1) Pythagoras

Born: Approximately 569 BC, Samos Greece

Died: Approximately 500 - 475 BC, Metapontum Italy

Biography

Pythagoras is often referred to as the first pure mathematician. He was born on the island of
Samos, Greece in 569 BC. Various writings place his death between 500 BC and 475 BC in
Metapontum, Lucania, Italy. His father, Mnesarchus, was a gem merchant. His mother's name
was Pythais. Pythagoras had two or three brothers. Pythagoras was well educated, and he played
the lyre throughout his lifetime, knew poetry and recited Homer. He was interested in
mathematics, philosophy, astronomy and music, and was greatly influenced by Pherekydes
(philosophy), Thales (mathematics and astronomy) and Anaximander (philosophy, geometry).
Ten years later, when Persia invaded Egypt, Pythagoras was taken prisoner and sent to Babylon
(in what is now Iraq), where he met the Magoi, priests who taught him sacred rites. Iamblichus
(250-330 AD), a Syrian philosopher, wrote about Pythagoras, "He also reached the acme of
perfection in arithmetic and music and the other mathematical sciences taught by the
Babylonians."

Pythagoras also related music to mathematics. He had long played the seven string lyre, and
learned how harmonious the vibrating strings sounded when the lengths of the strings were
proportional to whole numbers, such as 2:1, 3:2, 4:3. Pythagoreans also realized that this
knowledge could be applied to other musical instruments.

The reports of Pythagoras' death are varied. He is said to have been killed by an angry mob, to
have been caught up in a war between the Agrigentum and the Syracusans and killed by the
Syracusans, or been burned out of his school in Crotona and then went to Metapontum where he
starved himself to death. At least two of the stories include a scene where Pythagoras refuses to
trample a crop of bean plants in order to escape, and because of this, he is caught.

Famous Works/Books
 Pythagorean Theorem – the theorem says that in a right triangle, the square of the
hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides. A right triangle is a
triangle where one angle equals 90 degrees and the hypotenuse is the side opposite the
right angle.
 Tetractys – an equilateral triangular figure consisting of 10 points arranged in four rows
of 1, 2, 3, 4, which add up to ten, which according to him, was the perfect number.
Contributions in the Field of Mathematics
Pythagoras began working upon proving axioms and using these to deduce other
mathematical laws, building theorems upon yet other theorems. He came up with a further
five axioms:

1) The sum of the internal angles of a triangle equals two right angles (180 degrees).

2) The sum of the external angles of a triangle equals four right angles (360 degrees).

3) The sum of the interior angles of any polygon equals 2n-4 right angles, where n is the
number of sides.

4) The sum of the exterior angles of a polygon equals four right angles, however many
sides.

5) The three polygons, the triangle, hexagon, and square completely fill the space around a
point on a plane - six triangles, four squares and three hexagons.

Pythagoras discovered prime numbers and composite numbers (any integer that is not a
prime). He also looked at perfect numbers, the ones that are the sum of their divisors (excluded
the number itself). Pythagoras also liked friendly numbers, where two numbers are the sum of
each other’s factors. The example he discovered was 220 and 284, and they would be the only
friendly numbers discovered for two millennia. Pythagoras and his students also discovered
irrational numbers, as they found that the square root of two could not be expressed as an
integer or a fraction, although it is unclear as to what they did with those numbers.

2) Leonardo Pisano Bigollo

Born: Around 1175 CE, Pisa, Italy

Died: Between 1240 – 1250 CE, Italy

Biography

Leonardo Pisano Bigollo was an Italian mathematician and an Italian merchant and customs
official. He is usually better known by his nickname, Fibonacci, and is considered to be among
the foremost European mathematicians of the medieval era. Fibonacci travelled around the
Mediterranean coast, meeting with many merchants and learning about their systems of doing
arithmetic. He soon realised the many advantages of the Hindu-Arabic system, which unlike the
Roman numerals used at the time, allowed easy calculation using a place-value system.

Fibonacci became a guest of Emperor Frederick II, who enjoyed mathematics and science. In
1240, the Republic of Pisa honored Fibonacci (referred to as Leonardo Bigollo) by granting him
a salary in a decree that recognized him for the services that he had given to the city as an
advisor on matters of accounting and instruction to citizens.

