YAY! Math is in the title! -- your favorite mathematician

[slimshady2357]

I love it :D

Hmmmm something math like.....

Ok, hmmm let' see.... dammit, I can't think on the spot like this.

Um, I once memorized pi to 350 decimal places :)

I was bored at work :p

Oh and to all you UK people, it's MATH no 's' on the end :p

And just for something slightly more interesting, who is (are) your favorite mathematician(s)?

I like Gauss, I love modula arithmetic. And hey, the guy actually went out and tried to measure the curvature of space.I think he was the first to realize it was an empirical question about reality :)
Or at least take it to that level.

Oh and Leibniz! Because he rules! Binary arithmetic, Calculas, develpoments in logic.... he rocked ;)

Adam

[Ziggurat]

Not a mathematician per se, but here's my favorite math joke:

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.

[Kullervo]

Euler.

How do you spot the extrovert mathematician in a crowd?
He's the one looking at YOUR shoes when he talks to you.

[slimshady2357]

Euler.... sweet one :)

There is this large gravestone in the cemetery I pass on the bus on the way home from work, it just says EULER in huge letters.

It reminds me of the Math god, I don't know who is actually there though.

I love seeing it, it makes me smile :)

Adam

[Kullervo]

Yes indeed, the story is that he'd be writing with a couple of grandchildren climbing on him, and that they were still publishing his papers for about 30 years after he died.

Descartes is another favorite.

[Diamond]

Kurt Gödel for demonstrating that the line between genius and lunatic is not only extremely thin, but incomplete as well. ;)

[Ladewig]

I like the modern ones but I really hold the ancients in awe. Pythagoras taking the first few steps out of the cave of ignorance. His stuff is elegant and practical.

I still chuckle at how vexing Fermat's note was; "I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain." We're closing in on 400 years now. D'oh.

I also admire Kepler's turning Brahe's observations into wonderfully simple laws.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Well, Ladewig, Fermat was right. The proof is too large for his margin! Do you think he was yanking everyone's chain?

My favorite mathematician will be the one who figures out why so many people are innumerate and proud of it.

~~ Paul

[arcticpenguin]

Science & Math -
S & M

[Vorticity]

Geek/Math jokes, everyone!

"Functional analysis... a lot of spaces and a vague feeling of equivalence."

[slimshady2357]

Some quotes from Gauss:
We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds, so that we cannot completely prescribe its properties a priori.
Letter to Bessel, 1830.There are problems to whose solution I would attach an infinitely greater importance than to those of mathematics, for example touching ethics, or our relation to God, or concerning our destiny and our future; but their solution lies wholly beyond us and completely outside the province of science.
Quoted in J R Newman, The World of Mathematics (New York 1956).
This one cracks me up :D

When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial. When he says something that is not trivial then it is false.
I riped off all those quotes from MacTutor History of Mathematics (http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/index.html). It's a lovely site with biographies on an amazing amount of mathematicans. Short, but still interesting. And you can search by year, or by name, or even by subject. :)

Adam

[JesFine]

My favorite is Paul Erdos (pronounced AIR-dish, also dots over the 'o') because he was crazy and I like crazy people. If you're talking about the best I would go with Euler or Euclid.

I also like the women who had to jump through ridiculous hoops to learn math back when it was considered "For Men Only". My favorite of those is Sofia Kovalevskaia. There is no way I spelled that correctly.

[Brown]

I don't know if any of these guys are truly likable, but I have enjoyed the work of Fourier and Euler.

Gauss and Bessel are also very good, although they are something of an aquired taste.

The most entertaining mathematical author is a man who does not consider himself a mathematician: Martin Gardner.

[BobK]

Charles Babbage for designing the first computer and introducing mathematical code breaking.

John von Neumann for game theory (minimax strategy)

Of course Einstein.

[Ladewig]

Do you think he (Fermat) was yanking everyone's chain?


No. I am not an expert in the field, but I believe he had a valid proof. It is so frustrating almost to the point of being absurd that the best (and second-best) minds over four centuries have looked at this problem and walked away stumped.

If only John Edward could reach him, dammit!

