>(4 March 1866 in Amiens, France - 31 May 1931 in Toulouse, France) Cosserat studied the deformation of surfaces which led him to a theory of elasticity. *SAU<br /></p><hr /><p><b>1881 Richard C(hace) Tolman</b> (4 Mar 1881, 5 Sep 1948) was an American physicist and chemist who demonstrated that electrons are the charge-carrying entities in the flow of electricity, and also made a measurement of its mass. During the Manhattan Project of WW II, he was the chief scientific adviser to Brig. General Leslie Groves, the head of military affairs overseeing the development of the atomic bomb. After the war he was adviser to the U.S. representative to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. *TIS<br /></p><p>Each year, the southern California section of the American Chemical Society honors Tolman by awarding its Tolman Medal "in recognition of outstanding contributions to chemistry."</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-eICBnA6nAgqotYoDWUfV95Doh_5W5vhLmC1gNnDHZF-w7aS9jj01zkGJ9Rxv5TPMX80a8Gm6CLnx5f2j4H0gf27nTb3a-jSnPvLhwsdEWqgG392FxtQYWxSRqUkPORQyecnhzYNzgCE6HX0U79P_Q9oLe4BG0cYJXYhVZ_DJ4RmmbmjB9vYgCu1uu8/s413/Richard_C._Tolman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-eICBnA6nAgqotYoDWUfV95Doh_5W5vhLmC1gNnDHZF-w7aS9jj01zkGJ9Rxv5TPMX80a8Gm6CLnx5f2j4H0gf27nTb3a-jSnPvLhwsdEWqgG392FxtQYWxSRqUkPORQyecnhzYNzgCE6HX0U79P_Q9oLe4BG0cYJXYhVZ_DJ4RmmbmjB9vYgCu1uu8/s320/Richard_C._Tolman.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><div><hr /><b>1889 Oscar Chisini</b> (March 4, 1889 – April 10, 1967) was an Italian mathematician. He introduced the Chisini mean (The arithmetic, harmonic, geometric, generalised, Heronian and quadratic means are all Chisini means, as are their weighted variants) in 1929. In 1929 he founded the Institute of Mathematics (Istituto di Matematica) at the University of Milan, along with Gian Antonio Maggi and Giulio Vivanti. He then held the position of chairman of the Institute from the early 1930s until 1959.The Chisini conjecture in algebraic geometry is a uniqueness question for morphisms of generic smooth projective surfaces, branched on a cuspidal curve. A special case is the question of the uniqueness of the covering of the projective plane, branched over a generic curve of degree at least five. *Wik</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqSbNFKl76wMW-LktULBH_kD8_RAmz3vzjfEaf5tygjRt18aYqlodg5sFTM2Gkar9-ZfF-66Fr5caDakydD2Er9qF6E1RYYQ2JjM5Fh9KMMiS53UtLCU0GgrTVw_BiBcvKGpaEbHlH6oL_ekegiOFrrGfplx5FPTsuJQ1dtShW_WYC2z5v6bUnIdHLQ24/s326/Oscar_Chisini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="235" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqSbNFKl76wMW-LktULBH_kD8_RAmz3vzjfEaf5tygjRt18aYqlodg5sFTM2Gkar9-ZfF-66Fr5caDakydD2Er9qF6E1RYYQ2JjM5Fh9KMMiS53UtLCU0GgrTVw_BiBcvKGpaEbHlH6oL_ekegiOFrrGfplx5FPTsuJQ1dtShW_WYC2z5v6bUnIdHLQ24/s320/Oscar_Chisini.jpg" width="231" /></a></div><p><br /></p><div><br /><hr /></div><p><b>1904 George Gamow </b>(4 Mar 1904,19 Aug 1968) Russian-born American nuclear physicist, cosmologist and writer who was one of the foremost advocates and developer of Lemaître's Big Bang theory, which describes the origin of the universe as a colossal explosion that took place billions of years ago. In 1954, he expanded his interests into biochemistry and his work on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) made a basic contribution to modern genetic theory. *TIS</p><p>Gamow discovered a theoretical explanation of alpha decay by quantum tunneling, invented the liquid drop model and the first mathematical model of the atomic nucleus, worked on radioactive decay, star formation, stellar nucleosynthesis, Big Bang nucleosynthesis (which he collectively called nucleocosmogenesis), and molecular genetics.</p><p>At the University of Leningrad, Gamow made friends with three other students of theoretical physics, Lev Landau, Dmitri Ivanenko, and Matvey Bronshtein. The four formed a group they called the Three Musketeers, which met to discuss and analyze the ground-breaking papers on quantum mechanics published during those years. He later used the same phrase to describe the Alpher, Herman, and Gamow group.