Fibonacci ended his travels around the year 1200 and at that time he returned to Pisa. There he
wrote a number of important texts which played an important role in reviving ancient
mathematical skills and he made significant contributions of his own.

Fibonacci was a contemporary of Jordanus but he was a far more sophisticated mathematician
and his achievements were clearly recognised, although it was the practical applications rather
than the abstract theorems that made him famous to his contemporaries.

Fibonacci's influence was more limited than one might have hoped and apart from his role in
spreading the use of the Hindu-Arabic numerals and his rabbit problem, Fibonacci's contribution
to mathematics has been largely overlooked.

Fibonacci died in his home city at some point no later than 1250, although the precise date and
circumstances of his death are unknown.

Famous Works/Books/

 Liber Abaci (1202) – this work, whose title translates as the Book of Calculation, was
extremely influential in that it popularized the use of the Arabic numerals in Europe,
thereby revolutionizing arithmetic and allowing scientific experiment and discovery to
progress more quickly.

 Practica Geometriae (1220) – contains a large collection of geometry problems

arranged into eight chapters with theorems based on Euclid's Elements and Euclid's On
Divisions. In addition to geometrical theorems with precise proofs, the book includes
practical information for surveyors, including a chapter on how to calculate the height of
tall objects using similar triangles. The final chapter presents what Fibonacci called
geometrical subtleties.

 Flos (1225) – In this book, Fibonacci gives an accurate approximation to a root of 10x +
2x2 + x3 = 20, one of the problems that he was challenged to solve by Johannes of
Palermo. This problem was not made up by Johannes of Palermo, rather he took it from
Omar Khayyam's algebra book where it is solved by means of the intersection of a circle
and a hyperbola. Fibonacci proves that the root of the equation is neither an integer nor a
fraction, nor the square root of a fraction. He then continues. And because it was not
possible to solve this equation in any other of the above ways, he worked to reduce the
solution to an approximation. Without explaining his methods, Fibonacci then gives the
approximate solution in sexagesimal notation as 1.22.7.42.33.4.40 (this is written to base
60, so it is 1 + 22/60 + 7/602 + 42/603 + ...). This converts to the decimal 1.3688081075
which is correct to nine decimal places, a remarkable achievement.

 Liber Quadratorum (1225) – is Fibonacci's most impressive piece of work, although

not the work for which he is most famous. The book's name means the book of squares
 and it is a number theory book which, among other things, examines methods to find
Pythogorean triples. Fibonacci first notes that square numbers can be constructed as
sums of odd numbers, essentially describing an inductive construction using the formula
n2 + (2n+1) = (n+1)2.

Contributions in the Field of Mathematics

 Fibonacci used as an example a problem regarding the growth of a rabbit population. The
sequence of numbers which he used to solve the problem was that which later became
known as the Fibonacci sequence.

 Fibonacci also proves many interesting number theory results such as: there is no x, y
such that x2 + y2 and x2 - y2 are both squares and x4 - y4 cannot be a square.

 He defined the concept of a congruum, a number of the form ab(a + b)(a - b), if a + b is
even, and 4 times this if a + b is odd. Fibonacci proved that a congruum must be divisible
by 24 and he also showed that for x, c such that x2 + c and x2 - c are both squares, then c
is a congruum. He also proved that a square cannot be a congruum.

3) Rene Descartes

Born: March 31, 1596, La Haye (now Descartes), Touraine, France

Died: February 11, 1650, Stockholm, Sweden

Biology
René Descartes' parents were Joachim Descartes (1563-1640) and Jeanne Brochard (1566-1597).
Today, he is known as the father of analytical geometry. Descartes was educated at the Jesuit
college of La Flèche in Anjou. He entered the college at Easter 1607 at the age of eleven years
where he became a boarder. He studied there taking courses in classics, logic and traditional
Aristotelian philosophy. He also learnt mathematics from the books of Clavius, while studying
all the branches of mathematics, namely arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. School had
made Descartes understand how little he knew, the only subject which was satisfactory in his
eyes was mathematics. This idea became the foundation for his way of thinking, and was to form
the basis for all his works.

