NationStates Jolt Archive

Who was the best mathematician ever?

Either Bernhard Riemann, Leonhard Euler, or maybe Descartes.

Pierre de Fermat might be a major player along with Newton or Leibniz...they laid the foundations of calculus for the work of Riemann and Euler.

I'm a novice and havn't studied the work of everybody on the list...can we add Georg Cantor?

Okay, then I vote for either Gauss or the member of the cult of Pythagoras who was said to have been murdered for revealing irrational numbers to the world (if he/she was real).

Go Newton!

Either Bernhard Riemann, Leonhard Euler, or maybe Descartes.

Pierre de Fermat might be a major player along with Newton or Leibniz...they laid the foundations of calculus for the work of Riemann and Euler.
I ended up with Euler

But Fermat deffinatly would be a major player

Newton, although my precalc teacher gives him a run for his money :D

Archimedes. Anyone who can discover calculus two thousand years before Newton deserves some credit.

Archimedes. Anyone who can discover calculus two thousand years before Newton deserves some credit.

Since when did Archimedes have calculus? I'm gonna be rather skeptical of that claim and give it to Newton, because anyone who ends up inventing calculus because of some annoying problems in their favourite hobby deserves mad props.

The guy/girl who first figured out 1+1=2.

We owe him/her a great debt.

The guy/girl who first figured out 1+1=2.

We owe him/her a great debt.
I thought 1+1= ~.

Mr. Joellenbeck, my high school Calculus teacher. Jeez, that guy was a whiz. He was doing this Rubik's cube in front of us once, then said,

"Hmm... 9 steps left... or is it ten?" He then proceeded to close his eyes and turn the cube 10 more times, and then (while eyes still closed), "Oops. No, it was nine." Undoing the last step, he held up the finished cube, causing me to denounce my religion and prostrate myself in awkward worship.

I'm quite sure I've studied the work of ALL of them, but darned if I remember which one did which thing, except for the theroms named after them. And Euler has just such a cool name. (Although I had a professer I loved to annoy by calling him "Uuler" instead of "Oiler"... heh... I even put dictionary respellings in my tests just to bug him and make him pronounce it wrong in his head. He was a very meticulous man. It irritated him no end.)

I would say Newton or Archimedes (Archimedes just because he was so ahead of his time period).

I can't remember his name all too well, but there was an Indian mathematician who, for lack of exposure to Western Mathematics, rederived virtually everything we knew up to that point, then did a rather good job pushing it further. He was only discovered towards the end of his life, though, so we lost him before we knew him.

I can't remember his name all too well, but there was an Indian mathematician who, for lack of exposure to Western Mathematics, rederived virtually everything we knew up to that point, then did a rather good job pushing it further. He was only discovered towards the end of his life, though, so we lost him before we knew him.

Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan.

Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan.

It makes me feel like an ignorant, racist jerk that I don't know if you're making that up or not. I'm sorry.

I have to say Archimedes.

It makes me feel like an ignorant, racist jerk that I don't know if you're making that up or not. I'm sorry.

No. That's the fellow I imagine you are talking about. Died in 1920. Largely self taught, yet described by his contempories as a genius like Euler or Jacobi. Found a new way of calculating Pi &c.

The-Republic']Mr. Joellenbeck, my high school Calculus teacher. Jeez, that guy was a whiz. He was doing this Rubik's cube in front of us once, then said,

"Hmm... 9 steps left... or is it ten?" He then proceeded to close his eyes and turn the cube 10 more times, and then (while eyes still closed), "Oops. No, it was nine." Undoing the last step, he held up the finished cube, causing me to denounce my religion and prostrate myself in awkward worship.

And yet, mysteriously, he was teaching high school calculus.

(I wonder how many times he practiced that Rubik's cube trick at home before he fooled you into believing he knew what he was doing. High school kids are such dupes.)

The-Republic']Mr. Joellenbeck, my high school Calculus teacher. Jeez, that guy was a whiz. He was doing this Rubik's cube in front of us once, then said,
"Hmm... 9 steps left... or is it ten?" He then proceeded to close his eyes and turn the cube 10 more times, and then (while eyes still closed), "Oops. No, it was nine." Undoing the last step, he held up the finished cube, causing me to denounce my religion and prostrate myself in awkward worship.
Ah, but I bet he was never recruited by the CIA! :p
A little known fact bout my precalc teach

And yet, mysteriously, he was teaching high school calculus.