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Paul Erdos (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0786884061/qid=1056600850/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-4404974-9609624?v=glance&s=books)

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Ladewig

It is so frustrating almost to the point of being absurd that the best (and second-best) minds over four centuries have looked at this problem and walked away stumped.
Which makes Andrew Wiles a potential candidate for favorite mathematician. His proof of Fermat's last 'theorem' was published 10 years ago, almost to the day.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

1 + 1 = 2.

Any questions?

[no one in particular]

Originally posted by The Central Scrutinizer

Any questions? Yes. What do I get when I take 2 away from 3?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Originally posted by no one in particular
Yes. What do I get when I take 2 away from 3?

3 slugs you?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Vernon Dent: If I gave you a dollar, and your father gave you a dollar, how many dollars would you have?

Larry: One dollar.

Vernon Dent: You don't know your arithmetic.

Larry: You don't know my father!!!



Moe (reading): Oh see the deer. Does the deer have any doe?

Curly: Yeah, two bucks!!! nyuk nyuk nyuk

[EvilYeti]

Ron Graham (http://math.ucsd.edu/~fan/ron/)

World class mathematician, juggler and athlete.

Has a Guinness world record (for the largest number in a proof) and was the subject of a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" cartoon.

Also an all-around cool guy.

[Yahweh]

I dont have a favorite mathematician but how close does the Texas Instruments company come? If they had never made graphing calculators with multiline input, made the calculator programmable (in a language similar to BASIC so virtually anyone can understand it), functionality with i, matrix functionality, and all those other features I might not have forgotten how do that tricky long division. Its true, I'm so dependent on calculators that I'm starting to forget how to do simple subtractions... I am hopeless at mental subtractions with numbers above 20.

[Brian the Snail]

Alan Turing

He just seemed like a fascinating character. Also probably was one mathematician who had the most profound affect on the modern world, yet most people haven't heard of him.

Also, does Johnny Ball count? :D

[Ladewig]

Alan Turing

He just seemed like a fascinating character.

Yes. he should have been hailed as an international hero, but instead was shunned.

[AmateurScientist]

Hey, don't forget John Lennon.

1 and 1 and 1 is 3.

AS

[Kullervo]

And no thread would be complete without a quote from our own Sage of Baltimore:

2 + 2 = 4

[jj]

Euler and Shannon.

e^(i pi) +1 = 0 is simply sublime.

(sum) -p log2 p ditto.

[Visloch]

My favorite has to be Evariste Galois (http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Galois.html)

I would love to see his tragic life made into film.

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Hoi, too many to list. Tough to choose the "one"


Archimedes of Syracuse


Isaac Newton was no slouch (calculus)

William A. Brownell (researcher: equal additions algorithm vs decomposition algorithm)

Some of the Giants:

Christian Goldbach

Leonardo de Pisa (Fibonacci)

Blaise Pascal

Huygens

Pythagoras of Samos

Tsu Ch'ung-chih

Wang Fau

Liu Hui

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

[Ove]

Well here's a song writte by my favourite Mathematics Professor:


That's Mathematics
To the tune of "That's Entertainment."
Counting sheep
When you're trying to sleep,
Being fair
When there's something to share,
Being neat
When you're folding a sheet,
That's mathematics!

When a ball
Bounces off of a wall,
When you cook
From a recipe book,
When you know
How much money you owe,
That's mathematics!

How much gold can you hold in an elephant's ear?
When it's noon on the moon, then what time is it here?
If you could count for a year, would you get to infinity,
Or somewhere in that vicinity?

When you choose
How much postage to use,
When you know
What's the chance it will snow,
When you bet
And you end up in debt,
Oh try as you may,
You just can't get away
From mathematics!

Andrew Wiles gently smiles,
Does his thing, and voila!
Q.E.D., we agree,
And we all shout hurrah!
As he confirms what Fermat
Jotted down in that margin,
Which could've used some enlargin'.

Tap your feet,
Keepin' time to a beat,
Of a song
While you're singing along,
Harmonize
With the rest of the guys,
Yes, try as you may,
You just can't get away
From mathematics!