He spent a while in Paris, apparently keeping very much to himself, and some have speculated
that he might have suffered some sort of a breakdown at this time. Then he studied at the
University of Poitiers, receiving a law degree from Poitiers in 1616. He took the law degree to
comply with his father's wishes but he quickly decided that this was not the path he wanted to
follow. He may have returned to Paris before he enlisted in the military school at Breda in 1618,
becoming a volunteer in the army of Maurice of Nassau. While in Breda his formal study was of
military engineering but he started studying mathematics and mechanics under the Dutch
scientist Isaac Beeckman, and began to seek a unified science of nature. Advised by Beeckman,
he began considering mechanical problems.

In 1649 Queen Christina of Sweden persuaded Descartes to go to Stockholm. However the

Queen wanted to draw tangents at 5 a.m. and Descartes broke the habit of his lifetime of getting
up at 11 o'clock. After only a few months in the cold northern climate, walking to the palace for
5 o'clock every morning, he died of pneumonia.

Famous Works/Books
 La Géométrie – is by far the most important part of this work. In Scott summarises the
importance of this work in four points:

1) He makes the first step towards a theory of invariants, which at later stages derelativises
the system of reference and removes arbitrariness

2) Algebra makes it possible to recognise the typical problems in geometry and to bring
together problems which in geometrical dress would not appear to be related at all.

3) Algebra imports into geometry the most natural principles of division and the most
natural hierarchy of method.

4) Not only can questions of solvability and geometrical possibility be decided elegantly,
quickly and fully from the parallel algebra, without it they cannot be decided at all.

 Descartes' Geometric Solution of a Quadratic Equation

His main achievement was to bridge the gulf between algebra and geometry. Thus he is
widely acclaimed as first mathematician who laid the foundation of modern geometry
that resulted in development of analysis and calculus. With regard to algebra, he
explained in detail that how algebric equations can be expressed and explained through
use of geometrical shapes.
Contribution in the Field of Mathematics

His major contribution lies in bringing forth coordinate system that also bears his name.
This Cartesian coordinate system tended to explain the algebraic equations through
geometrical shapes. He “invented the convention of representing unknowns in equations
by x, y and z”. It was his work of calculus that was later used by Newton thus evolving a
new branch of mathematics. Besides that, he also invented rule of signs to establish the
positive and negative roots of polynomial.

4) Euclid

Born: About 325 BC, Alexandria Egypt

Died: About 265 BC, Alexandria Egypt
Biography

Euclid of Alexandria is the most prominent mathematician of antiquity best known for his
treatise on mathematics The Elements. The long lasting nature of The Elements must make
Euclid the leading mathematics teacher of all time. However little is known of Euclid's life
except that he taught at Alexandria in Egypt. An Arabian author, al-Qifti (d. 1248), recorded that
Euclid's father was Naucrates and his grandfather was Zenarchus, that he was a Greek, born in
Tyre and lived in Damascus. But there is no real proof that this is the same Euclid. In fact,
another man, Euclid of Megara, a philosopher who lived at the time of Plato, is often confused
with Euclid of Alexandria.

Euclid is often referred to as the "Father of Geometry." It is probable that he attended Plato's
Academy in Athens, received his mathematical training from students of Plato, and then came to
Alexandria. Alexandria was then the largest city in the western world, and the center of both the
papyrus industry and the book trade. Ptolemy had created the great library at Alexandria, which
was known as the Museum, because it was considered a house of the muses for the arts and
sciences. Many scholars worked and taught there, and that is where Euclid wrote The Elements.
There is some evidence that Euclid also founded a school and taught pupils while he was in
Alexandria.

Famous Book/Works

 Stoicheion or Elements – "Elements” was a lucid and comprehensive compilation and

explanation of all the known mathematics of his time.

 Data (with 94 propositions) – looks at what properties of figures can be deduced when
other properties are given.

 On Divisions – looks at constructions to divide a figure into two parts with areas of given
ratio.

 Phaenomena – an elementary introduction to mathematical astronomy and gives results

on the times stars in certain positions will rise and set.

Contribution in the Field of Mathematics

Euclid’s Five General Axioms:

1) Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.

2) If equals are added to equals, the wholes (sums) are equal.

3) If equals are subtracted from equals, the remainders (differences) are equal.

4) Things that coincide with one another are equal to one another.

5) The whole is greater than the part.

