Well, it's been up there in the sidebar for 3 months and I'm sure it's been long forgotten, but we do have a winner of our contest.

Hans Rademacher was one of the most brilliant and prolific mathematicians of the 20th century. His research had broad scope from mathematical analysis to number theory including such diverse areas as analytic number theory, theory of partitions, Dedekind sums, quantum theory and mathematical genetics! Perhaps, even more significantly, Prof. Rademacher was deeply respected by his colleagues and students at the U. of Pennsylvania and known for his kindness and "charm!"

And our winner is...

SEAN HENDERSON

Here was Sean's contribution:

Posted by Dave Marain at 8:24 AM 2 comments

Labels: contest, history of mathematics, mathanagram

Poincare deserved the extra attention but it's time to move on. Our new icon holds a special place in my heart as much for his teaching and writing ability as for his original research in a field that occupied my younger days in research...

Please follow the guidelines for our contest:

DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR ANSWER AS A REPLY TO THIS POST

• Remember to email me at dmarain at geeeemail dot com
• Pls use Mystery Mathematician Oct-Nov-Dec 2008 in the subject line!
  

Posted by Dave Marain at 8:11 AM 2 comments

Labels: contest, history of mathematics, mathanagram

If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living. Poincare

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. Poincare


Finally! Jules Henri Poincare!
Considering the stature of this brilliant individual and his contributions to mathematics, physics and philosophy, it's only fitting that he occupy our contest for at least two months (and i will leave his picture in the sidebar for awhile.). The standard reference for biographies will give you detailed background. Look here. For more of Poincare's profound quotes look here.

Our Winners Are:

Sean
Steve

Sean's Contribution:

Posted by Dave Marain at 8:13 AM 4 comments

Labels: history of mathematics, mathanagram, mystery mathematician

Better late than never...
This is definitely not one of my finest anagrams but it's the best I could do. Hopefully, the descendants of this eminent mathematician will forgive me.

As always, ignore the punctuation and I trust many of you will solve this 'rapidement'.

Please follow the usual procedures when submitting...

DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR ANSWER AS A REPLY TO THIS POST

• Remember to email me at dmarain at geeeemail dot com
• Pls use Mystery Mathematician August 2008 in the subject line!
  

Posted by Dave Marain at 9:17 PM 0 comments

Labels: famous mathematicians, history of mathematics, mathanagram, mystery mathematician

Clues revealed....
(1) When a student at the University of Gottingen, Ore learned Emmy Noether's new approach to Abstract Algebra, which influenced his own work in the field. Later, he and Emmy collaborated.
(2) For his dedication to his native country of Norway, Ore was knighted (the 'SIR' reference).


Note: I highly doubt that I will be able to produce future anagrams with 2 or more embedded clues!

I chose Professor Ore for several reasons, not the least of which was his influence on me. Somewhere in my library I still have his classic Graphs and Their Uses, a wonderful monograph for young learners published back in the 60's by the New Mathematical Library (MAA). I would also highly recommend his Invitation to Number Theory from the same series.

Our winners for the July contest were

Eric Jablow

I vaguely remembered a mathematician with 'ore' and 'oy'. Then, I started guessing. 1. Øystein Ore 2. The only things I know about him are from his Wikipedia article. You don't need me for that. 2.5. He was decorated as a Knight of St. Olav. He worked with Emmy Noether. 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Øystein_Ore

Kevin Cheslack-Postava

Dear Dave: Oystein Ore. Imbedded clue is E. Noet" Connection between the two: From the MacTutor history on Ore: "...he spent time at Göttingen University where he was influenced by Emmy Noether finding her new approach to algebra particularly exciting... In 1930 the Collected Works of Richard Dedekind were published in three volumes, jointly edited by Ore and Emmy Noether . " I remember Ore's high school level book on graph theory from my youth - very clear exposition.

Paul Miller

(1) The name of the mathematician: Oystein Ore
(2) Some interesting info/anecdotes re said person: Collaborated w/ Emmy Noether, was knighted

Paul discovered the two clues in the anagram -- congratulations! Ironically, he apologized for not discovering additional "code"!

