George Francis FitzGerald

Born: 3 Aug 1851 in Kill-o'-the Grange, Monkstown, Co. Dublin, Ireland Died: 21 Feb 1901 in Dublin, Ireland

George FitzGerald was a brilliant mathematical physicist who today is known by most scientists as one of the proposers of the FitzGerald-Lorentz contraction in the theory of relativity. However, this suggestion by FitzGerald, as we shall see below, was not in the area in which he undertook most of his research, and he would certainly not have rated this his greatest contribution. George FitzGerald's parents were William FitzGerald and Anne Frances Stoney. His father William was a minister in the Irish Protestant Church and rector of St Ann's Dublin at the time of George's birth. William, although having no scientific interests himself, was an intellectual who went on to become Bishop of Cork and later Bishop of Killaloe. It seems that George's later interest in metaphysics came from his father's side of the family. George's mother was the daughter of George Stoney from Birr in King's County and she was also from an intellectual family. George Johnstone Stoney, who was Anne's brother, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and George FitzGerald's liking for mathematics and physics seems to have come mainly from his mother's side of the family. William and Anne had three sons, George being the middle of the three. Maurice FitzGerald, one of George's two brothers, also went on to achieve academic success in the sciences, becoming Professor of Engineering at Queen's College Belfast. George's schooling was at home where, together with his brothers and sisters, he was tutored by M A Boole, who was George Boole's sister. It is doubtful whether Miss Boole realised what enormous potential her pupil George had, for although he showed himself to be an excellent student of arithmetic and algebra, he was no better than an average pupil at languages and had rather a poor verbal memory. However, when the tutoring progressed to a study of Euclid's Elements then George showed himself very able indeed, and he also exhibited a great inventiveness for mechanical constructions, having great dexterity. He was also an athletic boy yet he had no great liking for games. Miss Boole prepared her pupils very well for their university studies. She noticed one remarkable talent in her pupil George, that was his skill as an observer. Many years later FitzGerald, clearly thinking of his own youth, wrote:The cultivation and training of the practical ability to do things and to learn from observation, experiment and measurement, is a part of education which the clergyman and the lawyer can maybe neglect, because they have to deal with emotions and words, but which the doctor and the engineer can only neglect at their own peril and that of those who employ them. These habits should be carefully cultivated from the earliest years while a child's character is being developed. As the twig is bent so the tree inclines.

FitzGerald certainly showed that he had acquired the ability to learn from observation, experiment and measurement. He entered Trinity College Dublin at the young age of 16 to study his two best subjects which were mathematics and experimental science, and he was soon putting the training he had received at home to good use. At Trinity College, FitzGerald [8]:... attained all the distinctions that lay in his path with an ease, and wore them with a grace, that endeared him to his rivals and contemporaries. It was not an undergraduate career devoted entirely to study, however, for FitzGerald played a full part in literary clubs and social clubs. He also continued his athletic interests, taking to gymnastics and to racquet sports. In 1871 he graduated as the best student in both mathematics and experimental science. He won a University Studentship and two First Senior Moderatorships in his chosen topics. The aim of FitzGerald was now to win a Trinity College Fellowship but at this time these were few and far between. He was to spend six years studying before he obtained the Fellowship he wanted, but during these years he laid the foundation of his research career. He studied the works of Lagrange, Laplace, Franz Neumann, and those of his own countrymen Hamilton and MacCullagh. In addition he absorbed the theories put forward by Cauchy and Green. Then, in 1873, a publication appeared which would play a major role in his future. This was Electricity and Magnetism by Maxwell which, for the first time, contained the four partial differential equations, now known as Maxwell's equations. FitzGerald immediately saw Maxwell's work as providing the framework for further development and he began to work on pushing forward the theory. It is worth noting that FitzGerald's reaction to Maxwell's fundamental paper was not that of most scientists. Very few seemed to see the theory as a starting point, rather most saw it only as a means to produce Maxwell's own results. It is a tribute to FitzGerald's insight as a scientist that he saw clearly from the beginning the importance of Electricity and Magnetism. Maxwell's theory was for many years, in the words of Heaviside, "considerably underdeveloped and little understood" but a few others were to see it in the same light as FitzGerald including Heaviside, Hertz and Lorentz. FitzGerald would exchange ideas over the following years with all three of these scientists. During the six years he spent working for the Fellowship, FitzGerald also studied metaphysics, a topic which he had not formally studied as an undergraduate, and he was particularly attracted to Berkeley's philosophy. His liking for metaphysics and his deep understanding of the topic combined with his other great talents in his future career. He won his Fellowship and became a tutor at Trinity College Dublin in 1877. This was not his first attempt at winning a Fellowship, rather it was his second since he failed to win a Fellowship at his first attempt. At Trinity College he was attached to the Department of Experimental Physics and soon he was exerting the greatest influence on the teaching of the physical sciences in the College. In 1881 John R Leslie, the professor of natural philosophy at Dublin, died and FitzGerald succeeded him to the Erasmus Smith Chair of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. At the time of his appointment he gave up his duties as College tutor, a role in which he had been extremely successful, to concentrate on his duties as a professor. One of FitzGerald's long running battles at Trinity College Dublin was to increase the

amount of teaching of experimental physics. He soon set up classes in an old chemical laboratory that he was able to obtain for his use, and he gathered round him colleagues who would help in the practical aspects of the subject. As is so often the case in universities, however, he was restricted in the progress he could make from a lack of funds. In a lecture which he gave to the Irish Industrial League in 1896 FitzGerald emphasised his lifelong belief in practical studies:The fault of our present system is in supposing that learning to use words teaches us to use things. This is at its best. It really does not even teach children to use words, it only teaches them to learn words, to stuff their memories with phrases, to be a pack of parrots, to suffocate thought with indigestible verbiage. Take the case of experimenting. How can you teach children to make careful experiments with words? Yet it is great importance that they should be able to learn from experiments. However, practical applications are built on theoretical foundations and FitzGerald fully understood this. In his inaugural lecture on 22 February 1900 as President of the Dublin Section of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, he spoke of how electricity had been applied to the benefit of mankind during the nineteenth century. Behind a practical invention such as telegraphy there was a wealth of theoretical work:... telegraphy owes a great deal to Euclid and other pure geometers, to the Greek and Arabian mathematicians who invented our scale of numeration and algebra, to Galileo and Newton who founded dynamics, to Newton and Leibniz who invented the calculus, to Volta who discovered the galvanic coil, to Oersted who discovered the magnetic actions of currents, to Ampre who found out the laws of their action, to Ohm who discovered the law of resistance of wires, to Wheatstone, to Faraday, to Lord Kelvin, to Clerk Maxwell, to Hertz. Without the discoveries, inventions, and theories of these abstract scientific men telegraphy, as it now is, would be impossible. We should also look at FitzGerald's idea of the purpose of a university since it was, like his other educational beliefs, the driving force in how he carried out his professorial duties. He believed that the primary purpose of a university was not to teach the few students who attended but, through research, to teach everyone. He wrote in 1892:The function of the University is primarily to teach mankind. .. at all times the greatest men have always held that their primary duty was the discovery of new knowledge, the creation of new ideas for all mankind, and not the instruction of the few who found it convenient to reside in their immediate neighbourhood. ... Are the Universities to devote the energies of the most advanced intellects of the age to the instruction of the whole nation, or to the instruction of the few whose parents can afford them an - in some places fancy - education that can in the nature of things be only attainable by the rich? As can be seen from the quotations we have given from FitzGerald's writing, his interest in education went well beyond the narrow confines of his own department. It was not merely a theoretical interest for, true to his own beliefs, he took a very practical role in education. He was an examiner in physics at the University of London beginning in 1888 and he served as a Commissioner of National Education in Ireland in 1898 being concerned with reforming primary education in Ireland. As part of this task he travelled

to the United States on a fact finding tour in the autumn of 1898. As one might have expected, his aim was to bring far more practical topics into the syllabus of primary schools. At the time of his death he was involved in the reform of intermediate education in Ireland and he also served on the Board which was considering technical education. In 1883 FitzGerald married Harriette Mary Jellett. She was the daughter of the Rev J H Jellett, the Provost of Trinity College and an outstanding scientist who had been awarded the Royal Medal by the Royal Society. It was through his personal friendship with Jellett, and also their joint scientific studies, that FitzGerald got to know Harriette. Although the couple had been married just under eight years at the time of FitzGerald's death, they had eight children during this time; three sons and five daughters. FitzGerald was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1883 and, like his father-in-law, he was to receive its Royal medal. This was in 1899 when the prestigious award was made to FitzGerald for his contributions to theoretical physics, especially to optics and electrodynamics. Lord Lister, presenting the medal, said [3]:His critical activity pervades an unbounded field, enlivened and enriched throughout by the fruits of a luxuriant imagination. We should now examine the research for which FitzGerald received these honours. Beginning in 1876, before he obtained his Fellowship, FitzGerald began to publish the results of his research. His first work On the equations of equilibrium of an elastic surface filled in cases of a problem studied by Lagrange. His second paper in the same year was on magnetism and he then, still in the year 1876, published On the rotation of the plane of polarisation of light by reflection from the pole of a magnet in the Proceeding of the Royal Society. He had already begun to contribute to Maxwell's theory and, as well as theoretical contributions, he was conducting experiments in electromagnetic theory. His first major theoretical contribution was On the electromagnetic theory of the reflection and refraction of light which he sent to the Royal Society in October 1878. Maxwell, in reviewing the paper, noted that FitzGerald was developing his ideas in much the same general direction as was Lorentz. At a meeting of the British Association in Southport in 1883, FitzGerald gave a lecture discussing electromagnetic theory. He suggested a method of producing electromagnetic disturbances of comparatively short wavelengths:... by utilising the alternating currents produced when an accumulator is discharged through a small resistance. It would be possible to produce waves of as little as 10 metres wavelength or less. So FitzGerald, using his own studies of electrodynamics, suggested in 1883 that an oscillating electric current would produce electromagnetic waves. However, as he later wrote:... I did not see any feasible way of detecting the induced resonance. In 1888 FitzGerald addressed the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association in Bath as its President. He was able to report to British Association that

Heinrich Hertz had, earlier that year, verified this experimentally. Hertz had verified that the vibration, reflection and refraction of electromagnetic waves were the same as those of light. In this brilliant lecture, given to a general audience, FitzGerald described how Hertz:... has observed the interference of electromagnetic waves quite analogous to those of light. After his appointment to the chair, FitzGerald had continued to produce many innovative ideas but no major theories. For example despite his ideas on electromagnetic waves he had not followed through the research and the final experimental verification had been achieved by Hertz. The reason for this is perhaps best understood with a quotation from a letter which FitzGerald sent to Heaviside on 4 February 1889 (see for example [1]):I admire from a distance those who contain themselves till they worked to the bottom of their results but as I am not in the very least sensitive to having made mistakes I rush out with all sorts of crude notions in hope that they may set others thinking and lead to some advance. Although FitzGerald is modestly talking down his contributions in this quotation, the comment he made about himself is essentially correct. O J Lodge [9] gives a similar, but fairer, analysis of FitzGerald's work:... the leisure of long patient analysis was not his, nor did his genius altogether lie in this direction: he was at his best when, under the stimulus of discussion, his mind teemed with brilliant suggestions, some of which he at once proceeded to test by rough quantitative calculation, for which he was an adept in discerning the necessary data. The power of grasping instantly all the bearings of a difficult problem was his to an extraordinary degree ... Again Heaviside wrote (see for example [8]):He had, undoubtedly, the quickest and most original brain of anybody. That was a great distinction; but it was, I think, a misfortune as regards his scientific fame. He saw too many openings. His brain was too fertile and inventive. I think it would have been better for him if he had been a little stupid -- I mean not so quick and versatile, but more plodding. He would have been better appreciated, save by a few. Finally we should examine the contribution for which FitzGerald is universally known today. There had been many attempts to detect the motion of the Earth relative to the aether, a medium in space postulated to carry light waves. A A Michelson and E W Morley conducted an accurate experiment to compare the speed of light in the direction of the Earth's motion and the speed of light at right angles to the Earth's motion. Despite the difference in relative motion to the aether, the velocity of light was found to be the same. In 1889, two years after the Michelson-Morley experiment, FitzGerald suggested that the shrinking of a body due to motion at speeds close to that of light would account for the result of that experiment. Lodge [9] writes that the idea:-

... flashed on him in the writer's study at Liverpool as he was discussing the meaning of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Lorentz, independently in 1895, gave a much more detailed description of the same kind. It was typical of these two great men that both were more than ready to acknowledge the contribution of the other, but there is little doubt that each had the idea independently of the other. The FitzGerald-Lorentz contraction now plays an important role in relativity. Sadly FitzGerald died at the age of only 49 years. Maxwell, whose work had proved so fundamental for FitzGerald, had died at the age of 48 while Hertz died at the age of 36. In fact in 1896 FitzGerald had reviewed the publication of Hertz's Miscellaneous Papers for Nature after Hertz's death. Four years later, in September 1900, FitzGerald began to complain of indigestion and began to have to be careful what he ate. A few weeks later he complained that he was finding it difficult to concentrate on a problem. His health rapidly deteriorated and despite having an operation the end came quickly. W Ramsay, on hearing of FitzGerald's death wrote (see [8]):... to me, as to many others, FitzGerald was the truest of true friends; always interested, always sympathetic, always encouraging, whether the matter discussed was a personal one, or one connected with science or with education. And yet I doubt if it were these qualities alone which made his presence so attractive and so inspiring. I think it was the feeling that one was able to converse on equal terms with a man who was so much above the level of one's self, not merely in intellectual qualities of mind, but in every respect. ... he had no trace of intellectual pride; he never put himself forward, and had no desire for fame; he was content to do his duty. And he took this to be the task of helping others to do theirs. FitzGerald was described by Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) as (see [10]):... living in an atmosphere of the highest scientific and intellectual quality, but always a comrade with every fellow-worker of however humble quality.... My scientific sympathy and alliance with him have greatly ripened during the last six or seven years over the undulatory theory of light and the aether theory of electricity and magnetism. On his death the Faculty of Science of the University of London adopted the resolution [3]:That this meeting ... having heard with profound sorrow of the premature death of the late Professor George Francis FitzGerald, desires to place on record its high appreciation of his brilliant qualities as a man, as a teacher, as an investigator, and as a leader of scientific thought ...

Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson October 2003

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/FitzGerald.html]

Niels Henrik Abel

Born: 5 Aug 1802 in Frinde (near Stavanger), Norway Died: 6 April 1829 in Froland, Norway

Niels Abel's life was dominated by poverty and we begin by putting this in context by looking briefly at the political problems which led to economic problems in Norway. At the end of the 18th century Norway was part of Denmark and the Danish tried to remain neutral through the Napoleonic wars. However a neutrality treaty in 1794 was considered a aggressive act by Britain and, in 1801, the British fleet destroyed most of the Danish fleet in a battle in the harbour at Copenhagen. Despite this Denmark-Norway avoided wars until 1807 when Britain feared that the Danish fleet might be used by the French to invade. Using the philosophy that attack is the best form of defence, the English attacked and captured the whole Danish fleet in October 1807. Denmark then joined the alliance Britain Britain. The continental powers blockaded Britain, and as a counter to this Britain blockaded Norway. The twin blockade was a catastrophe to Norway preventing their timber exports, which had been largely to Britain, and preventing their grain imports from Denmark. An economic crisis in Norway followed with the people suffering hunger and extreme poverty. In 1813 Sweden attacked Denmark from the south and, at the treaty of Kiel in January 1814, Denmark handed over Norway to Sweden. An attempt at independence by Norway a few months later led to Sweden attacking Norway in July 1814. Sweden gained control of Norway, setting up a complete internal self-government for Norway with a government in Christiania (which is called Oslo today). In this difficult time Abel was growing up in Gjerstad in south-east Norway. Abel's father, Sren Georg Abel, had a degree in theology and philology and his father (Niels Abel's grandfather) was a Protestant minister at Gjerstad near Risor. Sren Abel was a Norwegian nationalist who was active politically in the movement to make Norway independent. Sren Abel married Ane Marie Simonson, the daughter of a merchant and ship owner, and was appointed as minister at Finnoy. Niels Abel, the second of seven children, was one year old when his grandfather died and his father was appointed to succeed him as the minister at Gjerstad. It was in that town that Abel was brought up, taught by his father in the vicarage until he reached 13 years of age. However, these were the 13 years of economic crisis for Norway described above and Abel's parents would have not been able to feed their family that well. The problems were not entirely political either for [14]:-

[Abel's] father was probably a drunkard and his mother was accused of having lax morals. Abel's father was, however, important in the politics of Norway and, after Sweden gained control of Norway in 1814, he was involved in writing a new constitution for Norway as a member of the Storting, the Norwegian legislative body. In 1815 Abel and his older brother were sent to the Cathedral School in Christiania. The founding of the University of Christiania had taken away the good teachers from the Cathedral School to staff the University when it opened for teaching in 1813. What had been a good school was in a bad state when Abel arrived. Uninspired by the poor school, he proved a rather ordinary pupil with some talent for mathematics and physics. When a new mathematics teacher Bernt Holmbo joined the school in 1817 things changed markedly for Abel. The previous mathematics teacher had been dismissed for punishing a boy so severely that he had died. Abel began to study university level mathematics texts and, within a year of Holmbo's arrival, Abel was reading the works of Euler, Newton, Lalande and d'Alembert. Holmbo was convinced that Abel had great talent and encouraged him greatly taking him on to study the works of Lagrange and Laplace. However, in 1820 tragedy struck Abel's family when his father died. Abel's father had ended his political career in disgrace by making false charges against his colleagues in the Storting after he was elected to the body again in 1818. His habits of drinking to excess also contributed to his dismissal and the family was therefore in the deepest trouble when he died. There was now no money to allow Abel to complete his school education, nor money to allow him to study at university and, in addition, Abel had the responsibility of supporting his mother and family. Holmbo was able to help Abel gain a scholarship to remain at school and Abel was able to enter the University of Christiania in 1821, ten years after the university was founded. Holmbo had raised money from his colleagues to enable Abel to study at the university and he graduated in 1822. While in his final year at school, however, Abel had begun working on the solution of quintic equations by radicals. He believed that he had solved the quintic in 1821 and submitted a paper to the Danish mathematician Ferdinand Degen, for publication by the Royal Society of Copenhagen. Degen asked Abel to give a numerical example of his method and, while trying to provide an example, Abel discovered the mistake in his paper. Degen had given Abel some important advice that was to set him working on an area of mathematics (see [2]):... whose development would have the greatest consequences for analysis and mechanics. I refer to elliptic integrals. A serious investigator with suitable qualifications for research of this kind would by no means be restricted to the many beautiful properties of these most remarkable functions, but could discover a Strait of Magellan leading into wide expanses of a tremendous analytic ocean. At the University of Christiania Abel found a supporter in the professor of astronomy Christopher Hansteen, who provided both financial support and encouragement. Hansteen's wife began to care for Abel as if he was her own son. In 1823 Abel published papers on functional equations and integrals in a new scientific journal started up by Hansteen. In Abel's third paper, Solutions of some problems by means of definite integrals he gave the first solution of an integral equation.

Abel was given a small grant to visit Degen and other mathematicians in Copenhagen. While there he met Christine Kemp who shortly afterwards became his fiance. Returning to Christiania, Abel tried to get the University of Christiania to give him a larger grant to enable him to visit the top mathematicians in Germany and France. He did not speak French of German so, partly to save money, he was given funds to remain in Christiania for two years to give him the chance to become fluent in these languages before travelling. Abel began working again on quintic equations and, in 1824, he proved the impossibility of solving the general equation of the fifth degree in radicals. He published the work in French and at his own expense since he wanted an impressive piece of work to take with him when he was on his travels. As Ayoub writes in [6]:He chose a pamphlet as the quickest way to get it into print, and in order to save on the printing costs, he reduced the proof to fit on half a folio sheet [six pages]. By this time Abel seems to have known something of Ruffini's work for he had studied Cauchy's work of 1815 while he was an undergraduate and in this paper there is a reference to Ruffini's work. Abel's 1824 paper begins ([6]):Geometers have occupied themselves a great deal with the general solution of algebraic equations and several among them have sought to prove the impossibility. But, if I am not mistaken, they have not succeeded up to the present. Abel sent this pamphlet to several mathematicians including Gauss, who he intended to visit in Gttingen while on his travels. In August 1825 Abel was given a scholarship from the Norwegian government to allow him to travel abroad and, after taking a month to settle his affairs, he set out for the Continent with four friends, first visiting mathematicians in Norway and Denmark. On reaching Copenhagen, Abel found that Degen had died and he changed his mind about taking Hansteen's advice to go directly to Paris, preferring not to travel alone and stay with his friends who were going to Berlin. As he wrote in a later letter ([7]):Now I am so constituted that I cannot endure solitude. Alone, I am depressed, I get cantankerous, and I have little inclination to work. In Copenhagen Abel was given a letter of introduction to Crelle by one of the mathematicians there. Abel met Crelle in Berlin and the two became firm friends. This proved the most useful part of Abel's whole trip, particularly as Crelle was about to begin publishing a journal devoted to mathematical research. Abel was encouraged by Crelle to write a clearer version of his work on the insolubility of the quintic and this resulted in Recherches sur les fonctions elliptiques which was published in 1827 in the first volume of Crelle's Journal, along with six other papers by Abel. While in Berlin, Abel learnt that the position of professor of mathematics at the University of Christiania, the only university in Norway, had been given to Holmbo. With no prospects of a university post in Norway, Abel began to worry about his future. Crelle's Journal continued to be a source for Abel's papers and Abel began to work to establish mathematical analysis on a rigorous basis. He wrote to Holmbo from Berlin [2]:-

My eyes have been opened in the most surprising manner. If you disregard the very simplest cases, there is in all of mathematics not a single infinite series whose sum had been rigorously determined. In other words, the most important parts of mathematics stand without foundation. It is true that most of it is valid, but that is very surprising. I struggle to find a reason for it, an exceedingly interesting problem. It had been Abel's intention to travel with Crelle to Paris and to visit Gauss in Gttingen on the way. However, news got back to Abel that Gauss was not pleased to receive his work on the insolubility of the quintic, so Abel decided that he would be better not to go to Gttingen. It is uncertain why Gauss took this attitude towards Abel's work since he certainly never read it - the paper was found unopened after Gauss's death. Ayoub gives two possible reasons [6]:... the first possibility is that Gauss had proved the result himself and was willing to let Abel take the credit. ... The other explanation is that he did not attach very much importance to solvability by radicals... The second of these explanations does seem the more likely, especially since Gauss had written in his thesis of 1801 that the algebraic solution of an equation was no better than devising a symbol for the root of the equation and then saying that the equation had a root equal to the symbol. Crelle was detained in Berlin and could not travel with Abel to Paris. Abel therefore did not go directly to Paris, but chose to travel again with his Norwegian friends to northern Italy before crossing the Alps to France. In Paris Abel was disappointed to find there was little interest in his work. He wrote back to Holmbo ([7]):The French are much more reserved with strangers than the Germans. It is extremely difficult to gain their intimacy, and I do not dare to urge my pretensions as far as that; finally every beginner had a great deal of difficulty getting noticed here. I have just finished an extensive treatise on a certain class of transcendental functions to present it to the Institute which will be done next Monday. I showed it to Mr Cauchy, but he scarcely deigned to glance at it. The contents and importance of this treatise by Abel is described in [2]:It dealt with the sum of integrals of a given algebraic function. Abel's theorem states that any such sum can be expressed as a fixed number p of these integrals, with integration arguments that are algebraic functions of the original arguments. The minimal number p is the genus of the algebraic function, and this is the first occurrence of this fundamental quantity. Abel's theorem is a vast generalisation of Euler's relation for elliptic integrals. Two referees, Cauchy and Legendre, were appointed to referee the paper and Abel remained in Paris for a few months [14]:... emaciated, gloomy, weary and constantly worried. He ... could only afford to eat one meal a day.

He published some articles, mainly on the results he had already written for Crelle's Journal, then with no money left and his health in a very poor state, he returned to Berlin at the end of 1826. In Berlin, Abel borrowed some money and continued working on elliptic functions. He wrote a paper in which [2]:... he radically transformed the theory of elliptic integrals to the theory of elliptic functions by using their inverse functions ... Crelle tried to persuade Abel to remain in Berlin until he could find an academic post for him and he even offered Abel the editorship of Crelle's Journal. However, Abel wanted to get home and by this time he was heavily in debt. He reached Christiania in May 1827 and was awarded a small amount of money by the university although they made sure they had the right to deduct a corresponding amount from any future salary he earned. To make a little more money Abel tutored schoolchildren and his fiance was employed as a governess to friends of Abel's family in Froland. Hansteen received a major grant to investigate the Earth's magnetic field in Siberia and a replacement was needed to teach for him at the University and also at the Military Academy. Abel was appointed to this post which improved his position a little. In 1828 Abel was shown a paper by Jacobi on transformations of elliptic integrals. Abel quickly showed that Jacobi's results were consequences of his own and added a note to this effect to the second part of his major work on elliptic functions. He had been working again on the algebraic solution of equations, with the aim of solving the problem of which equations were soluble by radicals (the problem which Galois solved a few years later). He put this to one side to compete with Jacobi in the theory of elliptic functions, quickly writing several papers on the topic. Legendre saw the new ideas in the papers which Abel and Jacobi were writing and said ([2]):Through these works you two will be placed in the class of the foremost analysts of our times. Abel continued to pour out high quality mathematics as his health continued to deteriorate. He spent the summer vacation of 1828 with his fiance in Froland. The masterpiece which he had submitted to the Paris Academy seemed to have been lost and so he wrote the main result down again [3]:The paper was only two brief pages, but of all his many works perhaps the most poignant. He called it only "A theorem": it had no introduction, contained no superfluous remarks, no applications. It was a monument resplendent in its simple lines - the main theorem from his Paris memoir, formulated in few words. Abel travelled by sled to visit his fiance again in Froland for Christmas 1828. He became seriously ill on the sled journey and despite an improvement which allowed them to enjoy Christmas, he soon became very seriously ill again. Crelle was told and he redoubled his efforts to obtain an appointment for Abel in Berlin. He succeeded and wrote to Abel on the 8 April 1829 to tell him the good news. It was too late, Abel had already died. Ore [3] describes his last few days:-

... the weakness and cough increased and he could remain out of bed only the few minutes while it was being made. Occasionally he would attempt to work on his mathematics, but he could no longer write. Sometimes he lived in the past, talking about his poverty and about Fru Hansteen's goodness. Always he was kind and patient. ... He endured his worst agony during the night of April 5. Towards morning he became more quiet and in the forenoon, at eleven o'clock, he expired his last sigh. After Abel's death his Paris memoir was found by Cauchy in 1830 after much searching. It was printed in 1841 but rather remarkably vanished again and was not found until 1952 when it turned up in Florence. Also after Abel's death unpublished work on the algebraic solution of equations was found. In fact in a letter Abel had written to Crelle on 18 October 1828 he gave the theorem [13]:If every three roots of an irreducible equation of prime degree are related to one another in such a way that one of them may be expressed rationally in terms of the other two, then the equation is soluble in radicals. This result is essentially identical to one given by Galois in his famous memoir of 1830. In this same year 1830 the Paris Academy awarded Abel and Jacobi the Grand Prix for their outstanding work. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson June 1998

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Abel.html]

Leone Battista Alberti

Born: 18 Feb 1404 in Genoa, French Empire (now Italy) Died: 3 April 1472 in Rome, Papal States (now Italy)