(I wonder how many times he practiced that Rubik's cube trick at home before he fooled you into believing he knew what he was doing. High school kids are such dupes.)

There was once a swiss patent clerk .........

And some people are just lazy.

Since when did Archimedes have calculus? I'm gonna be rather skeptical of that claim and give it to Newton, because anyone who ends up inventing calculus because of some annoying problems in their favourite hobby deserves mad props.
Ever heard of the Pythagorus, an ancient Greek. The sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle is the square of the hypotenuse. Invented before Archimedes lived.

Maybe we should have separate categories, like an "Old School" league for guys like Thales of Miletus, Euclid, Egyptian mystery societies, and then another category for anything after, say, 1400 (or whatever date would be better).

Ever heard of the Pythagorus, an ancient Greek. The sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle is the square of the hypotenuse. Invented before Archimedes lived.

Ever heard of the Babylonians? Not only did they know the "Pythagorean Theorem" but they also knew how to generate Pythagorean triples.

And I'm sure if the Pythagoreans hadn't found the P. Theorem, Archimedes would have.

Maybe we should have separate categories, like an "Old School" league for guys like Thales of Miletus, Euclid, Egyptian mystery societies, and then another category for anything after, say, 1400 (or whatever date would be better).

Yeah originially I was only going to have a couple people, but then I kept thinking of other awesome guys, and I knew I would leave out people (like Fermat, Leibniz, Ramanujan, etc.)

"There was once a swiss patent clerk ........."

Yup with the first name of Albert....


~Abyss

Yeah originially I was only going to have a couple people, but then I kept thinking of other awesome guys, and I knew I would leave out people (like Fermat, Leibniz, Ramanujan, etc.)

Yeah, I guess it would be easy to make it too complicated...we could develop some kind of point system, with areas like advancement in content, methodology, applications, elegance, prolific work, or general ballsyness (used in the gender neutral sense so as not to exclude lady mathematicians)...

(used in the gender neutral sense so as not to exclude lady mathematicians)...

Yeah, since there are sooo many of them :p

Yeah, since there are sooo many of them :p

Well, it may not be a big number, but there's a few...

Not to be off topic, but I once read a claim that Pythagoras studied with Pherecydes on the island of "Lesbos", whose contribution to contemporary language is well known. Anybody know if thats true (or confirmable within reason?)

I AM!!!

I can prove it too...

Let X + Y = 0

2X + 2Y = X + Y

2(X + Y) = X + Y

Divide both sides by (X + Y)

2 = 1

LOL

Easy. Best mathematician ever (and possibly coolest person ever) is: Nikola Tesla.

I AM!!!

I can prove it too...

Let X + Y = 0
Divide both sides by (X + Y)

2 = 1

If you had made it a little less obvious then I would say you were a cool cool guy. As it is, this is old news.

Is it generally okay to divide 0 by 0 and get 1? I thought 0/0 was an indeterminate case.

Also, why include the Y?

could you say

X = 0

add X to both sides

2X = X

divide both sides by X,

2=1

Does adding the Y allow X and Y to then be non-zero numbers,
where Y = -X , and is that useful?

Is it generally okay to divide 0 by 0 and get 1? I thought 0/0 was an indeterminate case.

Also, why include the Y?

Does adding the Y allow X and Y to then be non-zero numbers,
where Y = -X , and is that useful?

It is most definitely NOT okay to divide 0 by 0 and get 1. It is indeed indeterminate.

Including the y somehow makes it seem "better" or something. In yours with only the x, it's quite obvious that you're dividing by 0. The best one I've seen is:

x = y
x^2 = xy
x^2 - y^2 = xy - y^2
(x+y)(x-y) = y(x-y)
x+y = y
y+y = y
2y = y
2 = 1

Ah, I see, so adding terms is just obfuscation.

I wonder if any brilliant mathematicians/philosophers still live on Lesbos, and do they take shite about it at conferences?

"We'd like to welcome the delegations from Berekely, Oxford, Wurzburg, and of course (snicker), the Lesbos."

"We'd like to welcome the delegations from Berekely, Oxford, Wurzburg, and of course (snicker), the Lesbos."

lol That would be awesome.... :p

Not to be off topic, but I once read a claim that Pythagoras studied with Pherecydes on the island of "Lesbos", whose contribution to contemporary language is well known. Anybody know if thats true (or confirmable within reason?)