His five geometrical postulates:

1) It is possible to draw a straight line from any point to any point.

2) It is possible to extend a finite straight line continuously in a straight line (i.e. a line
segment can be extended past either of its endpoints to form an arbitrarily large line
segment).
3) It is possible to create a circle with any center and distance (radius).
4) All right angles are equal to one another (i.e. "half" of a straight angle).
5) If a straight line crossing two straight lines makes the interior angles on the same side less
than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on
which the angles are less than the two right angles.

Euclid proved what has become known as the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmethic (or the
Unique Factorization Theorem).
He was the first to realize - and prove - that there are infinitely many prime numbers. The basis
of his proof, often known as Euclid’s Theorem, is that, for any given (finite) set of primes, if you
multiply all of them together and then add one, then a new prime has been added to the set (for
example, 2 x 3 x 5 = 30, and 30 + 1 = 31, a prime number) a process which can be repeated
indefinitely.

Euclid also identified the first four “perfect numbers”, numbers that are the sum of all their
divisors (excluding the number itself).

He noted that these numbers also have many other interesting properties. For example: they are
triangular numbers, and therefore the sum of all the consecutive numbers up to their largest
prime factor: 6 = 1 + 2 + 3; 28 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7; 496 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + .... + 30 +
31; 8,128 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... + 126 + 127. Their largest prime factor is a power of 2 less
one, and the number is always a product of this number and the previous power of two: 6 =
21(22 - 1); 28 = 22(23 - 1); 496 = 24(25 - 1); 8,128 = 26(27 - 1).

5) Carl Friedrich Gauss

Born: April 30, 1777, Brunswick Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel

Died: February 23, 1855, Gottingen, Kingdom of Hanover, German Confederation
Biography

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss in a lower class illiterate family. His mother did not record his date
of birth on the account of being uneducated. He figured out the day on his own taking clues from
the days she associated with his birth. There is no doubt about his being a child prodigy given his
extraordinary intellect. It’s been reported that when he was eight he discovered a way to sum up
all the digits from 1-100. He was a mathematically precocious child which he proved every now
and then. While still in his adolescence he made a milestone of a mathematical discovery. He is
known for his monumental contribution to statistics, algebra, differential geometry, mechanics,
astronomy and number theory among other fields.

He attended the university in the early 1790s while he studied at the University of Göttingen in
the latter half of 90s. During his studies he independently worked out several theorems in a new
light. He made a groundbreaking discovery in 1796 that polygon can be constructed by the
product of distinct Fermat primes and a power of two. Turns out it was a colossal discovery in
the field of mathematics which rendered Gauss to opt mathematics as his main career instead of
philology. He even wished that his tombstone is to be inscribed with heptadecagon which was
declined by stonemason.
Furthermore, Gauss was a member of several prestigious scientific societies. He joined the Royal
Institute of the Netherlands as a member in 1845. He also became a foreign member of the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in the years that followed.

Those who regard his work very highly often refer to him as “greatest mathematician since
antiquity.”

Many know Gauss for his outstanding mental ability – quoted to have added the numbers 1 to
100 within seconds whilst attending primary school (with the aid of a clever trick). The local
Duke, recognizing his talent, sent him to Collegium Carolinum before he left for Gottingen (at
the time it was the most prestigious mathematical university in the world, with many of the best
attending). Needless to say, he continued his work up until his death at the age of 77, and had
made major advances in the field which have echoed down through time.

Famous Books/Works
 Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (Arithmetical Investigations) – this work of his
fundamentally altered the landscape of number theory in the years that followed till this
day.

 His another key work in mathematics was the development of number theory. He
simplified manipulations in number theory by making advancements in modular
arithmetic. Quadratic reciprocity law was proved by him the same year, rendering him
the first man to accomplish the task. Moreover, he conjectured the prime number
theorem which allows a deeper understanding into the distribution of the prime numbers
into the integers.

 "The law of quadratic reciprocity, Gauss’ “Golden Theorem” – is a theorem from

modular arithmetic, a branch of number theory, which gives conditions for the solvability
of quadratic equations modulo prime numbers."

 Law of quadratic reciprocity – In the mathematical field of number theory, the law of
quadratic reciprocity, like the Pythagorean theorem, has lent itself to an unusual number
of proofs. Several hundred proofs of the law of quadratic reciprocity have been found."

