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

slimshady2357

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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
 
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.
 
Euler.

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

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

"Functional analysis... a lot of spaces and a vague feeling of equivalence."
 
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.
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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).
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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.
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I riped off all those quotes from MacTutor History of Mathematics. 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
 
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.
 
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.
 
Charles Babbage for designing the first computer and introducing mathematical code breaking.

John von Neumann for game theory (minimax strategy)

Of course Einstein.
 
Do you think he (Fermat) was yanking everyone's chain?
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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!
 
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.
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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.
 
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