</p><p>In his middle and late career, Gamow directed much of his attention to teaching and wrote popular books on science, including One Two Three... Infinity and the Mr Tompkins series of books (1939–1967). Some of his books remain in print more than a half-century after their original publication.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisF2eH2H10jVHKS5NLBtj56pOigDIdzQCJqn7Gw-h_4ljYm76js8RoaP5UM9zRlmshd1UJNP-alw2qiMMXCHl059-qGuyqYEV2_q1Ll7ul2_FtZrdM7XK2y6oSFhQRhr3957UpE0F98XrFbRiqTDEgInAkGB0STuuB1KTJwiByZ_PL_7qLCVkG92u5sSs/s365/George_Gamow.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="273" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisF2eH2H10jVHKS5NLBtj56pOigDIdzQCJqn7Gw-h_4ljYm76js8RoaP5UM9zRlmshd1UJNP-alw2qiMMXCHl059-qGuyqYEV2_q1Ll7ul2_FtZrdM7XK2y6oSFhQRhr3957UpE0F98XrFbRiqTDEgInAkGB0STuuB1KTJwiByZ_PL_7qLCVkG92u5sSs/s320/George_Gamow.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*Wik</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.fnal.gov/pub/about/campus/images/wilsonhall.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a></div><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8LOAtrqmroqLGv1SdNG2TI6vNv3kvQ-GQxwsPXN4-HbvdfpZldWoedOMJMh8NmMwwf1AnqUWLw3pB2MLkbvuVzB9Ri8OsHC-f1qnWRJlaiMVDjabxsINGTjqRPHCzMqkvFqgX3FX69vGxt1nSyDgcn_98DIhoEYMs6F9PlWsDhcF-BEXMb5e8ATu/s269/wilson%20hall.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="269" data-original-width="187" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8LOAtrqmroqLGv1SdNG2TI6vNv3kvQ-GQxwsPXN4-HbvdfpZldWoedOMJMh8NmMwwf1AnqUWLw3pB2MLkbvuVzB9Ri8OsHC-f1qnWRJlaiMVDjabxsINGTjqRPHCzMqkvFqgX3FX69vGxt1nSyDgcn_98DIhoEYMs6F9PlWsDhcF-BEXMb5e8ATu/s1600/wilson%20hall.jpeg" width="187" /></a></b></div><b>1914 Robert Rathbun Wilson</b> (4 Mar 1914, 16 Jan 2000) was an American physicist who was the first director of Fermilab. From 1967, he led the design and construction of Fermilab (the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) near Chicago, Illinois. He also improved the environment by restoring prairie at the site. It began operating in 1972 with the world's most powerful particle accelerator. With later improvements, it retained that status for well over three decades until it was superceded by the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Wilson is remembered for his justification of the needed financing at a Senate hearing in 1969, where he said “It has nothing to do with defending our country, except to make it worth defending.” He resigned in 1978 because he did not believe the government was giving it sufficient funding for its research mission.*TIS The stately 16-story Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall rises above the surrounding Illinois countryside. Inspired by a Gothic cathedral in Beauvais, France, its twin towers are joined by crossovers beginning at the seventh floor. Spent a wonderful week there one summer in pursuit of knowledge in non-linear dynamics.<br /><p></p><hr /><p><b>1923</b> Patrick (Alfred Caldwell) Moore, (4 Mar 1923, )English amateur astronomer, writer and broadcaster. He was educated at home due to childhood illness, from which time he acquired his interest in observational astronomy. Moore is best known as the enthusiastic and knowledgeable presenter of the BBC TV program The Sky at Night, which he began in 1957. With a half-century of broadcasts, this is the world's longest-running television series, and it remains so with the original presenter. Moore has written over 60 books, including The Amateur Astronomer (1970), The A-Z of Astronomy (1986), and Mission to the Planets (1990). As an accomplished xylophone player, his interest in astronomy also shows in the title of one of his musical compositions: Perseus and Andromeda (1975)*TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimKgmaPXIlp0JpkzzoNpgTPEL3_6XKQALGKj1LBvVkmHdY1bvFWQ21rdjPYBj_NmBs_i1VAG-1Hyu66PXbSaGJFXX5ERWFfVXXCNOPHWnUAqdFkvMiUaB1BHdad7HWwwUVpoOjc7toEtqbcvN0SpoX-XM3YcRfcuk1J04vU6zYl4irnYIwod7_D4BLsUg/s416/Sir_Patrick_Moore.