 In his 1799 dissertation, A New Proof That Every Rational Integer Function of One
Variable Can Be Resolved into Real Factors of the First or Second Degree, Gauss gave a
proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra. This important theorem states that every
polynomial over the complex numbers must have at least one root.

Contribution in the Field of Mathematics

 Prime Number Theorem. Prime number theorem, formula that gives an approximate
value for the number of primes less than or equal to any given positive real number x.
The usual notation for this number is π(x), so that π(2) = 1, π(3.5) = 2, and π(10) = 4.
  Gauss had realized that pairwise addition of terms from opposite ends of the list yielded
identical intermediate sums: 1 + 100 = 101, 2 + 99 = 101, 3 + 98 = 101, and so on, for a
total sum of 50 × 101 = 5050 (arithmetic series and summation).

 Complex Plane is the plane of complex numbers spanned by the vectors 1 and, where is
the imaginary number. Every complex number corresponds to a unique point in the
complex plane. The line in the plane with is the real line. The complex plane is
sometimes called the Argand Plane or Gauss Plane, and a plot of complex numbers in
the plane is sometimes called an Argand diagram.

6) Leonhard Euler

Born: April 30, 1777, Basel, Switzerland

Died: September 18, 1783, St. Petersburg, Russia

Biography

Leonhard Euler was one of the giants of 18th Century mathematics. He is the "King of
Mathematics". Like the Bernoulli’s, he was born in Basel, Switzerland, and he studied for a
while under Johann Bernoulli at Basel University. But, partly due to the overwhelming
dominance of the Bernoulli family in Swiss mathematics, and the difficulty of finding a good
position and recognition in his hometown, he spent most of his academic life in Russia and
Germany, especially in the burgeoning St. Petersburg of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.

Despite a long life and thirteen children, Euler had more than his fair share of tragedies and
deaths, and even his blindness later in life did not slow his prodigious output - his collected
works comprise nearly 900 books and, in the year 1775, he is said to have produced on average
one mathematical paper every week - as he compensated for it with his mental calculation skills
and photographic memory (for example, he could repeat the Aeneid of Virgil from beginning to
end without hesitation, and for every page in the edition he could indicate which line was the
first and which the last).

Today, Euler is considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. His interests covered
almost all aspects of mathematics, from geometry to calculus to trigonometry to algebra to
number theory, as well as optics, astronomy, cartography, mechanics, weights and measures.

n 1766, Euler accepted an invitation from Catherine the Great to return to the St. Petersburg
Academy, and spent the rest of his life in Russia. However, his second stay in the country was
marred by tragedy, including a fire in 1771 which cost him his home (and almost his life), and
the loss in 1773 of his dear wife of 40 years, Katharina. He later married Katharina's half-sister,
Salome Abigail, and this marriage would last until his death from a brain hemorrhage in 1783.

Famous Works/Books
 Introduction to the Analysis of Infinities (Introductio in analysin infinitorum) – a
two-volume work by Leonhard Euler which lays the foundations of mathematical
analysis.

 Institutiones calculi differentialis in (1755) and Institutiones calculi integralis in

1768–70, have served as prototypes to the present because they contain formulas of
differentiation and numerous methods of indefinite integration, many of which he
invented himself, for determining the work done by a force and for solving geometric
problems, and he made advances in the theory of linear differential equations, which are
useful in solving problems in physics.
 The definition of the Euler Characteristic χ (chi) for the surfaces of polyhedra, whereby
the number of vertices minus the number of edges plus the number of faces always equals
2.

 A new method for solving quartic equations;

 The Prime Number Theorem, which describes the asymptotic distribution of the prime
numbers;

 Proofs (and in some cases disproofs) of some of Fermat’s theorems and conjectures;
  The discovery of over 60 amicable numbers (pairs of numbers for which the sum of the
divisors of one number equals the other number), although some were actually incorrect;

 A method of calculating integrals with complex limits (foreshadowing the development

of modern complex analysis);

 The calculus of variations, including its best-known result, the Euler-Lagrange equation;
a proof of the infinitude of primes, using the divergence of the harmonic series;

 The integration of Leibniz's differential calculus with Newton's Method of Fluxions into
a form of calculus we would recognize today, as well as the development of tools to
make it easier to apply calculus to real physical problems.