I'm putting the finishing touches on our August MathAnagram. Should be up in a couple of days or sooner...

Posted by Dave Marain at 6:01 AM 0 comments

Labels: history of mathematics, mystery mathematician

• Remember to email me at dmarain at geeeemail dot com
• Pls pls use Mystery Mathematician July 2008 in the subject line!
  

Posted by Dave Marain at 7:42 PM 0 comments

Labels: contest, history of mathematics

Posted by Dave Marain at 11:11 AM 4 comments

Labels: history of mathematics, mystery mathematician

Two winners this week in identifying Joseph Liouville (1809-1882), a brilliant mathematician whose work continues to have an impact today in so many branches of math and physics.



Here is an excerpt from an excellent site for biographies of mathematicians:

Liouville's mathematical work was extremely wide ranging, from mathematical physics to astronomy to pure mathematics. One of the first topics he studied, which developed from his early work on electromagnetism, was a new topic, now called the fractional calculus. He defined differential operators of arbitrary order D^t. Usually t is an integer but in this theory developed by Liouville in papers between 1832 and 1837, t could be a , an or most generally of all a complex number.

Liouville investigated criteria for integrals of algebraic functions to be algebraic during the period 1832-33. Having established this in four papers, Liouville went on to investigate the general problem of integration of algebraic functions in finite terms. His work at first was independent of that of Abel, but later he learnt of Abel's work and included several ideas into his own work.

Another important area which Liouville is remembered for today is that of numbers. Liouville's interest in this stemmed from reading a correspondence between Goldbach and Daniel Bernoulli. Liouville certainly aimed to prove that e is transcendental but he did not succeed. However his contributions were great and led him to prove the existence of a transcendental number in 1844 when he constructed an infinite class of such numbers using . In 1851 he published results on transcendental numbers removing the dependence on continued fractions. In particular he gave an example of a transcendental number, the number now named the Liouvillian number

0.1100010000000000000000010000...

where there is a 1 in place n! and 0 elsewhere.

His work on on is remembered because of what is called today Sturm-Liouville theory which is used in solving . This theory, which has major importance in mathematical physics, was developed between 1829 and 1837. Sturm and Liouville examined general linear second order differential equations and examined properties of their , the behaviour of the eigenfunctions and the series expansion of arbitrary functions in terms of these eigenfunctions.

Liouville contributed to studying . He proved a major theorem concerning the measure preserving property of Hamiltonian dynamics. The result is of fundamental importance in and .

In 1842 Liouville began to read Galois 's unpublished papers. In September of 1843 he announced to the Paris Academy that he had found deep results in Galois 's work and promised to publish Galois 's papers together with his own commentary. Liouville was therefore a major influence in bringing Galois 's work to general notice when he published this work in 1846 in his Journal. However he had waited three years before publishing the papers and, rather strangely, he never published his commentary although he certainly wrote a commentary which filled in the gaps in Galois 's proofs. Liouville also lectured on Galois 's work and Serret , possibly together with Bertrand and Hermite , attended the course.

Posted by Dave Marain at 4:15 PM 0 comments

Labels: history of mathematics, mystery mathematician

[Only a few more days to vote in the poll in the sidebar! To see the results thus far, you have to cast your vote.]

Well, the secret has been out of course if you read the comments to Doors and Windows Left Unopened, but it's time to officially recognize one of the great teachers and writers of modern mathematics. Israel (Yitzchak or, affectionately, Yitz) Nathan Herstein wrote, IMO, the clearest exposition of Abstract Algebra I have ever read. His Topics in Algebra was a major influence on my development as an undergraduate math major. Whatever ability I have to write a logical structured proof probably came from reading and re-reading his classic. To this day, I can picture his presentation of theorems, particularly how he developed the set of numbers that can be represented as the sum of two squares. Yitz, you can still run rings around anyone!