Leone Battista Alberti's father was Lorenzo Alberti. We do not know who his mother was, and there is reason to believe that he was an illegitimate child. His father's family were wealthy and had been involved in banking and commercial business in Florence during the 14th century. In fact the success of the city of Florence during this period is to a large extent a consequence of the success of the Alberti family, whose firm had branches spread widely through north Italy. Not content with their major financial achievements, however, members of the family became involved in politics. This turned out to be a disaster and the family was driven out of Florence after decrees were passed

to exile them. It was for this reason that Lorenzo Alberti came to be living in Genoa at the time his son was born, for there he was safe yet still able to continue his wealthy life style within a local branch of the family firm. As a child Leone Battista received his mathematical education from his father Lorenzo. However, when the plague struck Genoa, Lorenzo rapidly went with his children to Venice where the firm also had a major branch run by members of the Alberti family. However, Lorenzo died shortly after arriving in Venice and Leone Battista began living with one of his uncles. This arrangement was short-lived for the uncle soon vanished. It is likely that by this time members of the family were attempting by unscrupulous means to gain access to the family fortune. Leone Battista attended a school in Padua then, from 1421, he attended the University of Bologna where he studied law but did not enjoy this topic. He became ill through overwork but still managed to gain a degree in canon law. It was around this time that he became interested in pursuing his mathematical studies, rather as a way to relax when stressed out by his law studies which he found made far too large demands on memory. Also around this time he wrote a comedy Philodoxius (Lover of Glory, 1424), composed in Latin verse. By this time the decrees which had forced his family to flee from Florence had been revoked and Alberti went to live in the city where he met Brunelleschi and the two became good friends. They shared an interest in mathematics and, through Brunelleschi, Alberti became interested in architecture. At this stage, however, his interest was purely theoretical and he did not put his theories into practice. In 1430 Alberti began working for a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. This post meant that he travelled a lot, in particular to France, Belgium and Germany. In 1432 he began following a literary career as a secretary in the Papal Chancery in Rome writing biographies of the saints in elegant Latin. Going to Rome was highly significant for Alberti, for there he fell in love with the ancient classical architecture which he saw all around. This led him to study not only classical architecture but also painting and sculpture. Alberti served Pope Eugene IV but this was a period of considerable weakness for the Papacy and military action against the Pope forced Eugene IV out of Rome on several occasions. Alberti left Rome with the Pope at such times and spent time at the court in Rimini. Nicholas V, who was Pope from 1447 to 1455, was an enthusiast for classical studies and produced an environment much suited to Alberti who presented him with his book on architecture De re aedificatoria in 1452. Alberti modelled the book on the classical work by Vitruvius and copied his format by dividing his text into ten books. Vitruvius (1st century BC) was the author of the famous treatise De architectura (On Architecture). The methods of fortification which Alberti set out in the text were highly influential and were used in the fortification of towns for several hundred years. In 1447, the year Nicholas V became Pope, Alberti became a canon of the Metropolitan Church of Florence and Abbot of Sant' Eremita of Pisa. Pope Nicholas V employed him on a number of major architectural projects and we describe below some of his remarkable buildings. Alberti studied the representation of 3-dimensional objects and, in 1435, wrote the first general treatise De Pictura on the laws of perspective. This was first published in Latin but in the following year Alberti published an Italian version under the title Della pittura. The book was dedicated to Brunelleschi who had indeed been a great inspiration to him. It was printed in 1511. Simon writes in [13]:-

Alberti explained and justified his method of perspective construction by using the metaphor of a window opening onto the world. The picture surface is conceived as intersecting the pyramid of vision without altering it. Alberti wrote about how he enjoyed applying mathematics to artistic undertakings:Nothing pleases me so much as mathematical investigations and demonstrations, especially when I can turn them to some useful practice drawing from mathematics the principles of painting perspective and some amazing propositions on the moving of weights . Field [9] also comments on how mathematics influenced the arts through the contributons of Alberti and others around the same period:What we seem to be seeing in this progress of perspective towards the applied arts in the sixteenth century is the progress of mathematics as an increasingly important component in the training and practice of craftsmen in general, and of architects in particular. Alberti also worked on maps (again involving his skill at geometrical mappings) and he collaborated with Paolo Toscanelli who supplied Columbus with the maps for his first voyage. He also wrote the first book on cryptography which contains the first example of a frequency table. In this area he introduced polyalphabetic substitution [10]. This is the method of cipher in which the kth letter of a text which is the ith letter in the alphabet is replaced by the jth letter of the alphabet where j = f (i, k) for some function f. Polyalphabetic substitution was introduced into diplomatic practice by Alberti, who also invented a simple mechanical device to speed up coding and decoding, consisting of a fixed and a movable ring. Alberti is best known, however, as an architect. We mentioned above that Alberti spent time in Rimini and it was there that he designed the facade of the Tempio Malatestiano, his first attempt to put his theoretical ideas about architecture into practice. It was designed in the style of the Arch of Augustus in Rimini and is the first example in the history of art of a classical building becoming the model for a Renaissance one. Gombrich writes [4]:Brunelleschi's idea had been to introduce the forms of classical buildings, the columns, pediments and cornices which he had copied from Roman ruins. He had used these forms in his churches. His successors were eager to emulate him in this. [The Church of S Andrea, Mantua, is] a church planned by the Florentine architect Leone Battista Alberti, who conceived its facade as a gigantic triumphal arch in the Roman manner. But how was this new programme to be applied to an ordinary dwelling-house in a city street? No private houses had survived from Roman times, and even if they had, needs and customs had changed so much that they might have offered little guidance. The problem, then, was to find a compromise between the traditional house, with walls and windows, and the classical forms which Brunelleschi had taught the architects to use. It was again Alberti who found the solution that remained influential up to our own days. When he built a palace for the rich Florentine merchant family Rucellai, he designed an ordinary three-storeyed building. There is little similarity between this facade and a

classical ruin. And yet Alberti stuck to Brunelleschi's programme and used classical forms for the decoration of the facade. Instead of building columns or half-columns, he covered the house with a network of flat pilasters and entablatures which suggest a classical order without changing the structure of the building. ... Alberti ... merely 'translated' a Gothic design into classical forms by smoothing out the 'barbaric' pointed arch and using the elements of the classical order in a traditional context. The Church of S Andrea, Mantua, which Gombrich comments on in the above quote, was designed by Alberti in 1470 and work on it began two years later. Alberti did not live to see his design take shape for he died in the year in which building started and by the time the facade and portico were in position he had been dead for 18 years. The church is discussed in [5] where the author writes that Alberti's:... avowed architectural aim, to schematise in the spatial form of the church the immanent, harmonious order of the world, found majestic realization in [his] own church of Sant' Andrea in Mantua. This was his final architectural work ... and it carries out these theoretical ideas with perfect artistic clarity. Alberti made numerous innovations in his design with the traditional division into nave and aisles discarded in favour of providing a continuous space. There is certainly a mathematical flavour to the way that Alberti has sequences of small and large chapels alternating along the sides of the main space. In addition to the Church of S Andrea, Mantua, Alberti had earlier articulated the facade of the Santa Maria Novella in Florence, which he began work on in 1447, and the Palazzo Rucellai, mentioned in the quote of Gombrich above. Both works were undertaken for the Florence merchant Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai. The Palazzo Rucellai was designed between 1446 and 1451 and stands in the Via della Vigna. In the square, on the right, is the Loggia dei Rucellai built by Alberti in 1460 as a formal hall for the Rucellai family. As to Alberti's character and appearance, Gille writes in [1]:Alberti was, we are told, amiable, very handsome, and witty. He was adept at directing discussions and took pleasure in organising small conversational groups. In fact Alberti wrote some autobiographical notes which survive in which he boasts of his physical abilities. He claimed he was capable of:... standing with his feet together, and springing over a man's head. In a similar vein he also claimed that he:... excelled in all bodily exercises; could, with feet tied, leap over a standing man; could in the great cathedral, throw a coin far up to ring against the vault; amused himself by taming wild horses and climbing mountains. Even if untrue, these delightful quotes tell us much of Alberti's personality. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson

August 2006

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Alberti.html]

Jean Robert Argand

Born: 18 July 1768 in Geneva, Switzerland Died: 13 Aug 1822 in Paris, France

Jean-Robert Argand was an accountant and bookkeeper in Paris who was only an amateur mathematician. Little is known of his background and education. We do know that his father was Jacques Argand and his mother Eves Canac. In addition to his date of birth, the date on which he was baptized is known - 22 July 1768. Among the few other facts known of his life is a little information about his children. His son was born in Paris and continued to live there, while his daughter, JeanneFranoise-Dorothe- Marie-Elizabeth Argand, married Flix Bousquet and they lived in Stuttgart. Argand is famed for his geometrical interpretation of the complex numbers where i is interpreted as a rotation through 90. The concept of the modulus of a complex number is also due to Argand but Cauchy, who used the term later, is usually credited as the originator this concept. The Argand diagram is taught to most school children who are studying mathematics and Argand's name will live on in the history of mathematics through this important concept. However, the fact that his name is associated with this geometrical interpretation of complex numbers is only as a result of a rather strange sequence of events. The first to publish this geometrical interpretation of complex numbers was Caspar Wessel. The idea appears in Wessel's work in 1787 but it was not published until Wessel submitted a paper to a meeting of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences on 10 March 1797. The paper was published in 1799 but not noticed by the mathematical community. Wessel's paper was rediscovered in 1895 when Juel draw attention to it and, in the same year, Sophus Lie republished Wessel's paper. This is not as surprising as it might seem at first glance since Wessel was a surveyor. However, Argand was not a professional mathematician either, so when he published his geometrical interpretation of complex numbers in 1806 it was in a book which he published privately at his own expense. His knowledge of the book trade allowed him to put out this small edition but one would have expected it to be in a less noticable place than Wessel's work which after all was published by the Royal Danish Academy. Perhaps even more surprisingly, Argand's name did not even appear on the book so it was impossible to identify the author.

The way that Argand's work became known is rather complicated. Legendre was sent a copy of the work and he sent it to Franois Franais although neither knew the identity of the author. After Franois Franais's death in 1810 his brother Jacques Franais worked on his papers and he discovered Argand's little book among them. In September 1813 Jacques Franais published a work in which he gave a geometric representation of complex numbers, with interesting applications, based on Argand's ideas. Jacques Franais might easily have claimed these ideas for himself, but he did quite the reverse. He ended his paper by saying that the idea was based on the work of an unknown mathematician and he asked that the mathematician should make himself known so that he might receive the credit for his ideas. The article by Jacques Franais appeared in Gergonne's journal Annales de mathmatiques and Argand responded to Jacques Franais's request by acknowledging that he was the author and submitting a slightly modified version of his original work with some new applications to the Annales de mathmatiques. There is nothing like an argument to bring something to the attention of the world and this is exactly what happened next. A vigorous discussion between Jacques Franais, Argand and Servois took place in the pages of Gergonne's Journal. In this correspondence Jacques Franais and Argand argued in favour of the validity of the geometric representation, while Servois argued that complex numbers must be handled using pure algebra. One might have expected that Argand would have made no other contributions to mathematics. However this is not so and, although he will always be remembered for the Argand diagram, his best work is on the fundamental theorem of algebra and for this he has received little credit. He gave a beautiful proof (with small gaps) of the fundamental theorem of algebra in his work of 1806, and again when he published his results in Gergonne's Journal in 1813. Certainly Argand was the first to state the theorem in the case where the coefficients were complex numbers. Petrova, in [6], discusses the early proofs of the fundamental theorem and remarks that Argand gave an almost modern form of the proof which was forgotten after its second publication in 1813. After 1813 Argand did achieve a higher profile in the mathematical world. He published eight further articles, all in Gergonne's Journal, between 1813 and 1816. Most of these are based on either his original book, or they comment on papers published by other mathematicians. His final publication was on combinations where he used the notation (m, n) for the combinations of n objects selected from m objects. In [1] Jones sums up Argand's work as follows:Argand was a man with an unknown background, a nonmathematical occupation, and an uncertain contact with the literature of his time who intuitively developed a critical idea for which the time was right. He exploited it himself. The quality and significance of his work were recognised by some of the geniuses of his time, but breakdowns in communication and the approximate simultaneity of similar developments by other workers force a historian to deny him full credit for the fruits of the concept on which he laboured.

Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson July 2000

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Argand.html]

Charles Babbage
Born: 26 Dec 1791 in London, England Died: 18 Oct 1871 in London, England

Both the date and place of Charles Babbage's birth were uncertain but have now been firmly established. In [1] and [12], for example, his date of birth is given as 26 December 1792 and both give the place of his birth as near Teignmouth. Also in [18] it is stated:Little is known of Mr Babbage's parentage and early youth except that he was born on 26 December 1792. However, a nephew wrote to The Times a week after the obituary [18] appeared, saying that Babbage was born on 26 December 1791. There was little evidence to prove which was right until Hyman (see [8]) in 1975 found that Babbage's birth had been registered in St Mary's Newington, London on 6 January 1792. Babbage's father was Benjamin Babbage, a banker, and his mother was Betsy Plumleigh Babbage. Given the place that his birth was registered Hyman says in [8] that it is almost certain that Babbage was born in the family home of 44 Crosby Row, Walworth Road, London. Babbage suffered ill health as a child, as he relates in [4]:Having suffered in health at the age of five years, and again at that of ten by violent fevers, from which I was with difficulty saved, I was sent into Devonshire and placed under the care of a clergyman (who kept a school at Alphington, near Exeter), with instructions to attend to my health; but, not to press too much knowledge upon me: a mission which he faithfully accomplished. Since his father was fairly wealthy, he could afford to have Babbage educated at private schools. After the school at Alphington he was sent to an academy at Forty Hill, Enfield, Middlesex where his education properly began. He began to show a passion for mathematics but a dislike for the classics. On leaving the academy, he continued to study at home, having an Oxford tutor to bring him up to university level. Babbage in [4] lists the mathematics books he studied in this period with the tutor:-

Amongst these were Humphry Ditton's 'Fluxions', of which I could make nothing; Madame Agnesi's 'Analytical Instructions' from which I acquired some knowledge; Woodhouse's 'Principles of Analytic Calculation', from which I learned the notation of Leibniz; and Lagrange's 'Thorie des Fonctions'. I possessed also the 'Fluxions' of Maclaurin and of Simson. Babbage entered Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1810. However the grounding he had acquired from the books he had studied made him dissatisfied with the teaching at Cambridge. He wrote [4]:Thus it happened that when I went to Cambridge I could work out such questions as the very moderate amount of mathematics which I then possessed admitted, with equal facility, in the dots of Newton, the d's of Leibniz, or the dashes of Lagrange. I thus acquired a distaste for the routine of the studies of the place, and devoured the papers of Euler and other mathematicians scattered through innumerable volumes of the academies of St Petersburg, Berlin, and Paris, which the libraries I had recourse to contained. Under these circumstances it was not surprising that I should perceive and be penetrated with the superior power of the notation of Leibniz. It is a little difficult to understand how Woodhouse's Principles of Analytic Calculation was such an excellent book from which to learn the methods of Leibniz, yet Woodhouse was teaching Newton's calculus at Cambridge without any reference to Leibniz's methods. Woodhouse was one of Babbage's teachers at Cambridge yet he seems to have taken no part in the Society that Babbage was to set up to try to bring the modern continental mathematics to Cambridge. Babbage tried to buy Lacroix's book on the differential and integral calculus but this did not prove easy in this period of war with Napoleon. When he did find a copy of the work he had to pay seven guineas for it - an incredible amount of money in those days. Babbage then thought of setting up a Society to translate the work [4]:I then drew up the sketch of a society to be instituted for translating the small work of Lacroix on the Differential and Integral Calculus. It proposed that we should have periodical meetings for the propagation of d's; and consigned to perdition all who supported the heresy of dots. It maintained that the work of Lacroix was so perfect that any comment was unnecessary. Babbage talked with his friend Edward Bromhead (who would become George Green's friend some years later- see the article on Green) who encouraged him to set up his Society. The Analytical Society was set up in 1812 and its members were all Cambridge undergraduates. Nine mathematicians attended the first meeting but the two most prominent members, in addition to Babbage, were John Herschel and George Peacock. Babbage and Herschel produced the first of the publications of the Analytical Society when they published Memoirs of the Analytical Society in 1813. This is a remarkably deep work when one realises that it was written by two undergraduates. They gave a history of the calculus, and of the Newton, Leibniz controversy they wrote:-