Contribution in the Field of Mathematics

His primary contribution to the field is with the introduction of mathematical notation
including the concept of a function (and how it is written as f(x)), shorthand
trigonometric functions, the ‘e’ for the base of the natural logarithm (The Euler Constant),
the Greek letter Sigma for summation and the letter ‘/i’ for imaginary units, as well as the
symbol pi for the ratio of a circles circumference to its diameter. All of which play a huge
bearing on modern mathematics, from the everyday to the incredibly complex. As well as
this, he also solved the Seven Bridges of Koenigsberg problem in graph theory, found
the Euler Characteristic for connecting the number of vertices, edges and faces of an
object, and (dis)proved many well known theories, too many to list. Furthermore, he
continued to develop calculus, topology, number theory, analysis and graph theory as
well as much, much more – and ultimately he paved the way for modern mathematics
and all its revelations.

7) Blaise Pascal
 Born: June 19, 1623, Clermont-Ferrand, France
Died: August 19, 1662, Paris

Biography
Blaise Pascal is one of the most well known mathematicians of all times. His mother, Antoinette,
died when he was only three, leaving his father to raise the sickly Blaise and his two sisters,
Gilberte and Jacqueline.

Although he devoted the majority of his adult life to religion and philosophy, Pascal's genius lies
in mathematics and science. Étienne was an accomplished mathematician who refused to allow
his son to study mathematics. This was because he, being a mathematician himself, felt that it
would take away from his other studies since math was such a fulfilling subject and it ``fills and
greatly satisfies the mind.'' (Cole) Étienne wanted his son to first learn the humanities and later
learn math and science.

Pascal's interest in math began with the curiosity about this subject which he was not taught. To
his many questions about math, Étienne replied with vague answers. He told his son that math
was the way of making precise figures and finding the proportions among them.'' (Cole) Pascal
took this statement and began to make his own discoveries about math. According to his sister
Gilberte, Pascal ``discovered'' geometry on his own. At the young age of twelve, he was drawing
geometric figures on the floor of his playroom and it is said that he discovered, on his own, the
fact that the interior angles of a triangle add up to the sum of two right angles.

Pascal's father then brought him into the society of mathematicians with whom he was associated
with. The Académie libre met every week to discuss current topics in science and math. (Bishop)
Members of this group, headed by Mersenne, included other reknowned mathematicians such as
Desargue, Roberval, Fermat and Descartes. (Davidson) At these meetings, Pascal was introduced
to the latest developments in math. Soon he was making his own discoveries and publishing his
own results.

In the summer of 1647, Pascal fell ill due to being overworked. He and Jacqueline moved back
to Paris. The next few years were eventful for Pascal. He composed a treatise on conic sections
in 1648 which is now lost. In 1649, he was granted rights to manufacture his calculating
machine, which he perfected five years before. In 1651, his father died. Three months after his
death Jacqueline joined the nuns at Port-Royal. In the latter half of 1661 Pascal fell ill and by
June of the next year, he was so ill he moved in with Gilberte. Blaise Pascal died of an
undiagnosed illness on August 19, 1662.

Famous Works/Books
  Traite du triangle arithmetique (Treatise on Arithmetical Triangle) – In the Treatise
he assembled and proved nineteen corollaries (of the definition) and several lemmas and
propositions that laid foundation (together with Pascal's correspondence with Fermat) of
Probability theory. In particular, he established a formula (which he treated as a problem
following the Last Corollary) that in modern notations appears as

C (n, k) = n(n - 1)(n - 2)·...·(n - k + 1) / k(k - 1)(k - 2)·...·1

 Probability Theory – Pascal laid the foundation for probability theory. He was inspired
by his desire to help a friend who had some questions about gambling. He realized that
events don't happen randomly, but actually depend on what happened just before the
event. In other words, if you had a box of blue and red balls, and you had already taken a
blue ball out, the probability of taking a red ball out now will have changed. Pascal's
work on probability theory is widely known due to his correspondence with Fermat.