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="345" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimKgmaPXIlp0JpkzzoNpgTPEL3_6XKQALGKj1LBvVkmHdY1bvFWQ21rdjPYBj_NmBs_i1VAG-1Hyu66PXbSaGJFXX5ERWFfVXXCNOPHWnUAqdFkvMiUaB1BHdad7HWwwUVpoOjc7toEtqbcvN0SpoX-XM3YcRfcuk1J04vU6zYl4irnYIwod7_D4BLsUg/s320/Sir_Patrick_Moore.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6lSzWZT4Zj5taCCjKpSDyBSinvBcQi1Vb-2jNFCK03vHV2DzKY2iDqIfq_F16HHikZVAnGUbgfaYtv-iEjABGuMVSfZB-GC5FCZAdtEsWsXy27SOm5rfrIyl9iYRcGNhAyzEZyExnAKHchRJb6bFMLBibWs7PH6aF1ZMC4oCcha4m_pC1ENzf0OO5GWs/s310/sky%20at%20night%20moore%20.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="310" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6lSzWZT4Zj5taCCjKpSDyBSinvBcQi1Vb-2jNFCK03vHV2DzKY2iDqIfq_F16HHikZVAnGUbgfaYtv-iEjABGuMVSfZB-GC5FCZAdtEsWsXy27SOm5rfrIyl9iYRcGNhAyzEZyExnAKHchRJb6bFMLBibWs7PH6aF1ZMC4oCcha4m_pC1ENzf0OO5GWs/s1600/sky%20at%20night%20moore%20.jpeg" width="310" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">DEATHS</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p>1816 Josef (also José or Joseph) de Mendoza y Ríos (29 January 1761; Sevilla, Spain - 4 March 1816 Brighton, England) was a Spanish astronomer and mathematician of the 18th century, famous for his work on navigation. The first work of Mendoza y Ríos was published in 1787: his treatise, Tratado de Navegación, about the science and technique of navigation in two tomes. He also published several tables for facilitating the calculations of nautical astronomy and useful in navigation to calculate the latitude of a ship at sea from two altitudes of the sun, and the longitude from the distances of the moon from a celestial body.<br />In the field of the nautical instruments, he improved the reflecting circle.<br />In 1816, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. @Wik<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMJRNgmnt7IjccdI5w7WsfIxTs8tlQRHYSMo0DVj7c7VVW90gr90aUUiAvEulGEQWkYqqBjXzRyY60TbJ4fPPAZUkpKoioDQZ5uOHxo19TjzWXnlFLh_kDipjieywok7zUC-7Tdalz4Knbhv63MYZxhv8d6q6nh410MCX03qipwQtZfW8koeoTr1H2GaE/s260/Jos%C3%A9_Mendoza_y_R%C3%ADos_(1763-1816).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="200" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMJRNgmnt7IjccdI5w7WsfIxTs8tlQRHYSMo0DVj7c7VVW90gr90aUUiAvEulGEQWkYqqBjXzRyY60TbJ4fPPAZUkpKoioDQZ5uOHxo19TjzWXnlFLh_kDipjieywok7zUC-7Tdalz4Knbhv63MYZxhv8d6q6nh410MCX03qipwQtZfW8koeoTr1H2GaE/s1600/Jos%C3%A9_Mendoza_y_R%C3%ADos_(1763-1816).jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1910 Knut Johan Angstrom (12 Jan 1857; 4 Mar 1910) Swedish physicist, son of Anders Angstrom, who invented an electric compensation pyrheliometer and other devices for infra-red photography. With these, he studied the sun's heat radiation*TIS<br /></p><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1915 William Willett (10 Aug 1856, 4 Mar 1915 at age 58)English builder who invented Daylight Saving Time. He claimed he had the idea while taking an early summer morning ride in Petts Wood near to his home in Chislehurst, London. He observed that many blinds were still down, although there was already good daylight, yet many made no use of it. He used his wealth as a prominent home builder to campaign for a scheme of adjusting clocks with the season and published a pamphlet in 1907. His original idea was to make four weekly changes of 20-mins each, for a total of 80-mins. The first Daylight Saving Bill, proposing a single one hour at the change of season failed in 1908. After his death, the idea was adopted during WW I for wartime fuel savings. A memorial was erected in Petts Wood.*TIS A sun dial Memorial was erected in the Petts Wood in his honor.