The imimimmimitable Tom Lehrer off course.:D

[slimshady2357]

Originally posted by PygmyPlaidGiraffe
Hoi, too many to list. Tough to choose the "one"

No problem, I know the thread title says 'your favorite mathematician', but in the OP I did say you could list as many as you like basically :) There are so many afterall ;) Good list too, I especially like that last fellow :)

Archimedes of Syracuse
Isaac Newton was no slouch (calculus)
William A. Brownell (researcher: equal additions algorithm vs decomposition algorithm)

Some of the Giants:

Christian Goldbach
Leonardo de Pisa (Fibonacci)
Blaise Pascal
Huygens
Pythagoras of Samos
Tsu Ch'ung-chih
Wang Fau
Liu Hui
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Ya, so I forgot some of my favorites like:

Peano
Frege
Euclid
Spinoza
Husserl..... oops wrong list :D

Adam

[Lothian]

Originally posted by slimshady2357


Oh and to all you UK people, it's MATH no 's' on the end :p

Chambers C20 Dictionary

Math math (dial.) n a mowing.

Maths. See Mathematic.

[LW]

Originally posted by JesFine
My favorite is Paul Erdos (pronounced AIR-dish, also dots over the 'o') because he was crazy and I like crazy people.

I've got Erdös number (http://www.oakland.edu/~grossman/erdoshp.html) of 4. Any others with a finite number here?

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by slimshady2357
I love it :D

Oh and to all you UK people, it's MATH no 's' on the end :p



Well my favorite mathmatician must be my father.....

And by the way, 'maths' is an abbreviation of mathematicS

The way you are saying 'math' implys mathematic. So are you good at mathematic? do you enjoy mathematic? No, you enjoy mathematics, and you are good at mathematics.

You are bad at english though.....;)

[Hellcat]

Newton. Pythagoras and Archimiedies

[Lothian]

I would like to post a vote for Jonny Ball. Unknown outside the UK I am sure. He presented a TV show ‘Think of a number’ when I was young. This children’s show made maths fun and accessible. Along with ‘How’ and the Royal Societies Childrens Christmas Lecture series it gave a healthy alternative to the normal children’s TV programs.

[slimshady2357]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


Well my favorite mathmatician must be my father.....

And by the way, 'maths' is an abbreviation of mathematicS

The way you are saying 'math' implys mathematic. So are you good at mathematic? do you enjoy mathematic? No, you enjoy mathematics, and you are good at mathematics.

You are bad at english though.....;)

Hey don't talk to me, talk to your fellow country man, Lothian. Look up at his second to last post, it says:Chambers C20 Dictionary

Math math (dial.) n a mowing.

Maths. See Mathematic.

So perhaps you could explain to me what Mathematic is, since it is Maths that means that :p

Math, it's already plural in nature, it refers to anything mathematical :D

Do people over there study Logics too? :D

Adam

[BPScooter]

Based on what I know and use (not much and a computer) I'm totally in awe of those that inspired a lot of computation and verification of their formulae in earlier times. So- my favorite mathematician is:

Fourier

Because his work, plus Helmholz and Hertz led to figuring out sound waves, and that gave us telephony etc.

Like I say, I don't know the details. But it was a bad-ass bitchin sort of math back when nobody had a reasonable way of coming to grips with continuous functions like that... to provide a way to turn a wave function into a summed series of sinusoids... even in your brain that is hard to do!

[Kopji]

My 7th grade geometry teacher - Zero Crabtree
A great name and one of those terrific teachers you sometimes meet in life who make a big difference in how you turn out.

If you are a teacher and one of those - "thanks".

(And Pythagoras rocks).

[Tez]

Originally posted by LW
I've got Erd�s number (http://www.oakland.edu/~grossman/erdoshp.html) of 4. Any others with a finite number here?

Presuming the paper I'm writing now eventually gets published, mine will be 2. Now I gotta get a part in a movie with Kevin Bacon...

[PogoPedant]

Cantor. His Diagonalization proof was the first proof that gave me the warm fuzzies. :D

Also, he proved something that's seriously counterintuitive.

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
My favorite mathematician will be the one who figures out why so many people are innumerate and proud of it.
For me it'll be the mathematician who manages to reconcile the apparent anomoly that ALL people consider themselves to be above-average drivers.

[rppa]

Originally posted by PygmyPlaidGiraffe
Leonardo de Pisa (Fibonacci)

I had no idea he was Pisan until I ran into his tomb while wandering through the mausoleum during a visit to Pisa.