Contribution in the Field of Mathematics

Blaise Pascal made contributions to mathematics, physics, and philosophy. In mathematics, you
might recognize his name in Pascal's triangle. The numbers that form Pascal's triangle are
binomial coefficients. Each number is the sum of the two numbers above it. The tip of the
triangle and the sides are all ones. The numbers forming the body of the triangle are the addition
of the two immediately above. For example, the middle number in the third row is the addition of
the two numbers from the second row. Pascal presented this information in written form in 1653.

8) Pierre - Simon Laplace

 Born: March 23, 1749, Beaumont-en-Auge, Noramandy, Kingdom of France
Died: March 5, 1827, Paris, Bourbon France

Biography

Pierre-Simon Laplace's father, Pierre Laplace, was comfortably well off in the cider trade.
Laplace's mother, Marie-Anne Sochon, came from a fairly prosperous farming family who
owned land at Tourgéville. Many accounts of Laplace say his family were 'poor farming people'
or 'peasant farmers' but these seem to be rather inaccurate although there is little evidence of
academic achievement except for an uncle who is thought to have been a secondary school
teacher of mathematics.

Laplace attended a Benedictine priory school in Beaumont-en-Auge, as a day pupil, between the
ages of 7 and 16. His father expected him to make a career in the Church and indeed either the
Church or the army were the usual destinations of pupils at the priory school. At the age of 16
Laplace entered Caen University. As he was still intending to enter the Church, he enrolled to
study theology. However, during his two years at the University of Caen, Laplace discovered his
mathematical talents and his love of the subject. Credit for this must go largely to two teachers of
mathematics at Caen, C Gadbled and P Le Canu of whom little is known except that they
realised Laplace's great mathematical potential.

Once he knew that mathematics was to be his subject, Laplace left Caen without taking his
degree, and went to Paris. He took with him a letter of introduction to d'Alembert from Le Canu,
his teacher at Caen. Although Laplace was only 19 years old when he arrived in Paris he quickly
impressed d'Alembert. Not only did d'Alembert begin to direct Laplace's mathematical studies,
he also tried to find him a position to earn enough money to support himself in Paris. Finding a
position for such a talented young man did not prove hard, and Laplace was soon appointed as
professor of mathematics at the École Militaire.

On the morning of Monday 5 March 1827 Laplace died. Few events would cause the Academy
to cancel a meeting but they did on that day as a mark of respect for one of the greatest scientists
of all time.

Five years later, Laplace had already written 13 scientific papers regarding integral calculus,
mechanics and physical astronomy, which gained him fame and acclaim all over France. Laplace
died in Paris, France, on March 5, 1827 when he was 77 years old.

Famous Works/Books
  “Théorie analytique des probabilités” (Analytic theory of probability) furthered the
subjects of probability and statistics significantly. Laplace published his famous work on
probability in 1812. He supplied his own definition of probability and applied it to justify
the fundamental mathematical manipulations.

 He began producing a steady stream of remarkable mathematical papers, the first

presented to the Académie des Sciences in Paris on 28 March 1770. This first paper, read
to the Society but not published, was on maxima and minima of curves where he
improved on methods given by Lagrange.

 Laplace's first paper which was to appear in print was one on the integral calculus which
he translated into Latin and published at Leipzig in the Nova acta eruditorum in 1771.

Contribution in the Field of Mathematics

Laplace heavily contributed in the development of differential equations, difference

equations, probability and statistics. It is impossible to overstate the influence Laplace
had on the progress of the mathematical theory of mechanics. Various fundamental
concepts, for instance the Laplace operator in potential theory and the Laplace
transform in the study of differential equations, are named after him.

9) John Napier

Born: 1550, Merchiston Tower, Edinburgh

Died: April 4, 1617, Edinburgh
Biography
John Napier was a Scottish mathematician who found lasting fame as the inventor of
logarithms. He also invented at least one war weapon. His position as a member of the Scottish
nobility allowed him to more spend time on scientific research than would likely have been
possible for a man of a humbler background. Napier also devised a specialized form of abacus
for multiplication and division, which bears the name “Napier’s Bones” to this day.

The son of 16-year-old Archibald Napier, John was born in Merchiston Tower, Edinburgh in a
building which now forms a part of Edinburgh Napier University, which is named in his honor.
His family formed a prominent and influential part of the country’s nobility and was very
wealthy.