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pherecydes_of_Syros, Pherecyde may have been Pythagoras' teacher, and according to http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Pythagoras.html he was, although the name is spelled with a k instead of a c. Neither place mentions anything about this happening on Lesbos.

lol That would be awesome.... :p



According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pherecydes_of_Syros, Pherecyde may have been Pythagoras' teacher, and according to http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Pythagoras.html he was, although the name is spelled with a k instead of a c. Neither place mentions anything about this happening on Lesbos.

Hm. Well, it seemed implausible anyway. I imagine it takes focus to study the higher maths, and even more so to do it on Lesbos. I mean, how many things can you really do at all while on Lesbos?

Man, I'm really sorry...

Hm. Well, it seemed implausible anyway. I imagine it takes focus to study the higher maths, and even more so to do it on Lesbos. I mean, how many things can you really do at all while on Lesbos?

Man, I'm really sorry...

:rolleyes:

So my top three are Euler, Gauss, and Archimedes (in that order). Euler was blind for the last several years of his life and he still proved amazing stuff! As Laplace said, "Read Euler, read Euler. He is the master of us all." You wouldn't believe how much stuff a mathematician will do only to find out that Euler already discovered it....

What about Godel?

What about Godel?

Okay I forgot a lot of people. But I don't think Godel is the "best" mathematician ever, or even in the running. Sure he was great and Godel's proof is important, but there are several mathematicians who made more and/or better contributions to mathematics.

Ah, I see, so adding terms is just obfuscation.

I wonder if any brilliant mathematicians/philosophers still live on Lesbos, and do they take shite about it at conferences?

"We'd like to welcome the delegations from Berekely, Oxford, Wurzburg, and of course (snicker), the Lesbos."

Its actually kind of interesting. If you are from Lesbos then you are a Lesbian... The other way the name is used actually comes from a famous Lesbian poet from the 7th century BC who wrote about her firey love for women.

So, a lot of our brilliant male mathematicians were Lesbians.

How about Brahmagupta? He was the Indian who introduced negatives and zero. In fact a lot of Indian mathematicians were ahead of the Greeks and Egyptians. http://www.ilovemaths.com/ind_mathe.htm

Not a single woman on that list. *sigh*

I nominate Sofia Kovalevskaya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia_Kovalevskaya).

No. That's the fellow I imagine you are talking about. Died in 1920. Largely self taught, yet described by his contempories as a genius like Euler or Jacobi. Found a new way of calculating Pi &c.

True. He's the one who arrived in England, and his driver asked him to find something remarkable about the license plate of the car. He didn't even hesitate, and reeled off something about being the lowest number and primes (sorry I don't know the details...but yeah, he's real).

It has to be Newton, the man blinded himself (for a while) by staring into the sun and would eat mercury for a hobby. That's the true definition of awsome

True. He's the one who arrived in England, and his driver asked him to find something remarkable about the license plate of the car. He didn't even hesitate, and reeled off something about being the lowest number and primes (sorry I don't know the details...but yeah, he's real).

1729 - it's the lowest positive integer that can be written as the sum of two cubes of positive integers, in two different ways.

1729 = 12^3 + 1^3 = 10^3 + 9^3

Ramanujan would get my vote for best innate talent, but my pick is Paul Erdos (http://http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Erdos.html). In a line of work where 50 papers is a good career, Erdos has his name on over 1500.

I went for Euler. He published more papers than any other mathematician has before or since. I think Gauss came in second (only about 100 papers behind). And for the quality vs. quantity folks, well, they were all of a high standard.

Euler wrote papers well after he had gone blind, right up until his death. He studied far more areas of mathematics than others on that list (except Gauss), and invented areas like graph theory. Gauss is a good alternative though.

To be honest though, you'd need a really good grasp of mathematics to make the decision I think. I don't think even 80 year old mathematicians with Ph.D.'s could provide a fully authoritative answer just because of the broadness of the subject.

Ramanujan would get my vote for best innate talent, but my pick is Paul Erdos (http://http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Erdos.html). In a line of work where 50 papers is a good career, Erdos has his name on over 1500.Hrm, wow, that's a lot (nearly twice as many as Euler, so I was wrong on that count) What was the quality like though?

I went for Euler. He published more papers than any other mathematician has before or since.

Not that it's a particularly good measure, but a quick search suggests that Euler published 856 papers. I can't find a number for Gauss, but a couple sites suggest that he didn't publish all his work (including some fairly significant advances commonly credited to others years later).