It is a lamentable consideration, that that discovery which has most of any done honour to the genius of man, should nevertheless bring with it a train of reflections so little to the credit of his heart. Two further publications of the Analytical Society were the joint work of Babbage, Herschel and Peacock. These are the English translation of Lacroix's Sur le calcul diffrentiel et intgral published in 1816 and a book of examples on the calculus which they published in 1820. Babbage had moved from Trinity College to Peterhouse and it was from that College that he graduated with a B.A. in 1814. However, Babbage realised that Herschel was a much more powerful mathematician than he was so [12]:He did not compete for honours, believing Herschel sure of first place and not caring to come out second. Indeed Herschel was first Wrangler, Peacock coming second. Babbage married in 1814, then left Cambridge in 1815 to live in London. He wrote two major papers on functional equations in 1815 and 1816. Also in 1816, at the early age of 24, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. He wrote papers on several different mathematical topics over the next few years but none are particularly important and some, such as his work on infinite series, are clearly incorrect. Babbage was unhappy with the way that the learned societies of that time were run. Although elected to the Royal Society, he was unhappy with it. He was to write of his feelings on how the Royal Society was run:The Council of the Royal Society is a collection of men who elect each other to office and then dine together at the expense of this society to praise each other over wine and give each other medals. However in 1820 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in the same year he was a major influence in founding the Royal Astronomical Society. He served as secretary to the Royal Astronomical Society for the first four years of its existence and later he served as vice-president of the Society. Babbage, together with Herschel, conducted some experiments on magnetism in 1825, developing methods introduced by Arago. In 1827 Babbage became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a position he held for 12 years although he never taught. The reason why he held this prestigious post yet failed to carry out the duties one would have expected of the holder, was that by this time he had become engrossed in what was to became the main passion of his life, namely the development of mechanical computers. Babbage is without doubt the originator of the concepts behind the present day computer. The computation of logarithms had made him aware of the inaccuracy of human calculation around 1812. He wrote in [4]:... I was sitting in the rooms of the Analytical Society, at Cambridge, my head leaning forward on the table in a kind of dreamy mood, with a table of logarithms lying open

before me. Another member, coming into the room, and seeing me half asleep, called out, Well, Babbage, what are you dreaming about?" to which I replied "I am thinking that all these tables" (pointing to the logarithms) "might be calculated by machinery." Certainly Babbage did not follow up this idea at that time but in 1819, when his interests were turning towards astronomical instruments, his ideas became more precise and he formulated a plan to construct tables using the method of differences by mechanical means. Such a machine would be able to carry out complex operations using only the mechanism for addition. Babbage began to construct a small difference engine in 1819 and had completed it by 1822. He announced his invention in a paper Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables read to the Royal Astronomical Society on 14 June 1822. Although Babbage envisaged a machine capable of printing out the results it obtained, this was not done by the time the paper was written. An assistant had to write down the results obtained. Babbage illustrated what his small engine was capable of doing by calculating successive terms of the sequence n2 + n + 41. The terms of this sequence are 41, 43, 47, 53, 61, ... while the differences of the terms are 2, 4, 6, 8, .. and the second differences are 2, 2, 2, ..... The difference engine is given the initial data 2, 0, 41; it constructs the next row 2, (0 + 2), [41 + (0 + 2)], that is 2, 2, 43; then the row 2, (2 + 2), [43 + (2 + 2)], that is 2, 4, 47; then 2, 6, 53; then 2, 8, 61; ... Babbage reports that his small difference engine was capable of producing the members of the sequence n2 + n + 41 at the rate of about 60 every 5 minutes. Babbage was clearly strongly influenced by de Prony's major undertaking for the French Government of producing logarithmic and trigonometric tables with teams of people to carry out the calculations. He argued that a large difference engine could do the work undertaken by teams of people saving cost and being totally accurate. On 13 July 1823 Babbage received a gold medal from the Astronomical Society for his development of the difference engine. He then met the Chancellor of the Exchequer to seek public funds for the construction of a large difference engine. The Royal Society had already given positive advice to the government:Mr Babbage has displayed great talent and ingenuity in the construction of his machine for computation, which the committee thanks fully adequate to the attainment of the objects proposed by the inventory; and they consider Mr Babbage as highly deserving of public encouragement, in the prosecution of his arduous undertaking. His initial grant was for 1500 and he began work on a large difference engine which he believed he could complete in three years. He set out to produce an engine with [3]:... six orders of differences, each of twenty places of figures, whilst the first three columns would each have had half a dozen additional figures. Such an engine would easily have been able to compute all the tables that de Prony had been calculating, and it was intended to have a printer to print out the results automatically. However the construction proceeded slower than had been expected. By 1827 the expenses were getting out of hand.

The year 1827 was a year of tragedy for Babbage; his father, his wife and two of his children all died that year. He own health gave way and he was advised to travel on the Continent. After his travels he returned near the end of 1828. Further attempts to obtain government support eventually resulted in the Duke of Wellington, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other members of the government visiting Babbage and inspecting the work for themselves. By February 1830 the government had paid, or promised to pay, 9000 towards the project. In 1830 Babbage published Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, a controversial work that resulted in the formation, one year later, of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1834 Babbage published his most influential work On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, in which he proposed an early form of what today we call operational research. The year 1834 was the one in which work stopped on the difference engine. By that time the government had put 17000 into the project and Babbage had put 6000 of his own money. For eight years from 1834 to 1842 the government would make no decision as to whether to continue support. In 1842 the decision not to proceed was taken by Robert Peel's government. Dubbey in [6] writes:Babbage had every reason to feel aggrieved about his treatment by successive governments. They had failed to understand the immense possibilities of his work, ignored the advice of the most reputable scientists and engineers, procrastinated for eight years before reaching a decision about the difference engine, misunderstood his motives and the sacrifices he had made, and ... failed to protect him from public slander and ridicule. By 1834 Babbage had completed the first drawings of the analytical engine, the forerunner of the modern electronic computer. His work on the difference engine had led him to a much more sophisticated idea. Although the analytic engine never progressed beyond detailed drawings, it is remarkably similar in logical components to a present day computer. Babbage describes five logical components, the store, the mill, the control, the input and the output. The store contains [4]:... all the variables to be operated upon, as well as all those quantities which had arisen from the results of other operations. The mill is the analogue of the cpu in a modern computer and it is the place [4]:... into which the quantities about to be operated upon are always bought. The control on the sequence of operations to be carried out was by a Jacquard loom type device. It was operated by punched cards and the punched cards contained the program for the particular task [4]:Every set of cards made for any formula will at any future time recalculate the formula with whatever constants may be required. Thus the Analytical Engine will possess a library of its own. Every set of cards once made will at any time reproduce the calculations for which it was first arranged.

The store was to hold 1000 numbers each of 50 digits, but Babbage designed the analytic engine to effectively have infinite storage. This was done by outputting data to punched cards which could be read in again at a later stage when needed. Babbage decided, however, not to seek government support after his experiences with the difference engine. Babbage visited Turin in 1840 and discussed his ideas with mathematicians there including Menabrea. During Babbage's visit, Menabrea collected all the material needed to describe the analytical engine and he published this in October 1842. Lady Ada Lovelace translated Menabrea's article into English and added notes considerably more extensive than the original memoir. This was published in 1843 and included [7]:... elaborations on the points made by Menabrea, together with some complicated programs of her own, the most complex of these being one to calculate the sequence of Bernoulli numbers. Although Babbage never built an operational, mechanical computer, his design concepts have been proved correct and recently such a computer has been built following Babbage's own design criteria. He wrote in 1851 (see [7]):The drawings of the Analytical Engine have been made entirely at my own cost: I instituted a long series of experiments for the purpose of reducing the expense of its construction to limits which might be within the means I could myself afford to supply. I am now resigned to the necessity of abstaining from its construction... Despite this last statement, Babbage never did quite give up hope that the analytical engine would be built writing in 1864 in [4]:... if I survive some few years longer, the Analytical Engine will exist... After Babbage's death a committee,whose members included Cayley and Clifford, was appointed by the British Association [12]:... to report upon the feasibility of the design, recorded their opinion that its successful realisation might mark an epoch in the history of computation equally memorable with that of the introduction of logarithms... This was an underestimate. The construction of modern computers, logically similar to Babbage's design, have changed the whole of mathematics and it is even not an exaggeration to say that they have changed the whole world. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson October 1998

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Babbage.html]

Thomas Bayes
Born: 1702 in London, England Died: 17 April 1761 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England

Thomas Bayes' father, Joshua Bayes, was one of the first six Nonconformist ministers to be ordained in England. He was ordained in 1694 and moved to Box Lane Chapel, Bovington, about 25 miles from London. Thomas's mother was Anne Carpenter. The family moved to Southwark, London, when Thomas was young and there Joshua became an assistant at St Thomas's and also an assistant at the Chapel in Leather Lane, Holborn. Thomas was the eldest of his parents seven children, four boys and three girls. In [1] Hacking claims that Thomas was educated privately, something he says appears necessary for the son of a Nonconformist minister at that time. If this is the case, then nothing is known of his tutors but Barnard in [6] points out the intriguing possibility that he could have been tutored by de Moivre who was certainly giving private tuition in London at the time. However other historians (see for example [21]) suggest that Thomas received a liberal education for the ministry. In that case it is likely that he attended Fund Academy in Tenter Alley which was the only school with the right religious connections near where Bayes lived. We do know that in 1719 Bayes matriculated at the University of Edinburgh where he studied logic and theology. He had to choose a Scottish university if he was to obtain his education without going overseas since, at this time, Nonconformists were not allowed to matriculate at Oxford or Cambridge. Records which still survive at the University of Edinburgh record that he gave the homily on 14 January 1721 with the text being "Matthew Chapter 7 verses 24-27", and again on 20 January 1722 with the text being "Matthew Chapter 11 verses 29-30". He left the University as a probationer, but he was not ordained at this stage. At some time Bayes must have studied mathematics but there is no evidence that he did so at Edinburgh University. However, he certainly had the opportunity to study mathematics at Edinburgh and when he wrote at age 34:I have long ago thought that the first principles and rules of the method of Fluxions stood in need of more full and distinct explanation and proof ... he certainly suggests that his interest went back to his student days or perhaps shortly afterwards. Thomas Bayes was ordained, a Nonconformist minister like his father, and at first assisted his father in Holborn. In about 1733 he became minister of the Presbyterian Chapel in Tunbridge Wells, 35 miles southeast of London, on the death of the previous minister John Archer. There is, however, evidence that he was associated with Tunbridge Wells before 1733. One report states (see for example [4] where this is quoted):-

John Archer died in 1733 but was succeeded by Thomas Bayes in 1730, who was a man of considerable attainment. It appears that Thomas Bayes left Tunbridge Wells in 1728 and returned in 1731. During this time he was at Leather Lane Presbyterian Church, London, where his father was pastor. On 24 August 1746 William Whiston describes having breakfast with Bayes who he says is:... a dissenting Minister at Tunbridge Wells, and a Successor, though not immediate, to Mr Humphrey Ditton, and like him a very good mathematician. Bayes apparently tried to retire from the ministry in 1749 but remained minister at Tunbridge Wells until 1752 when he did retire, but continued to live in Tunbridge Wells. Bayes set out his theory of probability in Essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1764. The paper was sent to the Royal Society by Richard Price, a friend of Bayes', who wrote:I now send you an essay which I have found among the papers of our deceased friend Mr Bayes, and which, in my opinion, has great merit... In an introduction which he has writ to this Essay, he says, that his design at first in thinking on the subject of it was, to find out a method by which we might judge concerning the probability that an event has to happen, in given circumstances, upon supposition that we know nothing concerning it but that, under the same circumstances, it has happened a certain number of times, and failed a certain other number of times. Dale writes in [4]:What may the reader expect to find in this Essay? As regards probability, he will expect, of course, some or other version of what has become known as 'Bayes's theorem': and such expectation will indeed be met. In addition he will find a clear discussion of the binomial distribution and if he should probe even deeper he will find ... the first occurrence of a probability logic result involving conditional probability. The Essay should be of interest to mathematicians for the evaluation of the incomplete betafunction. We note too the use of approximations to various integrals made here and in the Supplement by both Bayes and Price, and the attention paid to the question of the error incurred in the making of such approximation. The Essay, then, mainly, and perhaps justly, remembered for the solution of the problem posed by Bayes, should also be remembered for its contribution to pure mathematics. Bayes's conclusions were accepted by Laplace in a 1781 memoir, rediscovered by Condorcet (as Laplace mentions), and remained unchallenged until Boole questioned them in the Laws of Thought . Since then Bayes' techniques have been subject to controversy. Bayes also wrote an article An Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions, and a Defence of the Mathematicians Against the Objections of the Author of The Analyst (1736)

attacking Berkeley for his attack on the logical foundations of the calculus. In the Preface Bayes gives his reasons for writing the text:I have long ago thought that the first principles and rules of the method of Fluxions stood in need of more full and distinct explanation and proof, than what they had received either from their first incomparable author, or any of his followers; and therefore was not at all displeased to find the method itself opposed with so much warmth by the ingenious author of the Analyst; and had it been his only design to bring this point to a fair issue, whether a demonstration by the method of Fluxions be truly scientific or not, I should have heartily applauded his conduct, and have thought he deserved the thanks even of the Mathematicians themselves. But the invidious light in which he has put this debate, by representing it as of consequence to the interests of religion, is, I think, truly unjustifiable, as well as highly imprudent. Bayes writes that Berkeley:...represents the disputes and controversies among mathematicians as disparaging the evidence of their methods: and ... he represents Logics and Metaphysics as proper to open their eyes, and extricate them from their difficulties. ... If the disputes of the professors of any science disparage the science itself, Logics and Metaphysics are much more disparaged than Mathematics, why, therefore, if I am half blind, must I take for my guide one that can't see at all? Bayes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1742 despite the fact that at that time he had no published works on mathematics, indeed none were published in his lifetime under his own name, the article on fluxions referred to above was published anonymously. Another mathematical publication on asymptotic series appeared after his death where he showed that the series for log z! given by Stirling and de Moivre, was not valid since it diverged. There are a few other pieces of mathematics which have come down to us from Bayes and we now look at some of these. The first we mention is a letter which he wrote, probably around 1756. Bayes wrote:You may remember a few days ago we were speaking of Mr Simpson's attempt to show the great advantage of taking the mean between several astronomical observations rather than trusting to a single observation carefully made, in order to diminish the errors arising from the imperfection of instrument and the organs of sense. In fact Simpson had made the same error that the French would make nearly fifty years later with Borda's repeating circle, in believing that one could make the error in the observation as small as one desired by making multiple observations. However, Bayes realised that this was not so and wrote in his letter:Now that the errors arising from the imperfection of the instrument and the organs of sense should be thus reduced to nothing or next to nothing only by multiplying the number of observations seems to me extremely incredible. On the contrary the more observations you make with an imperfect instrument the more it seems to be that the error in your conclusion will be proportional to the imperfection of the instrument made use of ...