*TIS<br /></p><hr /><p>1976 Walter Schottky (23 Jul 1886, 4 Mar 1976 at age 89)Swiss-born German physicist whose research in solid-state physics led to development of a number of electronic devices. He discovered the Schottky effect, an irregularity in the emission of thermions in a vacuum tube and invented the screen-grid tetrode tube (1915). The Schottky diode is a high speed diode with very little junction capacitance (also known as a "hot-carrier diode" or a "surface-barrier diode.") It uses a metal-semiconductor junction as a Schottky barrier, rather than the semiconductor-semiconductor junction of a conventional diode. *TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN5xpAo4764PzVF-51OcFHNrLDWLGbtmHoVokbBAjNJIY3TWvmtZbStZ-kE7ugmIkacDjPt6sjuz_4FQETSltbHNH7bDYcqhcqpI-yar-7WClpc_cz8mYdQ9W9f2XKFIEPgEE7XOTV2L7UnZ67vpvsCBmvwCCnK8DpBtfFcF4pEx-75tzrqhy6DgSiYgE/s315/schotky%20diode.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="160" data-original-width="315" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN5xpAo4764PzVF-51OcFHNrLDWLGbtmHoVokbBAjNJIY3TWvmtZbStZ-kE7ugmIkacDjPt6sjuz_4FQETSltbHNH7bDYcqhcqpI-yar-7WClpc_cz8mYdQ9W9f2XKFIEPgEE7XOTV2L7UnZ67vpvsCBmvwCCnK8DpBtfFcF4pEx-75tzrqhy6DgSiYgE/s1600/schotky%20diode.png" width="315" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMVBgVAGbdafLISTbXyZymZ-auuv0qUfyCuVu-QLTWL2ERUheTWmVlSnIOiaWaUFDU96rqNWBnRpWhhLTW42SciQG7XyISp8K_RCf25wdODjdNwI4Umk3Z0K0hew9tPhBP4pjDfrZxAw6TJ5OsYRLOigNV6J1jc8hmb_J5OjKptBxNkWZtjKj2Jd-DVWs/s293/Walter_Hermann_Schottky_(1886-1976).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="225" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMVBgVAGbdafLISTbXyZymZ-auuv0qUfyCuVu-QLTWL2ERUheTWmVlSnIOiaWaUFDU96rqNWBnRpWhhLTW42SciQG7XyISp8K_RCf25wdODjdNwI4Umk3Z0K0hew9tPhBP4pjDfrZxAw6TJ5OsYRLOigNV6J1jc8hmb_J5OjKptBxNkWZtjKj2Jd-DVWs/s1600/Walter_Hermann_Schottky_(1886-1976).jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>1997 Robert Henry Dicke (6 May 1916 St. Louis, Missouri, USA - 4 Mar 1997 at age 80) American physicist who worked in such wide-ranging fields as microwave physics, cosmology, and relativity. As an inspired theorist and a successful experimentalist, his unifying theme was the application of powerful and scrupulously controlled experimental methods to issues that really matter. He also made a number of significant contributions to radar technology and to the field of atomic physics. His visualization of an oscillating universe stimulated the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, the most direct evidence that our universe really did expand from a dense state. A key instrument in measurements of this fossil of the Big Bang is the microwave radiometer he invented. His patents ranged from clothes dryers to lasers. *TIS<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbi-GsEIBkxidteuA6kKi4R40XnhNlmoQ6YO5Sa0CieHBQUYlrojRX0aHyWsvzU-WnFpaGpZyU-NkySyAIilEAFWdowbyvQYiWgrW9rRomB3yIJGy0rqXlnU8ziEOa4oYuECy6Za95yyElNXj2NSt91rMKaaZPUp01Cd6rG-oX5b58STLuM0EJWSuNLRw/s288/Robert_Henry_Dicke.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="240" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbi-GsEIBkxidteuA6kKi4R40XnhNlmoQ6YO5Sa0CieHBQUYlrojRX0aHyWsvzU-WnFpaGpZyU-NkySyAIilEAFWdowbyvQYiWgrW9rRomB3yIJGy0rqXlnU8ziEOa4oYuECy6Za95yyElNXj2NSt91rMKaaZPUp01Cd6rG-oX5b58STLuM0EJWSuNLRw/s1600/Robert_Henry_Dicke.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*wik</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><hr /><p>2000 Hermann Alexander Brück (15 August 1905 in Berlin, Germany – 4 March 2000 in Edinburgh, Scotland) was a German-born astronomer who spent the great portion of his career in the United Kingdom.<br />Upon graduation from Munich, Brück followed his friend Albrecht Unsöld to the Potsdam Astrophysical Observatory; Unsöld had earned his doctorate the year before, also under Sommerfeld. While there, he participated in the physics colloquium at the Humboldt University of Berlin with the physicists Max von Laue and Albert Einstein and the astronomer Walter Grotrian. With growing difficulties under National Socialism, Brück left Germany in 1936 to take a temporary research assistantship at the Vatican Observatory. In 1937 he moved to the University of Cambridge to join the circle of the modern astrophysicists around Arthur Eddington. In time, Brück became Assistant Director of the Observatories and John Couch Adams, specializing in solar spectroscopy. He taught a course in classical astronomy and started the student astronomical society, which fostered the careers of many astronomers.