Who do you think was the best mathematician ever, and what did (s)he do?

Answer 1

How about Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, the man who gave us our numbering system and went on to invent algebra?

Working at The House of Wisdom in Baghdad around 825, al-Khwarizmi wrote a book entitled "The Book of Addition and Subtraction According to the Hindu Calculation." It extolled the virtues of a base ten numbering system that uses a placeholder, known as a punta, or point, which became the zero. This numbering system swept through Muslim Empire to Europe and beyond. Today the Hindu-Arabic numbering system is used worldwide.

Much to the chargin of high school students everywhere, al-Kwarizmi wrote another book that changed mathematics forever: "The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing." Two of the words in the Arabic title are al-jabr, from which we derive the English word algebra. It is the symbolic language on which much of higher mathematics is based.

Answer 2

i'm taken aback at each and every of the human beings who chosen Einstein while he wasn't even a mathematician. He became a physist and the 1st to admit that it became the maths linked with 3 dimensional curved area that gave him the main issues. He saught help from actual mathematicians. some say Archimedes became the ideal mathematician. He found out the formula for the section and quantity of a sphere formerly there became calculus. The call of Andrew Wiles would desire to a minimum of be reported as a contender. He proved Fermat's final Theorem interior the final decade after it stood frustrating mathematicians for over 3 hundred years. additionally enable's no longer ignore Alan Turing, user-friendly because of the fact the daddy of pc technological know-how - a branch of arithmetic.

Answer 3

I like the question. It's so sad that so many people don't know the difference between a mathematician and a physicist (eg Newton and Einstein).

And that so many people cannot name a famous mathematician (except for one from thousands of years ago).

The answer is Euler. Laplace put it best when he said, "Read Euler, read Euler. He is the master of us all".

What did he do?... Absolutely everything. There is not a branch of mathematics that he didn't turn to and not a branch which owes him nothing.

Gauss was pretty cool too. For modern mathmos, you would have to go a long way to beat Paul Erdos.

Hope this answers your question.


Perspy


PS Regarding the "(s)he" aspect, it's interesting that there have been so few top-notch female mathematicians.

Answer 4

I would say it is a tie between Leonhard Euler and Karl Friedrich Gauss. I might give Gauss the edge, because he's also highly reckoned in physics as well.

And, put simply, both of these individuals did everything. If you do a web search on either "Euler" or "Gauss", the number of hits you'll get is astounding.

Euler: He published more papers than any other mathematician of his time. Euler made important discoveries in fields as diverse as calculus and graph theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such as the notion of a mathematical function. He is also renowned for his work in mechanics, optics, and astronomy. Euler is considered to be the preeminent mathematician of the 18th century and one of the greatest of all time. He is also one of the most prolific; his collected works fill 60–80 quarto volumes.

Gauss: German mathematician and scientist who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, electrostatics, astronomy, and optics. Sometimes known as "the prince of mathematicians" and "greatest mathematician since antiquity", Gauss had a remarkable influence in many fields of mathematics and science and is ranked as one of history's most influential mathematicians. Gauss was a child prodigy, of whom there are many anecdotes pertaining to his astounding precocity while a mere toddler, and made his first ground-breaking mathematical discoveries while still a teenager. He completed Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, his magnum opus, at the age of 21. This work was fundamental in consolidating number theory as a discipline and has shaped the field to the present day.

Answer 5

Wasn't there some suggestion that Mrs Einstein did Albert's mathematics.

How about Dave Hilbert, Galois. Really the list could be endless. Ramanujan was an amazing prodigy as well albeit in a limited field.

Answer 6

The "best mathematician" ever is a pretty sad concept. There were many, many individuals who have contributed equally important results to mathematics. To single out one is not fair to the others.

But if you absolutely had to go for ONE NAME, I would suggest you read up on "who" Nicolas Bourbaki was.

:-)

Answer 7

I personally believe it was Euclid who lived around 300 BC. He was the father of Geometry and his treatise called "Euclid's Elements" is the most elegant demonstration of pure logic and reasoning ever presented.

It's Euclid, hands down.

Answer 8

Leibniz or Newton. Without the calculus, we'd be sunk.

Answer 9

Fermat was pretty cool - he came up with his theorem and when he was constipated he worked it out with a pencil.

Answer 10

einstein