In [4] a notebook which was almost certainly written by Bayes is examined in detail. This notebook contains a considerable amount of mathematical work, including discussions of probability, trigonometry, geometry, solution of equations, series, and differential calculus. There are also sections on natural philosophy in which Bayes looks at topics which include electricity, optics and celestial mechanics. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson June 2004

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Bayes.html]

George Boole
Born: 2 Nov 1815 in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England Died: 8 Dec 1864 in Ballintemple, County Cork, Ireland

George Boole's parents were Mary Ann Joyce and John Boole. John made shoes but he was interested in science and in particular the application of mathematics to scientific instruments. Mary Ann was a lady's maid and she married John on 14 September 1806. They moved to Lincoln where John opened a cobbler's shop at 34 Silver Street. The family were not well off, partly because John's love of science and mathematics meant that he did not devote the energy to developing his business in the way he might have done. George, their first child, was born after Mary Ann and John had been married for nine years. They had almost given up hope of having children after this time so it was an occasion for great rejoicing. George was christened the day after he was born, an indication that he was a weak child that his parents feared might not live. He was named after John's father who had died in April 1815. Over the next five years Mary Ann and John had three further children, Mary Ann, William and Charles. If George was a weak child after his birth, he certainly soon became strong and healthy. George first attended a school in Lincoln for children of tradesmen run by two Misses Clarke when he was less than two years old. After a year he went to a commercial school run by Mr Gibson, a friend of John Boole, where he remained until he was seven years old. His early instruction in mathematics, however, was from his father who also gave George a liking for constructing optical instruments. When he was seven George attended a primary school where he was taught by Mr Reeves. His interests turned to languages and his father arranged that he receive instruction in Latin from a local bookseller.

Having learnt Latin from a tutor, George went on to teach himself Greek. By the age of 14 he had become so skilled in Greek that it provoked an argument. He translated a poem by the Greek poet Meleager which his father was so proud of that he had it published. However the talent was such that a local schoolmaster disputed that any 14 year old could have written with such depth. By this time George was attending Bainbridge's Commercial Academy in Lincoln which he had entered on 10 September 1828. This school did not provide the type of education he would have wished but it was all his parents could afford. However he was able to teach himself French and German studying for himself academic subjects that a commercial school did not cover. Boole did not study for an academic degree, but from the age of 16 he was an assistant school teacher at Heigham's School in Doncaster. This was rather forced on him since his father's business collapsed and he found himself having to support financially his parents, brothers and sister. He maintained his interest in languages, began to study mathematics seriously, and gave up ideas which he had to enter the Church. The first advanced mathematics book he read was Lacroix's Differential and integral calculus. He was later to realise that he had almost wasted five years in trying to teach himself the subject instead of having a skilled teacher. In 1833 he moved to a new teaching position in Liverpool but he only remained there for six months before moving to Hall's Academy in Waddington, four miles from Lincoln. In 1834 he opened his own school in Lincoln although he was only 19 years old. In 1838 Robert Hall, who had run Hall's Academy in Waddington, died and Boole was invited to take over the school which he did. His parents, brothers and sister moved to Waddington and together they ran the school which had both boarding and day pupils. At this time Boole was studying the works of Laplace and Lagrange, making notes which would later be the basis for his first mathematics paper. However he did receive encouragement from Duncan Gregory who at this time was in Cambridge and the editor of the recently founded Cambridge Mathematical Journal. Boole was unable to take Duncan Gregory's advice and study courses at Cambridge as he required the income from his school to look after his parents. In the summer of 1840 he had opened a boarding school in Lincoln and again the whole family had moved with him. He began publishing regularly in the Cambridge Mathematical Journal and his interests were influenced by Duncan Gregory as he began to study algebra. Boole had begun to correspond with De Morgan in 1842 and when in the following year he wrote a paper On a general method of analysis applying algebraic methods to the solution of differential equations he sent it to De Morgan for comments. It was published by Boole in the Transactions of the Royal Society in 1844 and for this work he received the Society's Royal Medal in November 1844. His mathematical work was beginning to bring him fame. Boole was appointed to the chair of mathematics at Queens College, Cork in 1849. In fact he made an application for a chair in any of the new Queen's Colleges of Ireland in 1846 and in September of that year De Morgan, Kelland, Cayley, and Thomson were among those writing testimonials in support. De Morgan wrote (see for example [7]):I can speak confidently to the fact of his being not only well-versed in the highest branches of mathematics, but possessed of original power for their extension which gives him a very respectable rank among their English cultivators of this day.

Kelland wrote:From the originality of his conceptions and the extent and accuracy of his knowledge, I conceive he has few superiors in Europe ... Boole's father died in December 1848 before the decision had been made concerning the Irish chairs but an announcement came in August 1849 that Boole was to become the first Professor of Mathematics at Queen's College, Cork, and he took up the position in November. He taught there for the rest of his life, gaining a reputation as an outstanding and dedicated teacher. However the position was not without difficulty as the College became embroiled in religious disputes. Boole wrote to De Morgan on 17 October 1850 (see for example [7]):... if you should hear of any situation in England that would be likely to suit me ... let me know of it. I am not terrified by the storm of religious bigotry which is at this moment raging round us here. I am not dissatisfied with my duties and I may venture to say that I am on good terms with my colleagues and with my pupils. But I cannot help entertaining a feeling ... that recent events in this College have laid the foundation of a lack of mutual trust and confidence among us ... In May 1851 Boole was elected as Dean of Science, a role he carried out conscientiously. By this time he had already met Mary Everest (a niece of Sir George Everest, after whom the mountain is named) whose uncle was the professor of Greek at Cork and a friend of Boole. They met first in 1850 when Mary visited her uncle in Cork and again in July 1852 when Boole visited the Everest family in Wickwar, Gloucestershire, England. Boole began to give Mary informal mathematics lessons on the differential calculus. At this time he was 37 years old while Mary was only 20. In 1855 Mary's father died leaving her without means of support and Boole proposed marriage. They married on 11 September 1855 at a small ceremony in Wickwar. It proved a very happy marriage with five daughters: Mary Ellen born in 1856, Margaret born in 1858, Alicia (later Alicia Stott) born in 1860, Lucy Everest born in 1862, and Ethel Lilian born in 1864. MacHale writes [7]:The large gap in their ages seemed to count for nothing because they were kindred spirits with an almost complete unity of purpose. Let us now look at Boole's most important work. In 1854 he published An investigation into the Laws of Thought, on Which are founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities. Boole approached logic in a new way reducing it to a simple algebra, incorporating logic into mathematics. He pointed out the analogy between algebraic symbols and those that represent logical forms. It began the algebra of logic called Boolean algebra which now finds application in computer construction, switching circuits etc. Boole himself understood the importance of the work. He wrote in a letter to Thomson dated 2 January 1851 (see for example [7]):I am now about to set seriously to work upon preparing for the press an account of my theory of Logic and Probabilities which in its present state I look upon as the most valuable if not the only valuable contribution that I have made or am likely to make to Science and the thing by which I would desire if at all to be remembered hereafter ...

Boole also worked on differential equations, the influential Treatise on Differential Equations appeared in 1859, the calculus of finite differences, Treatise on the Calculus of Finite Differences (1860), and general methods in probability. He published around 50 papers and was one of the first to investigate the basic properties of numbers, such as the distributive property, that underlie the subject of algebra. Many honours were given to Boole as the genius in his work was recognised. He received honorary degrees from the universities of Dublin and Oxford and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (1857). However his career, which was started rather late, came to an unfortunately early end when he died at the age of 49. The circumstances are described by Macfarlane in [18] as follows:One day in 1864 he walked from his residence to the College, a distance of two miles, in the drenching rain, and lectured in wet clothes. The result was a feverish cold which soon fell upon his lungs and terminated his career .... What Macfarlane fails to say is that Boole's wife believed that a remedy should resemble the cause. She put Boole to bed and threw buckets of water over the bed since his illness had been caused by getting wet. Hirst described Boole as:... evidently an earnest able and at the same time a genial man. His work was praised by De Morgan who said:Boole's system of logic is but one of many proofs of genius and patience combined. ... That the symbolic processes of algebra, invented as tools of numerical calculation, should be competent to express every act of thought, and to furnish the grammar and dictionary of an all-containing system of logic, would not have been believed until it was proved. When Hobbes ... published his "Computation or Logique" he had a remote glimpse of some of the points which are placed in the light of day by Mr Boole. Boolean algebra has wide applications in telephone switching and the design of modern computers. Boole's work has to be seen as a fundamental step in today's computer revolution. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson June 2004

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Boole.html]

Robert Boyle

Born: 25 Jan 1627 in Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland Died: 30 Dec 1691 in London, England

Robert Boyle was born into a Protestant family. His father was Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, who had left England in 1588 at the age of 22 and gone to Ireland. Appointed clerk of the council of Munster by Elizabeth I in 1600, he bought Sir Walter Raleigh's estates in the counties of Cork, Waterford, and Tipperary two years later. Robert's mother, Catherine Fenton, was Richard Boyle's second wife, his first having died within a year of the birth of their first child. Robert was the seventh son (and fourteenth child) of his parents fifteen children (twelve of the fifteen survived childhood). Richard Boyle was in his 60s and Catherine Boyle in her 40s when Robert was born. Of his father Robert would later write [12]:He, by God's blessing on his prosperous industry, from very inconsiderable beginnings, built so plentiful and so eminent a fortune, that his prosperity has found many admirers, but few parallels. Indeed, Robert was fortunate to have the richest man in Great Britain for a father although, one would have to say, the Earl of Cork had acquired his fortune by somewhat dubious means. He was imprisoned in England on charges of embezzlement at one stage and later was fined heavily for possessing defective titles to some of his estates. The Earl of Cork and his wife believed that the best upbringing for young children, up to the time they began their education, could be provided away from their parents. Robert was sent away to be brought up in the country while his father continued to aim for higher and higher political success. The Earl of Cork lived for four years in his town house in Dublin. He was appointed a lord high justice in 1629 and lord high treasurer in 1631. However, during this time in Dublin Robert's mother died and some time after this Robert returned from his stay with his country nurse to rejoin his family. Robert was sent, together with one of his brothers, to study at Eton College in England in 1635. At this time the school was becoming fashionable as a place where important people sent their sons. The headmaster was John Harrison and the two young Boyle brothers lived in the headmaster's house [10]:Besides the strictly classical course of study then in vogue, the boys had private tutors in French, dancing, and music, for whom they paid extra fees. Boyle paid tribute to Harrison in [12] where he writes that Harrison gave him a:... strong passion to acquire knowledge ... At this stage of his time at Eton, Boyle's education was clearly going well. He was popular with both his headmaster and his fellow pupils. However, perhaps he had been given too much special attention by Harrison for, when Harrison retired, Boyle seemed unable to fit in with the educational discipline the new headmaster brought to the

school. Realising that neither of his sons were progressing well at school under the new headmaster, the Earl of Cork took his sons away from the Eton in November 1638. After this Boyle was tutored privately by one of his father's chaplains. At the age of 12 Boyle was sent by his father, with one of his brothers, on a European tour. From Dieppe they travelled to Paris, then on to Lyon before reaching Geneva. In Geneva Boyle studied with a private tutor French, Latin, rhetoric and religion. He also spent time in the afternoons playing tennis and fencing. Perhaps most importantly of all he began to study mathematics and soon [12]:... he grew very well acquainted with the most useful part of arithmetic, geometry, with its subordinates, the doctrine of the sphere, that of the globe, and fortification. In 1641 Boyle learnt Italian in preparation for visiting there. In September of that year Boyle and his tutor were in Venice, then by the beginning of 1642 they were in Florence. Galileo died in his villa in Arcetri, near Florence, while Boyle was living in the city. He was much influenced by this event and he carefully studied Galileo's works. If any one event shaped Boyle's life and directed him towards science, then it was this. Of course his Protestant background, with an ingrained fear of Jesuits, contributed to his sympathy for Galileo and his treatment by the Roman Catholic Church. Boyle became a strong supporter of Galileo's philosophy and believed strongly from this time in the new approach to studying the world through mathematics and mechanics. By May 1642 Boyle and his tutor were in Marseilles waiting for money from Boyle's father so that he could complete the journey home. This did not arrive, merely a letter from his father explaining that a rebellion in Munster was fully occupying his time and money. He did send 250 to pay for Boyle's return, but the money never reached him. Boyle returned to Geneva where he seems to have lived mainly on his tutor's earnings, while his father continued to fight the Irish at Lismore Castle. King Charles I negotiated a cease-fire with the Catholic rebels fighting the Earl of Cork so that he might bring his troops back to England to help him in the civil war which had broken out. The Earl of Cork never got over Charles treating the Irish as equals and he died shortly after in September 1643. Robert Boyle was still living in Geneva when his father died. In the summer of 1644 he sold some jewellery and used the money that he was paid to finance his return trip to England. Back in England, Boyle lived for a while with his sister Katherine. She was thirteen years older than him and was a lady of some importance, married to Viscount Ranelagh. England was in a chaotic state, the civil war which had began in 1642 was being fought between King Charles and the parliament. Charles had moved to Oxford while the parliament had formed a treaty with the Scots. In return for Scots military support they were promised the establishment of a Presbyterian church. Several battles in 1644 left both King and parliament somewhat in disarray. Boyle had property in England, the manor of Stalbridge, left to him by his father but the situation in the country made things difficult. He wrote in a letter (see for example [3]):[I] got safe into England towards the middle of the year 1644, where we found things in such a confusion, that although the manor of Stalbridge were by my father's decease descended unto me, yet it was near four months before I could get thither.