[Ladewig]

Originally posted by Tez
Presuming the paper I'm writing now eventually gets published, mine will be 2. Now I gotta get a part in a movie with Kevin Bacon...

Have you ever thought of selling the right to publish a paper with you? Surely there musy be some vain mathematician willing to pay money to get down to 3.

[CurtC]

Originally posted by Ladewig
I am not an expert in the field, but I believe he had a valid proof. It is so frustrating almost to the point of being absurd that the best (and second-best) minds over four centuries have looked at this problem and walked away stumped. So why do you want to throw out Ockham's Razor and believe he had a valid proof, when there is a much simpler explanation, that he was mistaken? Is there any evidence that Fermat's proof existed?

Originally posted by Iconoclast
For me it'll be the mathematician who manages to reconcile the apparent anomoly that ALL people consider themselves to be above-average drivers.There was an article in my local newspaper a few years ago talking about innumeracy in the general population, in which the author interviewed famous mathematicians such as John Allen Poulos. The author mentioned the fact that 80% of drivers consider themselves to be above average, which she then said was impossible. The irony made me laugh, that she made a common mistake of innumeracy in an article decrying innumeracy. I sent her an email pointing this out, noting the fact that the vast majority of people have greater than the average number of legs.

However, you did say all, which is OK.

[T'ai Chi]

Andrew Wiles has to rank up there with the great mathematicians for his determination if nothing else!

[gnome]

Euclid! A short and sweet proof that there are an infinite number of prime numbers:

For any prime number N:
N!+1 is either prime, or its prime factors are greater than N.

Now that we know Fermat's theorem is true, is anyone working on finding the "Marvelous" version?

It seems most likely that Fermat was full of s**t, but if he wasn't... whoa...

[CurtC]

I thought it was Euler who came up with the elegant proof of an infinitude of primes.

Edited to add: Nevermind - I see I was wrong.

[gnome]

Originally posted by CurtC
I thought it was Euler who came up with the elegant proof of an infinitude of primes.

Edited to add: Nevermind - I see I was wrong.

Euler did have a proof of an infinitude of primes, it just was not nearly as cool.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by gnome
Euler did have a proof of an infinitude of primes, it just was not nearly as cool.

I think Euler's was cooler, and deeper.

Not to mention when he did it, he was partially or totally blind.
(I forget the years exactly)

[gnome]

Originally posted by jzs
I think Euler's was cooler, and deeper.

Not to mention when he did it, he was partially or totally blind.
(I forget the years exactly)

That's it! I challenge you to a duel!

(just as soon as I finish writing this cryptic note about an unfinished theorem of mine)

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by gnome
That's it! I challenge you to a duel!

(just as soon as I finish writing this cryptic note about an unfinished theorem of mine)

I mean, why couldn't Fermat have had a book on hand with larger margins. Really!!

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by CurtC
There was an article in my local newspaper a few years ago talking about innumeracy in the general population, in which the author interviewed famous mathematicians such as John Allen Poulos. The author mentioned the fact that 80% of drivers consider themselves to be above average, which she then said was impossible.

However, you did say all, which is OK.
I had originally written 90%, but wisely changed it just before I hit "submit".

[LW]

Originally posted by gnome
(just as soon as I finish writing this cryptic note about an unfinished theorem of mine)

There was one mathematician, I can't remember who, who was embarking on a journey on a small boat in a poor weather. Before he left, he sent a telegraph to another mathematician saying: "I have a proof for Riemann hypothesis", so that if the boat was sunk he would be remembered.

[Tez]

Originally posted by LW
There was one mathematician, I can't remember who, who was embarking on a journey on a small boat in a poor weather. Before he left, he sent a telegraph to another mathematician saying: "I have a proof for Riemann hypothesis", so that if the boat was sunk he would be remembered.

It was Hardy - and I believe his reasoning was that God would not torment the mathematical world twice in such a manner, and would therefore keep him safe....

[rockoon]

Nice (long) lecture video on Erdos:

Vega Clicky (http://www.vega.org.uk/series/vpl/vpl1/index.php)

I'm suprised that nobody has mentioned Mandelbrot or Julia.

[T'ai Chi]

The Chance Lectures, video and audio:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/ChanceLecture/AudioVideo.html