Hrm, wow, that's a lot (nearly twice as many as Euler, so I was wrong on that count) What was the quality like though?

Top quality, from all reports. He used to travel around and stay with mathematicians. As a way of repaying their hospitality, he would write papers with them. He's definitely one of the best mathematicians of the last century, and an amazing story. I know mathematicians who avidly swap stories about meeting him, sort of like he was a rock star or something.

The guy/girl who first figured out 1+1=2.

We owe him/her a great debt.There's other important contributions to elementary mathematics. For example, the transitivity of numbers seemed to be something that was quite shaky for a long time. People seemed to have trouble grasping, for example, that ten sheep was exactly the same number as ten boulders, or ten computers. This is evidenced by the fact that people would bake little markers into a capsule to record a transaction, long after they'd realised they could write the number onto the capsule, and they'd break them open after they were done to count the inside.

The development of numbers was very important though.

Has anyone mentioned Tom Lehrer?

Ramanujan, without a doubt.

It has to be Newton, the man blinded himself (for a while) by staring into the sun and would eat mercury for a hobby. That's the true definition of awsome

Sure, if dying a virgin is included in your definition of awesome.

I was going to say Archimedes as he did indeed have a version of calculus about 2000 years ahead of his time, but after hearing about that Ramanujan guy, I'll have to go with him.

I can't remember his name all too well, but there was an Indian mathematician who, for lack of exposure to Western Mathematics, rederived virtually everything we knew up to that point, then did a rather good job pushing it further. He was only discovered towards the end of his life, though, so we lost him before we knew him.

Yes, it is Ramanujan.

I was blessed to have lived in his hometown (Kumbakonam) for a few years. I visited his school were I was told this interesting story.

Ramanujan was actually failed in his maths exams by his teacher. Apparently, Ramanujan used to finish his exam paper in 10 minutes and his paper would have only the question number and the answer written on the side. No working and no proofs.

So the teacher thought that Ramanujan has memorized all the answers in his book or he is cheating and so he failed him. Later the principal intervened and Ramanujan passed the exam.

Even now, mathematicians are still trying to find how Ramanujan arrived at certain results because he did not write derivations for them. His two notebooks containing numerous results are still being deciphered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan
Ramanujan's notebooks
While he was still in India, Ramanujan recorded many results in three notebooks of loose leaf paper. Results were written up, without their derivations. This is probably the origin of the misconception that Ramanujan was unable to prove his results and simply thought the final result up directly. Berndt, in his review of the notebooks and Ramanujan's work felt that Ramanujan most certainly was able to make the proofs of most of his results, but chose not to.

This style of working may have been for several reasons. Since paper was very expensive, Ramanujan would do most of his work and perhaps his proofs on slate, and then transfer just the results to paper. Using a slate was common for mathematics students in India at the time. He was also quite likely to have been influenced by the style of one of the books he had learned much of his advanced mathematics from G. S. Carr's Synopsis of Pure and Applied Mathematics, used by Carr in his tutoring. It summarised several thousand results, stating them without proofs. Finally, it is possible that Ramanujan considered his workings to be for his personal interest alone; and therefore only recorded the results. (Berndt, 1998)

The first notebook was 351 pages with 16 somewhat organized chapters and some unorganized material. The second notebook had 256 pages in 21 chapters and 100 unorganized pages, with the third notebook containing 33 unorganized pages. The results in his notebooks inspired numerous papers by later mathematicians trying to prove what he had found. Hardy himself created papers exploring material from Ramanujan's work as did G. N. Watson, B. M. Wilson, and Bruce Berndt. (Berndt, 1998)

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Quotes
"Almost a century after his death, it was said of him, 'Ramanujan was a mathematician so great that his name transcends jealousies, the one superlatively great mathematician whom India has produced in the last thousand years. His leaps of intuition confound mathematicians even today, seven decades after his death. His papers are still plumbed for their secrets. His theorems are being applied in areas scarcely imaginable during his lifetime.' " (quoted from Kanigel's biography, "The Man who knew Infinity", p.3)
"I remember once going to see [Ramanujan] when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. 'No,' he replied, 'it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.'" -G.H. Hardy

And to think that the poor genius had to suffer malnutrition (which was a significant factor for his illness and early untimely death) because he could not get wholesome vegetarian food in UK...what a shame...:(