In fact although Boyle inspected his new home after four months, it was much longer before he was able to move in. This happened in March 1646 after he had spent more time with his sister and made a return trip to France to repay his debts to his tutor who continued to live there. Although Boyle did not intend to spend long at Stalbridge, he remained there for around six years. He probably studied harder than he admits in a letter sent to his old tutor in France in October 1646 (see for example [3]):As for my studies, I have had the opportunity to prosecute them but by fits and snatches, as my leisure and my occasions would give me leave. Divers little essays, both in verse and prose, I have taken pains to scribble upon several subjects. ... The other humane studies I apply myself to, are natural philosophy, the mechanics and husbandry, according to the principles of our new philosophical college ... This "new philosophical college" is also called by Boyle the "Invisible College" later in the letter. It is the society which would soon became the "Royal Society of London" and it provided Boyle's only contact with the world of science while he lived a somewhat lonely life at Stalbridge. He would look forward to his visits to London where members of the College [3]:.. do now and then honour me with their company. It was discussions in the Invisible College which led to Boyle reading Oughtred's Clavis Mathematica as well as the works of Mersenne and Gassendi. Boyle had from the time of his visit to Italy favoured the ideas of Copernicus and he now held these views deeply, together with a deep belief in the atomic theory of matter. In the Invisible College these views were considered to be those of the new natural philosophy. This period was a difficult one for Boyle for he tried hard not to be forced to take sides in the civil war. His loyalties were somewhat divided, his father having been a staunch Royalist, his sister Katherine a staunch Parliamentarian. Basically he had little sympathy with either side, but the final outcome of the civil war turned out to his advantage. Charles I was defeated and executed but, in 1650, Charles II landed in Scotland and tried to regain power. Cromwell, leading the parliamentary forces, defeated the Scots in 1650, again in 1651, and the Irish were also defeated by Cromwell in 1652. Boyle went to Ireland in 1652 to look after his estates there. He ended up a very rich man when Cromwell apportioned Irish lands to the English colonists. From that time on he was able to devote himself entirely to science without the need to earn money. It should be noted, however, that Boyle was a very generous man with his money, and many around him benefited from this generosity. Boyle met John Wilkins, the leader of the Invisible College, in London when he visited there in 1653. At this time Wilkins had just been appointed as Warden of Wadham College in Oxford and he was planning to run the Invisible College from there. He strongly encouraged Boyle to join them in Oxford and invited him to live in the College. Boyle decided to go to Oxford but preferred not to accept Wilkins' offer of accommodation, choosing instead to arrange his own rooms where he could carry out his scientific experiments. At Oxford he joined a group of forward looking scientists, including John Wilkins, John Wallis who was the Savilian Professor of Geometry, Seth Ward who was the Savilian Professor of Astronomy, and Christopher Wren who would

succeed Ward as Savilian Professor of Astronomy in 1661. From 1654 Boyle lived in Oxford, although he never held any university post. He made important contributions to physics and chemistry and is best known for Boyle's law (sometimes called Mariotte's Law) describing an ideal gas. Boyle's law appears in an appendix written in 1662 to his work New Experiments PhysioMechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects (1660). The 1660 text was the result of three years of experimenting with an air pump with the help of Hooke who he employed as his assistant. The apparatus had been designed by Hooke and using it Boyle had discovered a whole series of important facts. He had shown, among other things, that sound did not travel in a vacuum, he had proved that flame required air as did life, and he investigated the elastic properties of air. The 1662 appendix did not only contain Boyle's law which relates volume and pressure in a gas, but it also contained a defence of Boyle's work on the vacuum which appeared in the main text. Many scientists, particularly Hobbes, had argued that a vacuum could not exist and claimed that Boyle's results obtained with the vacuum pump must be the result of some as yet undiscovered force. Another book by Boyle in 1666 was called Hydrostatic paradoxes. It is [1]:... both a penetrating critique of Pascal's work on hydrostatics, full of acute observations upon Pascal's experimental method, and a presentation of a series of important and ingenious experiments on fluid pressure. In The Sceptical Chemist (1661) Boyle argued against Aristotle's view of the four elements of earth, air, fire and water. He argued that matter was composed of corpuscles which themselves were differently built up of different configurations of primary particles. Although many ideas in this work were taken over from Descartes, in one respect he fundamentally disagreed with him. Boyle's ideas that the primary particles move freely in fluids, less freely in solids, followed Descartes. However, Descartes did not believe in a vacuum, rather he believed in an all pervading ether. Boyle had conducted many experiments which led him to believe in a vacuum and, having found no experimental evidence of the ether, to reject that idea. He did follow Descartes in his overall belief that the world was basically a complex system governed by a small number of simple mathematical laws. In considering optics, in particular colour, Boyle was not so successful. He published Experiments and considerations touching colours in 1664 but was quite prepared to acknowledge that Hooke's work of 1665 was superior and he completely acknowledged that Newton's ideas, published in 1672, should replace his own. Boyle was a founding fellow of the Royal Society. He published his results on the physical properties of air through this Society. His work in chemistry was aimed at establishing it as a mathematical science based on a mechanistic theory of matter. It is for this reason that we have decided to include Boyle into this archive of mathematicians for, although he did not develop any mathematical ideas himself, he was one of the first to argue that all science should be developed as an application of mathematics. Although others before him had applied mathematics to physics, Boyle was one of the first to extend the application of mathematics to chemistry which he tried

to develop as a science whose complex appearance was merely the result on simple mathematical laws applied to simple fundamental particles. In 1668 Boyle left Oxford and went to live with his sister Lady Ranelagh in London. There he became a neighbour of Barrow but seemed to have more common scientific interests with another neighbour Thomas Sydenham, a physician. In 1669 his sister's husband died. Some however, were keen to find Boyle a wife. Wallis found someone whom he considered particularly suitable to be Boyle's wife and wrote to him saying:If I might be the happy instrument in making two so excellent persons happy in each other ... I do not know in what else I could more approve myself. Boyle seemed to have successfully avoided such attempts to marry him off. In June 1670 he had a stroke which left him paralysed but slowly he recovered his health. He continued to work and to entertain at his London home. Visitors were so frequent that he had to restrict visits so that he had time to continue with his scientific researches, which he did with the help of many excellent assistants. In 1680 he declined the offer that he serve as President of the Royal Society. He explained his reasons were religious in that he could not swear to necessary oaths. The religious side of Boyle is one which we have not mentioned in this biography, yet it was an important force in his life. Perhaps the reason it has not been necessary to mention his strong Christian faith earlier is that to Boyle there was no conflict with religion and a mechanistic world [1]:... for him a God who could create a mechanical universe - who could create matter in motion, obeying certain laws out of which the universe as we know it could come into being in an orderly fashion - was far more to be admired and worshipped than a God who created a universe without scientific law. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson January 2000

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Boyle.html]

Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor

Born: 3 March 1845 in St Petersburg, Russia Died: 6 Jan 1918 in Halle, Germany

Georg Cantor's father, Georg Waldemar Cantor, was a successful merchant, working as a wholesaling agent in St Petersburg, then later as a broker in the St Petersburg Stock

Exchange. Georg Waldemar Cantor was born in Denmark and he was a man with a deep love of culture and the arts. Georg's mother, Maria Anna Bhm, was Russian and very musical. Certainly Georg inherited considerable musical and artistic talents from his parents being an outstanding violinist. Georg was brought up a Protestant, this being the religion of his father, while Georg's mother was a Roman Catholic. After early education at home from a private tutor, Cantor attended primary school in St Petersburg, then in 1856 when he was eleven years old the family moved to Germany. However, Cantor [21]:... remembered his early years in Russia with great nostalgia and never felt at ease in Germany, although he lived there for the rest of his life and seemingly never wrote in the Russian language, which he must have known. Cantor's father had poor health and the move to Germany was to find a warmer climate than the harsh winters of St Petersburg. At first they lived in Wiesbaden, where Cantor attended the Gymnasium, then they moved to Frankfurt. Cantor studied at the Realschule in Darmstadt where he lived as a boarder. He graduated in 1860 with an outstanding report, which mentioned in particular his exceptional skills in mathematics, in particular trigonometry. After attending the Hhere Gewerbeschule in Darmstadt from 1860 he entered the Polytechnic of Zurich in 1862. The reason Cantor's father chose to send him to the Hheren Gewerbeschule was that he wanted Cantor to become:... a shining star in the engineering firmament. However, in 1862 Cantor had sought his father's permission to study mathematics at university and he was overjoyed when eventually his father consented. His studies at Zurich, however, were cut short by the death of his father in June 1863. Cantor moved to the University of Berlin where he became friends with Hermann Schwarz who was a fellow student. Cantor attended lectures by Weierstrass, Kummer and Kronecker. He spent the summer term of 1866 at the University of Gttingen, returning to Berlin to complete his dissertation on number theory De aequationibus secundi gradus indeterminatis in 1867. While at Berlin Cantor became much involved with the Mathematical Society being president of the Society during 1864-65. He was also part of a small group of young mathematicians who met weekly in a wine house. After receiving his doctorate in 1867, Cantor taught at a girl's school in Berlin. Then, in 1868, he joined the Schellbach Seminar for mathematics teachers. During this time he worked on his habilitation and, immediately after being appointed to Halle in 1869, he presented his thesis, again on number theory, and received his habilitation. At Halle the direction of Cantor's research turned away from number theory and towards analysis. This was due to Heine, one of his senior colleagues at Halle, who challenged Cantor to prove the open problem on the uniqueness of representation of a function as a trigonometric series. This was a difficult problem which had been unsuccessfully attacked by many mathematicians, including Heine himself as well as Dirichlet, Lipschitz and Riemann. Cantor solved the problem proving uniqueness of the representation by April 1870. He published further papers between 1870 and 1872

dealing with trigonometric series and these all show the influence of Weierstrass's teaching. Cantor was promoted to Extraordinary Professor at Halle in 1872 and in that year he began a friendship with Dedekind who he had met while on holiday in Switzerland. Cantor published a paper on trigonometric series in 1872 in which he defined irrational numbers in terms of convergent sequences of rational numbers. Dedekind published his definition of the real numbers by "Dedekind cuts" also in 1872 and in this paper Dedekind refers to Cantor's 1872 paper which Cantor had sent him. In 1873 Cantor proved the rational numbers countable, i.e. they may be placed in oneone correspondence with the natural numbers. He also showed that the algebraic numbers, i.e. the numbers which are roots of polynomial equations with integer coefficients, were countable. However his attempts to decide whether the real numbers were countable proved harder. He had proved that the real numbers were not countable by December 1873 and published this in a paper in 1874. It is in this paper that the idea of a one-one correspondence appears for the first time, but it is only implicit in this work. A transcendental number is an irrational number that is not a root of any polynomial equation with integer coefficients. Liouville established in 1851 that transcendental numbers exist. Twenty years later, in this 1874 work, Cantor showed that in a certain sense 'almost all' numbers are transcendental by proving that the real numbers were not countable while he had proved that the algebraic numbers were countable. Cantor pressed forward, exchanging letters throughout with Dedekind. The next question he asked himself, in January 1874, was whether the unit square could be mapped into a line of unit length with a 1-1 correspondence of points on each. In a letter to Dedekind dated 5 January 1874 he wrote [1]:Can a surface (say a square that includes the boundary) be uniquely referred to a line (say a straight line segment that includes the end points) so that for every point on the surface there is a corresponding point of the line and, conversely, for every point of the line there is a corresponding point of the surface? I think that answering this question would be no easy job, despite the fact that the answer seems so clearly to be "no" that proof appears almost unnecessary. The year 1874 was an important one in Cantor's personal life. He became engaged to Vally Guttmann, a friend of his sister, in the spring of that year. They married on 9 August 1874 and spent their honeymoon in Interlaken in Switzerland where Cantor spent much time in mathematical discussions with Dedekind. Cantor continued to correspond with Dedekind, sharing his ideas and seeking Dedekind's opinions, and he wrote to Dedekind in 1877 proving that there was a 1-1 correspondence of points on the interval [0, 1] and points in p-dimensional space. Cantor was surprised at his own discovery and wrote:I see it, but I don't believe it!

Of course this had implications for geometry and the notion of dimension of a space. A major paper on dimension which Cantor submitted to Crelle's Journal in 1877 was treated with suspicion by Kronecker, and only published after Dedekind intervened on Cantor's behalf. Cantor greatly resented Kronecker's opposition to his work and never submitted any further papers to Crelle's Journal. The paper on dimension which appeared in Crelle's Journal in 1878 makes the concepts of 1-1 correspondence precise. The paper discusses denumerable sets, i.e. those which are in 1-1 correspondence with the natural numbers. It studies sets of equal power, i.e. those sets which are in 1-1 correspondence with each other. Cantor also discussed the concept of dimension and stressed the fact that his correspondence between the interval [0, 1] and the unit square was not a continuous map. Between 1879 and 1884 Cantor published a series of six papers in Mathematische Annalen designed to provide a basic introduction to set theory. Klein may have had a major influence in having Mathematische Annalen published them. However there were a number of problems which occurred during these years which proved difficult for Cantor. Although he had been promoted to a full professor in 1879 on Heine's recommendation, Cantor had been hoping for a chair at a more prestigious university. His long standing correspondence with Schwarz ended in 1880 as opposition to Cantor's ideas continued to grow and Schwarz no longer supported the direction that Cantor's work was going. Then in October 1881 Heine died and a replacement was needed to fill the chair at Halle. Cantor drew up a list of three mathematicians to fill Heine's chair and the list was approved. It placed Dedekind in first place, followed by Heinrich Weber and finally Mertens. It was certainly a severe blow to Cantor when Dedekind declined the offer in the early 1882, and the blow was only made worse by Heinrich Weber and then Mertens declining too. After a new list had been drawn up, Wangerin was appointed but he never formed a close relationship with Cantor. The rich mathematical correspondence between Cantor and Dedekind ended later in 1882. Almost the same time as the Cantor-Dedekind correspondence ended, Cantor began another important correspondence with Mittag-Leffler. Soon Cantor was publishing in Mittag-Leffler's journal Acta Mathematica but his important series of six papers in Mathematische Annalen also continued to appear. The fifth paper in this series Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre was also published as a separate monograph and was especially important for a number of reasons. Firstly Cantor realised that his theory of sets was not finding the acceptance that he had hoped and the Grundlagen was designed to reply to the criticisms. Secondly [3]:The major achievement of the Grundlagen was its presentation of the transfinite numbers as an autonomous and systematic extension of the natural numbers. Cantor himself states quite clearly in the paper that he realises the strength of the opposition to his ideas:... I realise that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers.