Our winners...

kevincp wrote:

Mystery mathematician: I N Herstein. I used his unsurpassed text, "Topics in Algebra" as an undergrad in the 60's. A curiosity I came across when browsing his name today was his acute use of logic to demonstrate the superiority of the latke over the hamantash as quoted in R.F Cernea's "The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate". The final line of the "proof" is: "Has anyone here ever seen anyone eating a hamantash with sour cream? Q.E.D."

and our other winner is...

Hypatia who wrote

...your mathematician is Yitzchak Herstein.

Congratulations to our winners!

I will leave Yitz's image up there a few more days - he deserves that recognition.
I will end my tribute to him by quoting one of his 30 research students:

"He was someone of great warmth who took an intense personal interest in his students and had a knack of getting them to believe in themselves."

Posted by Dave Marain at 7:24 AM 0 comments

Labels: history of mathematics, mystery mathematician

Do you see the big picture?
R U ready for a more contemporary mathematician? He belonged to a special group. I hope this is simple for you...
Remember to email me with your answer and include an interesting anecdote.
If you're reading this from a feed, don't forget to visit the site to see the image in the sidebar.

Posted by Dave Marain at 8:29 AM 0 comments

Labels: contest, history of mathematics, mystery mathematician

Believe it or not, there were actually two winners this week. This probably translates to a total of two individuals in the math blogosphere who actually enjoy this feature! I will continue this feature until we run out of mathematical icons, however, by indirect proof, one can prove that the list is infinite:

Assume there are only finitely many mathematical geniuses to choose from:
M1, M2,M3,...Mk.
Since such mathematicians 'multiply' like the rest of our species, there will always be at least one other offspring from this list who is different from anyone on the list. This contradiction proves that the Name That Mathematician Feature will be around for awhile!

From looking at the picture in the sidebar, you now know that our mystery man is none other than (drum roll please...)

Ferdinand Eisenstein

Ferdinand Eisenstein was the only one of 6 children to survive. The rest died of meningitis. During school (aged 11-13) he solved 100 proofs during the time most students were expected to solve 11 or 12. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 29. (It seems many mathematicians have their lives cut short. What might have been discovered sooner if they had lived?) Gauss would later say the three top mathematicians were Archimedes, Newton, and Eisenstein. (Quite a compliment if I say so myself.) [http://fermatslasttheorem.blogspot.com/2005/07/ferdinand-gotthold-max-eisenstein.html]

Posted by Dave Marain at 5:54 AM 2 comments

Labels: history of mathematics, Name that Mathematician

Update: And the winner once again is...
Lynx!

Here's her contribution:

Jean le Rond d'Alembert is also famously known for incorrectly arguing in Croix ou Pile that the probability of a coin landing heads increased for every time that it came up tails. In gambling, the strategy of decreasing one's bet the more one wins and increasing one's bet the more one loses is therefore called the D'Alembert system. (WIkipedia)

From my reading of several biographies, it sonds as if he is another Cauchy - cantankerous, with many enemies and few friends.

My thoughts--
I've always associated D'Alembert with the Ratio Test for Infinite Series in Calculus but that's one of his minor accomplishments. He also solved the Wave Equation in Physics - not too shabby! On a personal note, his mom left him on the church steps when he was an infant. Later in life, when she wanted to reunite with him, he rejected her...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Did you already notice I changed the image in the sidebar? Before I give a hint, I'll leave it up for another 12 hours as is.
Don't forget to email me at dmarain 'at' 'gee' mail dot com with your answer. As always, the name is not enough. Include a fascinating fact or anecdote about this famous individual and a reference or link that you used.

Posted by Dave Marain at 8:08 AM 0 comments

Labels: contest, famous mathematicians, history of mathematics

What does that say about me that I am amused by that famous pun in the title of this post! Cauchy has always been a favorite of mine and his famous Integral Formula has blighted the youth of many young mathematicians in their Complex Analysis course! I recall one of my high school colleagues annually wearing a T-shirt with this formula imprinted on it on the day of the math finals. I don't believe it gave away any answers to her students!

Anyhow, we did have two winners in this week's contest. I intentionally did not announce this edition of the contest in a post as I wanted to see who would notice the new image in the sidebar! BTW, I certainly didn't expect my Technorati rating or Social Ranking to spike because of this and I was not disappointed!