<br />In 1947, at the invitation of Éamon de Valera, Brück moved to Dublin to direct the Dunsink Observatory, which was part of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, where he associated with Erwin Schrödinger. In 1950, the Observatory, along with the Royal Irish Academy, hosted the first meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1955, the International Astronomical Union held their triennial Assembly in Dublin. At this gathering, the Observatory demonstrated photoelectric equipment for photometry, which had been developed by M. J. Smyth, who had been Brück’s student in Cambridge. Also displayed was the UV solar spectroscopy which extended the Utrecht Atlas and formed part of the revised Rowland tables of the Solar spectrum; Brück’s wife, Dr. Mary Brück (née Conway), was a leading figure in this work.<br />In 1957, Brück moved to the University of Edinburgh. With his vision and drive, he transformed the Royal Observatory into an internationally-ranked center of research. He put together a team of astronomers and engineers headed initially by P. B. Fellgett and later by V. C. Reddish *Wik<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnKjXp7pMFiJppF9JhgAQUIIYE0OIAO1GAwgh911shKaOPKI-9Xp0c7PuwKoFjJq0qQk6GuPib6PXmdi2h3AuhuGmpG6qAezCu42q8iPyv49FT2eA_tRtBj6M3L9Y28IBENTufOCKHhV9i6FOWnTZTFMsO_HH_ZrP2gHfMIreVDG18u9ZG9kxGtych6bc/s208/Hermann_Bruck.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="208" data-original-width="150" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnKjXp7pMFiJppF9JhgAQUIIYE0OIAO1GAwgh911shKaOPKI-9Xp0c7PuwKoFjJq0qQk6GuPib6PXmdi2h3AuhuGmpG6qAezCu42q8iPyv49FT2eA_tRtBj6M3L9Y28IBENTufOCKHhV9i6FOWnTZTFMsO_HH_ZrP2gHfMIreVDG18u9ZG9kxGtych6bc/s1600/Hermann_Bruck.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p>2011 Simon van der Meer (24 Nov 1925, 4 March, 2011)Dutch engineer and physicist who along with Italian physicist Carlo Rubbia, discovered the W particle and the Z particle by colliding protons and antiprotons, for which both men shared the Nobel Prize for Physics. These subatomic particles (units of matter smaller than an atom) transmit the weak nuclear force, one of four fundamental forces in nature. The discovery supported the unified electroweak theory put forward in the 1970's. Working at CERN in Switzerland, Van der Meer improved the design of particle accelerators used produce collisions between beams of subatomic particles. He invented a device that would monitor and adjust the particle beam with correcting magnetic fields by a system of 'kickers' placed around the accelerator ring.*TIS<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioL-MMj9QpwL16jsxGTDjbW8efirw9dmWYN1OFXhfJY9bxFgTqPd1YsMq6Opzaz85Kqtk9NZ0GOasNlFiT0Dw9CkHNORK_yaSlHkLoTPX8qgnD-w3_Lhqjf6HuT9a3hkUWB2nf24oHlbakzlGbw5QzPi6cMblJ4FVZ86SXA4P1y31SsrLpGUk7THarexE/s318/simon%20van%20der%20meer.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="318" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioL-MMj9QpwL16jsxGTDjbW8efirw9dmWYN1OFXhfJY9bxFgTqPd1YsMq6Opzaz85Kqtk9NZ0GOasNlFiT0Dw9CkHNORK_yaSlHkLoTPX8qgnD-w3_Lhqjf6HuT9a3hkUWB2nf24oHlbakzlGbw5QzPi6cMblJ4FVZ86SXA4P1y31SsrLpGUk7THarexE/s1600/simon%20van%20der%20meer.jpeg" width="318" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><hr /><p><br />Credits :<br />*CHM=Computer History Museum<br />*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts<br />*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar<br />*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie<br />*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History<br />*TIA = Today in Astronomy<br />*TIS= Today in Science History<br />*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA<br />*Wik = Wikipedia<br />*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0