At the end of May 1884 Cantor had the first recorded attack of depression. He recovered after a few weeks but now seemed less confident. He wrote to Mittag-Leffler at the end of June [3]:... I don't know when I shall return to the continuation of my scientific work. At the moment I can do absolutely nothing with it, and limit myself to the most necessary duty of my lectures; how much happier I would be to be scientifically active, if only I had the necessary mental freshness. At one time it was thought that his depression was caused by mathematical worries and as a result of difficulties of his relationship with Kronecker in particular. Recently, however, a better understanding of mental illness has meant that we can now be certain that Cantor's mathematical worries and his difficult relationships were greatly magnified by his depression but were not its cause (see for example [3] and [21]). After this mental illness of 1884 [3]:... he took a holiday in his favourite Harz mountains and for some reason decided to try to reconcile himself with Kronecker. Kronecker accepted the gesture, but it must have been difficult for both of them to forget their enmities and the philosophical disagreements between them remained unaffected. Mathematical worries began to trouble Cantor at this time, in particular he began to worry that he could not prove the continuum hypothesis, namely that the order of infinity of the real numbers was the next after that of the natural numbers. In fact he thought he had proved it false, then the next day found his mistake. Again he thought he had proved it true only again to quickly find his error. All was not going well in other ways too, for in 1885 Mittag-Leffler persuaded Cantor to withdraw one of his papers from Acta Mathematica when it had reached the proof stage because he thought it "... about one hundred years too soon". Cantor joked about it but was clearly hurt:Had Mittag-Leffler had his way, I should have to wait until the year 1984, which to me seemed too great a demand! ... But of course I never want to know anything again about Acta Mathematica. Mittag-Leffler meant this as a kindness but it does show a lack of appreciation of the importance of Cantor's work. The correspondence between Mittag-Leffler and Cantor all but stopped shortly after this event and the flood of new ideas which had led to Cantor's rapid development of set theory over about 12 years seems to have almost stopped. In 1886 Cantor bought a fine new house on Hndelstrasse, a street named after the German composer Handel. Before the end of the year a son was born, completing his family of six children. He turned from the mathematical development of set theory towards two new directions, firstly discussing the philosophical aspects of his theory with many philosophers (he published these letters in 1888) and secondly taking over after Clebsch's death his idea of founding the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung which he achieved in 1890. Cantor chaired the first meeting of the Association in Halle

in September 1891, and despite the bitter antagonism between himself and Kronecker, Cantor invited Kronecker to address the first meeting. Kronecker never addressed the meeting, however, since his wife was seriously injured in a climbing accident in the late summer and died shortly afterwards. Cantor was elected president of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung at the first meeting and held this post until 1893. He helped to organise the meeting of the Association held in Munich in September 1893, but he took ill again before the meeting and could not attend. Cantor published a rather strange paper in 1894 which listed the way that all even numbers up to 1000 could be written as the sum of two primes. Since a verification of Goldbach's conjecture up to 10000 had been done 40 years before, it is likely that this strange paper says more about Cantor's state of mind than it does about Goldbach's conjecture. His last major papers on set theory appeared in 1895 and 1897, again in Mathematische Annalen under Klein's editorship, and are fine surveys of transfinite arithmetic. The rather long gap between the two papers is due to the fact that although Cantor finished writing the second part six months after the first part was published, he hoped to include a proof of the continuum hypothesis in the second part. However, it was not to be, but the second paper describes his theory of well-ordered sets and ordinal numbers. In 1897 Cantor attended the first International Congress of Mathematicians in Zurich. In their lectures at the Congress [4]:... Hurwitz openly expressed his great admiration of Cantor and proclaimed him as one by whom the theory of functions has been enriched. Jacques Hadamard expressed his opinion that the notions of the theory of sets were known and indispensable instruments. At the Congress Cantor met Dedekind and they renewed their friendship. By the time of the Congress, however, Cantor had discovered the first of the paradoxes in the theory of sets. He discovered the paradoxes while working on his survey papers of 1895 and 1897 and he wrote to Hilbert in 1896 explaining the paradox to him. Burali-Forti discovered the paradox independently and published it in 1897. Cantor began a correspondence with Dedekind to try to understand how to solve the problems but recurring bouts of his mental illness forced him to stop writing to Dedekind in 1899. Whenever Cantor suffered from periods of depression he tended to turn away from mathematics and turn towards philosophy and his big literary interest which was a belief that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays. For example in his illness of 1884 he had requested that he be allowed to lecture on philosophy instead of mathematics and he had begun his intense study of Elizabethan literature in attempting to prove his BaconShakespeare theory. He began to publish pamphlets on the literary question in 1896 and 1897. Extra stress was put on Cantor with the death of his mother in October 1896 and the death of his younger brother in January 1899. In October 1899 Cantor applied for, and was granted, leave from teaching for the winter semester of 1899-1900. Then on 16 December 1899 Cantor's youngest son died. From this time on until the end of his life he fought against the mental illness of depression.

He did continue to teach but also had to take leave from his teaching for a number of winter semesters, those of 1902-03, 1904-05 and 1907-08. Cantor also spent some time in sanatoria, at the times of the worst attacks of his mental illness, from 1899 onwards. He did continue to work and publish on his Bacon-Shakespeare theory and certainly did not give up mathematics completely. He lectured on the paradoxes of set theory to a meeting of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung in September 1903 and he attended the International Congress of Mathematicians at Heidelberg in August 1904. In 1905 Cantor wrote a religious work after returning home from a spell in hospital. He also corresponded with Jourdain on the history of set theory and his religious tract. After taking leave for much of 1909 on the grounds of his ill health he carried out his university duties for 1910 and 1911. It was in that year that he was delighted to receive an invitation from the University of St Andrews in Scotland to attend the 500th anniversary of the founding of the University as a distinguished foreign scholar. The celebrations were 12-15 September 1911 but [21]:During the visit he apparently began to behave eccentrically, talking at great length on the Bacon-Shakespeare question; then he travelled down to London for a few days. Cantor had hoped to meet with Russell who had just published the Principia Mathematica. However ill health and the news that his son had taken ill made Cantor return to Germany without seeing Russell. The following year Cantor was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of St Andrews but he was too ill to receive the degree in person. Cantor retired in 1913 and spent his final years ill with little food because of the war conditions in Germany. A major event planned in Halle to mark Cantor's 70 th birthday in 1915 had to be cancelled because of the war, but a smaller event was held in his home. In June 1917 he entered a sanatorium for the last time and continually wrote to his wife asking to be allowed to go home. He died of a heart attack. Hilbert described Cantor's work as:...the finest product of mathematical genius and one of the supreme achievements of purely intellectual human activity. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson October 1998

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Cantor.html]

Girolamo Cardano

Born: 24 Sept 1501 in Pavia, Duchy of Milan (now Italy) Died: 21 Sept 1576 in Rome (now Italy)

Girolamo or Hieronimo Cardano's name was Hieronymus Cardanus in Latin and he is sometimes known by the English version of his name Jerome Cardan. Girolamo Cardano was the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano and Chiara Micheria. His father was a lawyer in Milan but his expertise in mathematics was such that he was consulted by Leonardo da Vinci on questions of geometry. In addition to his law practice, Fazio lectured on geometry, both at the University of Pavia and, for a longer spell, at the Piatti foundation in Milan. When he was in his fifties, Fazio met Chiara Micheria, who was a young widow in her thirties, struggling to raise three children. Chiara became pregnant but, before she was due to give birth, the plague hit Milan and she was persuaded to leave the city for the relative safety of nearby Pavia to stay with wealthy friends of Fazio. Thus Cardan was born in Pavia but his mother's joy was short lived when she received news that her first three children had died of the plague in Milan. Chiara lived apart from Fazio for many years but, later in life, they did marry. Cardan at first became his father's assistant but he was a sickly child and Fazio had to get help from two nephews when the work became too much for Cardan. However, Cardan began to wish for greater things than an assistant to his father. Fazio had taught his son mathematics and Cardan began to think of an academic career. After an argument, Fazio allowed Cardan to go university and he entered Pavia University, where his father had studied, to read medicine despite his father's wish that he should study law. When war broke out, the university was forced to close and Cardan moved to the University of Padua to complete his studies. Shortly after this move, his father died but by this time Cardan was in the middle of a campaign to become rector of the university. He was a brilliant student but, outspoken and highly critical, Cardan was not well liked [4]:This I recognise as unique and outstanding amongst my faults - the habit, which I persist in, of preferring to say above all things what I know to be displeasing to the ears of my hearers. I am aware of this, yet I keep it up wilfully, in no way ignorant of how many enemies it makes for me. However, his campaign for rector was successful since he beat his rival by a single vote. Cardan squandered the small bequest from his father and turned to gambling to boost his finances. Card games, dice and chess were the methods he used to make a living. Cardan's understanding of probability meant he had an advantage over his opponents and, in general, he won more than he lost. He had to keep dubious company for his gambling. Once, when he thought he was being cheated at cards, Cardan, who always carried a knife, slashed the face of his opponent. Gambling became an addiction that was to last many years and rob Cardan of valuable time, money and reputation.

Cardan was awarded his doctorate in medicine in 1525 and applied to join the College of Physicians in Milan, where his mother still lived. The College did not wish to admit him for, despite the respect he had gained as an exceptional student, he had a reputation as a difficult man, whose unconventional, uncompromising opinions were aggressively put forward with little tact or thought for the consequences. The discovery of Cardan's illegitimate birth gave the College a reason to reject his application. Cardan, on the advice of a friend, went to Sacco, a small village 15km from Padua. He set up a small, and not very successful, medical practice. In late 1531 Cardan married Lucia, the daughter of a neighbour Aldobello Bandarini, a captain of the local militia. Cardan's practice in Sacco did not provide enough income for him to support a wife so, in April 1532, he moved to Gallarate, near Milan. He applied again to the College of Physicians in Milan but again was not allowed membership. Unable to practise medicine, Cardan reverted, in 1533, to gambling to pay his way, but things went so badly that he was forced to pawn his wife's jewellery and even some of his furniture. Desperately seeking a change of fortune, the Cardans moved to Milan, but here they fared even worse and they had to ignominiously enter the poorhouse. Cardan was fortunate to obtain Fazio's former post of lecturer in mathematics at the Piatti Foundation in Milan which gave him plenty of free time and he used some of this to treat a few patients, despite not being a member of the College of Physicians. Cardan achieved some near miraculous cures and his growing reputation as a doctor led to his being consulted by members of the College. His grateful patients and their relatives became whole hearted supporters and in this way, Cardan was able to build up a base of influential backers. Cardan was still furious at his continuing exclusion from the College and, in 1536, he rashly published a book attacking not only the College's medical ability but their character [4]:The things which give most reputation to a physician nowadays are his manners, servants, carriage, clothes, smartness and caginess, all displayed in a sort of artificial and insipid way... This was not the way to gain entry to the College and not surprisingly Cardan's application to join in 1537 was again rejected. However, two years later, after much pressure from his admirers, the College modified the clause regarding legitimate birth and admitted Cardan. In the same year, Cardan's first two mathematical books were published, the second The Practice of Arithmetic and Simple Mensuration was a sign of greater things to come. This was the beginning of Cardan's prolific literary career writing on a diversity of topics medicine, philosophy, astronomy and theology in addition to mathematics. In 1539 Cardan approached Tartaglia, who had achieved fame in winning a contest on solving cubics, and tried to get him to divulge the method. Tartaglia eventually agreed after getting Cardan to swear an oath that he would not publish the method until Tartaglia had himself published it. Tartaglia's account of the oath sworn by Cardan was:-

I swear to you, by God's holy Gospels, and as a true man of honour, not only never to publish your discoveries, if you teach me them, but I also promise you, and I pledge my faith as a true Christian, to note them down in code, so that after my death no one will be able to understand them. There followed a period of intense mathematical study by Cardan who worked on solving cubic and quartic equations by radical over the next six years. One of the first problems that Cardan hit was that the formula sometimes involved square roots of negative numbers even though the answer was a 'proper' number. On 4 August 1539 Cardan wrote to Tartaglia:I have sent to enquire after the solution to various problems for which you have given me no answer, one of which concerns the cube equal to an unknown plus a number. I have certainly grasped this rule, but when the cube of one-third of the coefficient of the unknown is greater in value than the square of one-half of the number, then, it appears, I cannot make it fit into the equation. Indeed Cardan gives precisely the conditions here for the formula to involve square roots of negative numbers. Tartaglia by this time greatly regretted telling Cardan the method and tried to confuse him with his reply (although in fact Tartaglia, like Cardan, would not have understood the complex numbers now entering into mathematics):... and thus I say in reply that you have not mastered the true way of solving problems of this kind, and indeed I would say that your methods are totally false. We give details of the dispute with Tartaglia in the article Tartaglia v Cardan where the events are recounted in the mathematicians own words. In 1540 Cardan resigned his mathematics post at the Piatti Foundation, the vacancy being filled by Cardan's assistant Ferrari who had brilliantly solved quartic equations by radicals. From 1540 to 1542 Cardan abandoned his studies and did nothing but gamble; playing chess all day. During the years 1543-1552, Cardan lectured on medicine at the universities of Milan and Pavia, as war frequently forced the closure of the university in Pavia. In 1545 Cardan published his greatest mathematical work Ars Magna. In it he gave the methods of solution of the cubic and quartic equation. In fact he had discovered in 1543 that Tartaglia was not the first to solve the cubic equation by radicals and therefore felt that he could publish despite his oath. Ferrari wrote in April 1547:Four years ago when Cardano was going to Florence and I accompanied him, we saw at Bologna Hannibal Della Nave, a clever and humane man who showed us a little book in the hand of Scipione del Ferro, his father-in-law, written a long time ago, in which that discovery was elegantly and learnedly presented. It is to Cardan's credit that, although one could not expect him to understand complex numbers, he does present the first calculation with complex numbers in Ars Magna. Solving a particular cubic equation, he writes:-