Winners:
TC
Lynx

Here are TC's 'punny' comments:

Hi Dave,

It is not as if you had exhausted most others that you had to pick a
'residual' mathematician :-)

I first thought it might be L'Hospital.

Interesting anecdote:

Lagrange advised Cauchy's father that his son should obtain a good
grounding in languages before starting a serious study of mathematics.


Here's Lynx's comment/anecdote about Monsieur Cauchy:

The mathematician is Augustin-Louis Cauchy.

A quote by him (courtesy of www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk ): [Regarding √(-1)]: ... we can repudiate completely and which we can abandon without regret because one does not know what this pretended sign signifies nor what sense one ought to attribute to it.
Said in 1847

Also, according to Agnesi to Zeno Over 100 Vignettes from the History of Math by Sanderson Smith, he was a teacher at the Ecole Polytechnique. While Evariste Galois was trying to gain admission, Cauchy lost a paper written by the young man.

He was a staunch Catholic and, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03457a.htm ): During the famine of 1846 in Ireland Cauchy made an appeal to the pope on behalf of the stricken people.

According to this website (http://web01.shu.edu/projects/reals/history/cauchy.html ), Cauchy delayed the publication of Niels Abel's masterpiece because Abel called him a bigoted Catholic.


Okay, that's enough. I'm done researching for now. Thanks for an evening of entertainment.

Posted by Dave Marain at 5:51 AM 6 comments

Labels: Cauchy, contest, famous mathematicians, history of mathematics

As much as I revere Archimedes, life is a series of hellos and goodbyes (Billy Joel has a way with words). Again, if you think you know who the famous woman in the sidebar is, email me at "dmarain at g-mail dot com".

Please do not put your answer in the comments section of this post - we do not want to give it away until the contest is over! I will give up to 48 hours depending on how many emails I receive.

Don't forget to include some curious, fascinating or esoteric fact relating to her mathematical career or some compelling personal anecdote. From what I've read of her, the possibilities are many! Please cite your sources (link) for verification.

If I don't get a response within 12 hours, I will post a hint either in the sidebar or in this post.

Hopefully, this time, one cannot right-click, ctrl-click or view source to find her name!
I know those of you with advanced search skills will find her fairly quickly, but, remember, the name is not enough!

Happy Hunting!

Posted by Dave Marain at 5:44 AM 0 comments

Labels: contest, famous mathematicians, history of mathematics

Update²: Only one submission thus far (and a good one!) so I will give our readers another day to email me some fascinating fact about 'A'! Ironically, Isabel, over at God Plays Dice, has a humorous post on attaching names to faces of current mathematicians. What are the odds! As with all experiments, we'll see how this challenge is responded to before making it a regular feature!

Update: Mathmom, reminded me that one can right-click on a PC and see the name of the image file. Working on a MAC, I forgot that. Well, this first picture might be a freebie, but you still need to wow me with some esoteric fact about him! Next time, I'll rename that file!! I also removed the personal info requirement (again, thanks to mathmom's astuteness!).

Starting today, we are introducing a different kind of challenge. Look at the image near the top of the sidebar. Here are the rules (read these carefully before submitting):

DO NOT NAME THE FAMOUS MATHEMATICIAN IN A COMMENT! (If you did already, I will delete it!).
Instead, send me an email at "dmarain at gmail dot com" with the following information:

(a) The name of the person
(b) One fascinating fact about her/him; it doesn't have to be what made that person famous -- I'm looking for the unusual or curious here, be it mathematical or something personal...
(c) Please cite your source for this fact (include the link) - I need to verify its authenticity

I will choose the top responses received within 24-48 hours of the time the picture first appears. Earlier submissions may receive higher ranking than later submissions. I will announce the winners in a couple of days and, of course, include the fascinating facts as well.

Note: I realize that students today have extraordinary online research skills (although one cannot enter an image in Google!), but, remember, the winners are not only determined by giving a name. Feel free to share this with students. They can enter too!

Posted by Dave Marain at 7:48 AM 2 comments

Labels: contest, famous mathematicians, history of mathematics