GREAT MATHEMATICANS OF THEIR TIME!!!!

GREAT MATHEMATICANS OF THEIR TIME!!!! Taylor Wayman

BRAHMAGUPTA (c. 598–c. 670) Taylor Wayman

Brahmagupta was an Indian mathematician, born in 598 AD in Bhinmal, in India. He spent most of his life in Bhinmal which was under the rule of King Vyaghramukha. He was the head of the astronomical observatory at Ujjain which was the center of mathematics in India witnessing the work of many extraordinary mathematicians. He was one of the most significant mathematicians of ancient India. He introduced extremely influential concepts to basic mathematics, including the use of zero in mathematical calculations and the use of mathematics and algebra in describing and predicting astronomical events. Taylor Wayman

Contributions to Mathematics One of the most significant input of Brahmagupta to mathematics was the introduction of ‘zero’ to the number system which stood for ‘nothing’. His work contained many mathematical findings written in verse form. It had many rules of arithmetic which is part of the mathematical solutions now. These are ‘A positive number multiplied by a positive number is positive.’, ‘A positive number multiplied by a negative number is negative’, ‘A negative number multiplied by a positive number is negative’ and ‘A negative number multiplied by a negative number is positive’.He was the one to give the area of a triangle and the important rules of trigonometry such as values of the sin function. He introduced the formula for cyclic quadrilaterals. He also gave the value of ‘Pi’ as square root ten to be accurate and 3 as the practical value. Additionally he introduced the concept of negative numbers. Taylor Wayman

“A person who can, within a year, solve x2 - 92y2 = 1 is a mathematician. “ -- Brahmagupta “As the sun eclipses the stars by its brilliancy, so the man of knowledge will eclipse the fame of others in assemblies of the people if he proposes algebraic problems, and still more if he solves them.” -- Brahmagupta Taylor Wayman

Brahmagupta's most famous result in geometry is his formula for cyclic quadrilaterals. Given the lengths of the sides of any cyclic quadrilateral, Brahmagupta gave an approximate and an exact formula for the figure's area. Taylor Wayman

ISAAC NEWTON 1642-1727 Taylor Wayman

EARLY IN LIFE On January 4, 1643, Isaac Newton was born in England. He was the only son of a local farmer, also named Isaac Newton, who died before he was born. When he was 3 years old, his mother, Hannah Newton, remarried a minister, Barnabas Smith, and went to live with him, leaving young Newton with his maternal grandmother. The experience left an imprint on Newton, later manifesting itself as an acute sense of insecurity. At age 12 he was reunited with his mother after her second husband died. She pulled him out of school and tried to make a farmer out of his but he failed. Isaac returned to Kings school to finish his basic education. Isaac uncle, a graduate of the University of Cambridge's Trinity College, persuaded Newton's mother to have him enter the university. Newton enrolled in a program similar to a work study in 1661, and waited on tables and cleaned wealthier students' rooms. During his first three years at Cambridge, Newton was taught the standard curriculum, but he was fascinated with the more advanced science. All his spare time was spent reading from the modern philosophers. Taylor Wayman

Newton graduated with no honors or distinctions. His efforts won him the title of scholar and four years of financial support for future education. In 1665, The Great Plague that was ravaging Europe had come to Cambridge, forcing the university to close. Newton returned home to pursue his private study. It was during this 18-month hiatus that he conceived the method of infinitesimal calculus, set foundations for his theory of light and color, and gained significant insight into the laws of planetary motion -- insights that eventually led to the publication of his Principia in 1687. Legend has it that, at this time, Newton experienced his famous inspiration of gravity with the falling of an apple. "I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me…..ISSAC NEWTON Taylor Wayman

Newton’s work in mechanics and gravity earned him most fame. In 1687 he published Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy which discussed his three laws of motion. The first law posited that a body at rest or in uniform motion will continue in that state unless a force is applied; the second defined force as equaling the mass of a body multiplied by its acceleration; the third stated that if a body exerted a force (action) on another, there would be an equal but opposite force (reaction) on the first body. These laws provided the basis for Newton’s law of gravitation, which proposed that any particle of matter in the universe attracts any other with a force determined by the product of their masses but decreases by the square of their distance apart. These theories, explained a diverse range of natural phenomena—from the motion of the planets and their moons to the tides—and became essential building blocks for classical mechanics and future scientific endeavors. Newton’s contributions tomathematics and optics were no less significant. In 1665 he first laid out the binomial theorem, which was a general formula for writing any power of a binomial without multiplying out. He invented the calculus in 1669, although he did not publish his findings until 1674. He published Opticks, in which he described his theory of light and included other mathematical research, in 1704. Taylor Wayman

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MARY FRANCES WINSTON NEWSON August 7, 1869 – December 5, 1959 Taylor Wayman

Mary Frances was the first American lady to receive a Ph.D in mathematics from a European university. She was born in Illinois, one of seven children. When she was 15 she enroll at the University of Wisconsin. Mary graduated from Wisconsin in1889 with a degree with honors in Mathematicis. She became a teacher at Bryan Marw College and stayed for one year. Mary returned to the United States to become the head of the mathematics department at Kansas State College . Mary taught there until giving up the position in 1900 to marry Henry Bryon Newson, a professor of mathematics at the University of Kansas. They had three between 1901 and 1909. Her husband in 1909 died of a heart attack leaving his wife with no job and three children Taylor Wayman

In 1913, Mary received an offer as an assistant professor of mathematics at Washburn College. She left Washburn in 1921. Newson moved back to Illinois to become professor of mathematics at Eureka College, a position she held until her retirement in 1942. She was the chair of the Division of Science and Mathematics from 1935 to 1939. Although she devoted her professional career to her teaching and her students, and thus did little mathematical research after her Ph.D., she still consulted occasionally with her son, Henry Winston Newson, on the mathematical aspects of his work in nuclear physics. Mary Winston Newson joined the American Mathematical Society in 1896. She was also a charter member of the Mathematical Association of America, served as President of the Kansas Association of Teachers of Mathematics, and was chairperson of the international relations roundtable of the Eureka branch of the American Association of University Women. In 1940 she was honored at the Women's Centennial Congress as one of 100 outstanding women who held positions that were not open to women one hundred years earlier. Taylor Wayman

Mary is best known for her work on differential equations. She also translated one of David Hilbert’s lectures. Taylor Wayman

REFERENCES 1. www.britannica.com 2. www.newton.com www.scienceworld.com www.woman of mathematicians Taylor Wayman

THE END Taylor Wayman

GREAT MATHEMATICANS OF THEIR TIME!!!!