Following the pattern common at that time for members of the nobility, he did not begin formal
study until the age of 13, when he attended St. Andrews University for a brief period. His uncle,
who was Bishop of Orkney, advised him to continue his studies abroad, and in 1564 John sailed
for the European continent.

Napier was worried by the threat posed to England – and by extension, Scotland – by the
Spanish Armada. Just before it sailed in 1588, he came up with the idea of using a mirror to
focus the rays of the sun on the wooden ships of the time, thereby setting them ablaze. He spent
the last few years of his life living quietly at his birthplace, dying as a result of chronic gout in
1617. He is buried in his native Edinburgh, in St. Cuthbert’s Church.

Famous Works/Books
 The development of Napiers bones or rods and a mnemonic for formulas used in solving
spherical triangles.

 In 1614, Napier published his work ‘Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio’

which contained theory and tables of natural logarithms. It contained fifty-seven pages of
explanatory matter and ninety pages of tables of numbers related to natural logarithms.
The book also has an excellent discussion of theorems in spherical trigonometry,
usually known as Napier's Rules of Circular Parts.

Contributions in the Field of Mathematics

 Invention of Logarithms

 Reducing the tedium and drudgery of arithmetical operations. In 1614, he published the
work that was to give him lasting fame: an outline of the basic principles behind what
came to be known as logarithms. Napier himself referred to them as “artificial numbers.”

 Napier also found exponential expressions for trigonometric functions and was the first
who used and then popularized the decimal point to separate the whole number part
from the fractional part of a number.

 Napier made further contributions. He improved Simon Stevin's decimal notation. Lattice
multiplication, used by Fibonacci, was made more convenient by his introduction of
Napier's bones, a multiplication tool using a set of numbered rods.

10) Pierre de Fermat

Born: 1607, Beaumont-de Lomagne, France

 Died: January 12, 1665, Castres, France

Pierre de Fermat was born in 1601 in Beaumont-de-Lomagne, France. He is believed to be of

Gascogne origin. Fermat’s father was a wealthy merchant and his mother’s family was involved
in the legal profession. There is little information about the early education of Pierre, but he is
believed to have attended the College de Navarre in the city of Montauban. Fermat obtained a
bachelor’s in civil law from the University of Orleans in 1626. He was married and had five
children.

Fermat was more of an amateur mathematician who explored the world of mathematics as a
hobby. Post studies, Pierre moved to Bordeaux where he started working on mathematical
research seriously. Despite his interest in mathematics, he always maintained it as a hobby while
continuing to work as an active lawyer.

Fermat was not even interested in publishing his work and used to send his work to famous
mathematicians in France. It was his connection with Marin Mersenne that gave Pierre
international recognition. During his lifetime, Fermat received very marginal recognition as a
mathematician and it was his papers that he shared with others that kept his work alive.
Otherwise, much of his work could have been lost. By any standards, Pierre Fermat was a great
mathematician, but he is best remembered not for what he did, but for what he left undone.

Famous Works/Books
 Fermat–Apollonius circle – In geometry, the director circle of an ellipse or hyperbola
(also called the orthoptic circle or Fermat–Apollonius circle) is a circle consisting of all
points where two perpendicular tangent lines to the ellipse or hyperbola cross each other.

 Fermat–Catalan conjecture  Fermat's difference quotient

 Fermat cubic  Fermat's factorization method

 Fermat curve  Fermat's last theorem - states that

there is no solution in integers of the
 Fermat's frog
equation xn + yn = zn (xyz#0, n>2).
 Fermat number
 Fermat's little theorem
 Fermat point
 Fermat's principle
 Fermat polygonal number
 Fermat's spiral
theorem
 Fermat's theorem (stationary
 Fermat polynomial
points)
 Fermat primality test
 Fermat's theorem on sums of two
 Fermat pseudoprime square
Contributions in the field of Mathematics

 Fermat mathematician made significant contributions to number theory, probability

theory, analytic geometry and the early development of infinitesimal calculus. He
ventured into the areas of mathematics which included pre-evolved calculus and
trigonometry. Fermat’s work on calculus was an aid in developing the differential
calculus.

 Theory of Probabilities

Famous
Mathematicians
in the World

Nicola P. Virador BSGdE - 1