Dismissing mental tortures, and multiplying 5 + - 15 by 5 - -15, we obtain 25 - (-15). Therefore the product is 40. .... and thus far does arithmetical subtlety go, of which this, the extreme, is, as I have said, so subtle that it is useless. Lucia died in 1546, but Cardan seemed not greatly saddened, being more interested in the fame he had achieved from his books which were amongst the best sellers of the day. He became rector of the College of Physicians and gained the reputation of being the greatest physician in the world. Cardan received many offers from the heads of state in Europe, anxious to receive the best medical attention, but only once was the incentive great enough to tempt him from Italy. John Hamilton, Archbishop of St Andrews, had suffered from asthma for ten years but gradually the frequency and severity of the attacks had grown worse. The court physicians of both the French king and German emperor did their best but ultimately failed and the Archbishop of St Andrews was near death. He turned in desperation to Cardan, promising him a huge sum if he would come to Scotland. Cardan was not lecturing when he received the plea and so accepted the offer, setting out from Milan on 23 February 1552. Cardan was at the height of his fame and, as a consequence, his journey to Scotland was remarkable in that everywhere he went scientific communities treated him as a celebrity and the world's leading scientist. He arrived in Edinburgh on 29 June and saw the Archbishop immediately. By the time Cardan left on the 13 September, the Archbishop was already recovering. Cardan accepted over two thousand gold crowns but turned down the offer of a permanent place at the Scottish court. Within two years the archbishop let Cardan know that he had made a complete recovery. On his return, Cardan was appointed professor of medicine at Pavia University and, with many wealthy patients, he was a rich and successful man. But as Cardan was at the height of his fame, he received what he called his "crowning misfortune". Cardan's eldest son, Giambatista, had qualified as a doctor in 1557 but he secretly married Brandonia di Seroni, a girl whom Cardan described as [4]:a worthless, shameless woman. Cardan continued to support his son financially and the young couple moved in with Brandonia's parents. However, the di Seronis were only interested in what they could extort from Giambatista and his wealthy father, whilst Brandonia publicly mocked her husband for not being the father of their three children. These taunts drove Giambatista to poison his wife and, following his arrest, he confessed to the crime. Cardan recruited the best lawyers but at the trial the judge decreed that to save his son's life, Cardan must come to terms with the di Seronis. They demanded a sum which Cardan could never have found. Giambatista was tortured in jail, his left hand was cut off and, on 13 April 1560, he was executed. This was a blow from which Cardan never recovered. He could not forgive himself for failing to avert the disaster and the terrible sufferings of his favourite son haunted him constantly. As the father of a convicted murderer, Cardan became a hated man. Realising he had to move, Cardan applied for a professorship of medicine at Bologna

and was appointed to the post. Cardan's time in Bologna was full of controversy. His reputation, in addition to his arrogant manner, ensured he created many enemies. He humiliated a fellow medical professor in front of his students by pointing out errors in his lectures. After a few years Cardan's colleagues tried to get the Senate to dismiss him, by spreading rumours that his lectures were practically unattended. Cardan had further problems with his children. His remaining son Aldo was a gambler and associated with individuals of dubious character. Cardan writes, in his autobiography, of his four greatest sadnesses in his life [4]:The first was my marriage; the second, the bitter death of my son; the third, imprisonment ; the fourth, the base character of my youngest son. In 1569 Aldo gambled away all of his own clothes and possessions in addition to a considerable sum of his father's money. In an attempt to get money Aldo broke into his father's house and stole a large amount of cash and jewellery. Cardan sadly reported Aldo to the authorities, and Aldo was banished from Bologna. In 1570 Cardan was put in jail on the charge of heresy. He had cast the horoscope of Jesus Christ and written a book in praise of Nero, tormentor of the martyrs. These may have been a deliberate attempt on Cardan's part to gain notoriety - he wrote a whole chapter in his autobiography on wishing to "perpetrate his name" - and thus gain a place in history. It is strange for in all other respects Cardan gave the church his full support. However the inquisition was looking to make examples of prominent men whose commitment could be questioned and Cardan fitted the bill nicely. Cardan was treated leniently, perhaps because public opinion was that he had been treated harshly and so he was only imprisoned for a few months. On his release, he was forbidden to hold a university post and barred from further publication of his work. On his release Cardan went to Rome, where he received an unexpectedly warm reception. He was granted immediate membership of the College of Physicians and the Pope, who had now apparently forgiven Cardan, granted him a pension. It was in this period that his autobiography [4] was written, although it was not published. It was published in Paris in 1643 and Amsterdam in 1654. Italian translations were published in Milan (1821 and 1922) and Turin (1945). A German translation appeared in Jena in 1914, and a French translation in Paris in 1936. The reference [4] is the English translation of the autobiography. Cardan is reported to have correctly predicted the exact date of his own death but it has been claimed that he achieved this by committing suicide. Despite being reconciled with Aldo, Cardan wrote in his will that he:... had shown himself a youth of such evil habits that I should prefer to have all I own pass to my grandson by my eldest son. Cardan had adopted his grandson on the death of both parents. In addition to Cardan's major contributions to algebra he also made important contributions to probability, hydrodynamics, mechanics and geology. His book Liber de

Ludo Aleae was published in 1663 but the book on games of chance was probably completed by 1563. Cardan makes the first ever foray into the, until then untouched, realm of probability theory. It is the first study of things such as dice rolling, based on the premise that there are fundamental scientific principles governing the likelihood of achieving the elusive 'double six', outside of mere luck or chance. Cardan is also credied with the invention of the Cardan joint a type of universal joint in a shaft that enables it to rotate when out of alignment. Cardan also published two encyclopaedias of natural science. Giliozzi [1] says that they:... contain a little of everything, from cosmology to the construction of machines, from the usefulness of natural sciences to the evil influence of demons, from the laws of mechanics to cryptology. It is a mine of facts, both real and imaginary, of notes on the state of sciences, of superstition, technology, alchemy and various branches of the occult. The picture above is from the title page of the first edition of his Ars Magna. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson June 1998

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Cardan.html]

Gabriel Cramer
Born: 31 July 1704 in Geneva, Switzerland Died: 4 Jan 1752 in Bagnols-sur-Cze, France

Gabriel Cramer's father was Jean Isaac Cramer, who was a medical doctor in Geneva, while his mother was Anne Mallet. Jean and Anne had three sons who all went on to academic success. Besides Gabriel, their other two sons were Jean-Antione who followed his father's profession and Jean who became a professor of law. Gabriel certainly moved rapidly through his education in Geneva, and in 1722 while he was still only eighteen years old he was awarded a doctorate having submitted a thesis on the theory of sound. Two years later he was competing for the chair of philosophy at the Acadmie de Clavin in Geneva.

The competition for the chair was between three men; the eldest was Amde de la Rive while the other two were both young men, Giovanni Ludovico Calandrini who was twenty-one years old and Cramer who was one year younger. The magistrates who were making the appointment favoured the older man with more experience but they were so impressed with brilliant two young men that they thought up a clever plan to enable them to acquire the services of all three. Clearly they were looking to the future and seeing in Cramer and Calandrini two men who would make important future contributions to the Academy. The scheme the magistrates proposed was to split the chair of philosophy into two chairs, one chair of philosophy and one chair of mathematics. De la Rive was offered the philosophy chair, which after all was what he had applied for in the first place, while Cramer and Calandrini were offered the mathematics chair on the understanding that they shared the duties and shared the salary. The magistrates put another condition on the appointment too, namely that Cramer and Calandrini each spend two or three years travelling and while one was away the other would take on the full list of duties and the full salary. It was a good plan for not only did it successfully attract all three men to the Academy, but it also gave Cramer the opportunity to travel and meet mathematicians around Europe and he was to take full advantage of this which both benefited him and the Academy. Cramer and Calandrini divided up the mathematics courses each would teach. Cramer taught geometry and mechanics while Calandrini taught algebra and astronomy. The two had been paired in the arrangement and their friends joking called them Castor and Pollux. Had their personalities been different the arrangement might have presented all sorts of difficulties, but given their natures things worked out remarkably well. Cramer is said to have been [1]:... friendly, good-humoured, pleasant in voice and appearance, and possessed of good memory, judgement and health. We must not give the impression that Cramer just fitted into an existing pattern of teaching. He proposed a major innovation, which the Academy accepted, which was that he taught his courses in French instead of Latin, the traditional language of scholars at that time:... in order that persons who had a taste for these sciences but no Latin could profit. Appointed in 1724, Cramer followed the conditions of his appointment and set out for two years of travelling in 1727. He visited leading mathematicians in many different cities and countries of Europe. He headed straight away for Basel where many leading mathematicians were working, spending five months working with Johann Bernoulli, and also Euler who soon afterwards headed off to St Petersburg to be with Daniel Bernoulli. Cramer then visited England where he met Halley, de Moivre, Stirling, and other mathematicians. His discussions with these mathematicians and the continuing correspondence with them after he returned to Geneva had a big influence on Cramer's work. From England Cramer made his way to Leiden where he met 'sGravesande, then he moved on to Paris where he had discussions with Fontenelle, Maupertuis, Buffon,

Clairaut, and others. These two years of travelling were to set the tone for Cramer's career for he was highly regarded by all the mathematicians he met, he corresponded with them throughout his life, and he was to perform many extremely valuable major tasks as an editor of their works. Back in Geneva in 1729, Cramer was at work on an entry for the prize set by the Paris Academy for 1730, which was "Quelle est la cause de la figure elliptique des plantes et de la mobilit de leurs aphlies?" Cramer's entry was judged as the second best of those received by the Academy, the prize being won by Johann Bernoulli. In 1734 the "twins" split up when Calandrini was appointed to the chair of philosophy and Cramer became the sole holder of the Chair of Mathematics. Cramer lived a busy life, for in addition to his teaching and correspondence with many mathematicians, he produced articles of considerable interest although these are not of the importance of the articles written by most of the top mathematicians with whom he corresponded. He published articles in various places including the Memoirs of the Paris Academy in 1734, and of the Berlin Academy in 1748, 1750 and 1752. The articles cover a wide range of subjects including the study of geometric problems, the history of mathematics, philosophy, and the date of Easter. He published an article on the aurora borealis in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London and he also wrote an article on law where he applied probability to demonstrate the significance of having independent testimony from two or three witnesses rather than from a single witness. His work was not confined to academic areas for he was also interested in local government and served as a member of the Council of Two Hundred in 1734 and of the Council of Seventy in 1749. His work on these councils involved him using his broad mathematical and scientific knowledge, for he undertook tasks involving artillery, fortification, reconstruction of buildings, excavations, and he acted as an archivist. He made a second trip abroad in 1747, this time only visiting Paris where he renewed his friendship with Fontenelle as well as meeting d'Alembert. There are two areas of Cramer's mathematical work which we should highlight. This is the editorial work which he undertook and also his major mathematical work Introduction l'analyse des lignes courbes algbriques published in 1750. Johann Bernoulli died in 1748, only three or so years before Cramer, but he arranged for Cramer to publish his Complete Works before his death. It shows how much respect Bernoulli had for Cramer that he insisted that no other edition of his works be published by any editor other than Cramer. Johann Bernoulli's Complete Works was published by Cramer in four volumes in 1742. Not only did Johann Bernoulli arrange for Cramer to publish his Complete Works but he also requested that he edit Jacob Bernoulli's works. Jacob Bernoulli had died 1705 and Cramer published his Works in two volumes in 1744. These are not complete since Ars conjectandi is omitted, but the volumes do contain previously unpublished material and the mathematical background necessary to understand them. In 1745, jointly with Johann Castillon, Cramer published the correspondence between Johann Bernoulli and Leibniz. Cramer also edited the five volume work by Christian Wolff, first published between 1732 and 1741 with a new edition appearing between 1743 and 1752.

Finally we should describe Cramer's most famous book Introduction l'analyse des lignes courbes algbraique. It is a work which Cramer modelled on Newton's memoir on cubic curves and he praises highly a commentary on Newton's memoir written by Stirling. He also comments that had he known of Euler's Introductio in analysin infinitorum earlier he would have made great use of it. Of course Euler's book was only published in 1748 at which time much of Cramer's book might well have been written. Jones writes in [1]:That he made little use of Euler's work is supported by the rather surprising fact that throughout his book Cramer makes essentially no use of the infinitesimal calculus in either Leibniz' or Newton's form, although he deals with such topics as tangents, maxima and minima, and curvature, and cites Maclaurin and Taylor in footnotes. One conjectures that he never accepted or mastered the calculus. The suggestion that Cramer never mastered the calculus must be considered doubtful, particularly given the high regard that he was held in by Johann Bernoulli. After an introductory chapter in which types of curves are defined and techniques for drawing their graphs are discussed, Cramer goes on to a second chapter in which transformations to simplify curves are studied. The third chapter looks at a classification of curves and it is in this chapter that the now famous "Cramer's rule" is given. After giving the number of arbitrary constants in an equation of degree n as n2/2 + 3n/2, he deduces that an equation of degree n can be made to pass through n points. Taking n = 5 he gives an example of finding the five constants involved in making an equation of degree 2 pass through 5 points. This leads to 5 linear equations in 5 unknowns and he refers the reader to an appendix containing Cramer's rule for their solution. We should remark, of course, that Cramer was certainly not the first to give this rule. The other "well known" part of Cramer's work is his description of Cramer's paradox. He states a theorem by Maclaurin which says that an equation of degree n intersects an equation of degree m in nm points. Taking n = m = 3 this says that two cubics intersect in 9 points, yet his own formula n2/2 + 3n/2 with n = 3 gives 9 so a cubic is uniquely determined by 9 points. This, says Cramer, is a paradox, but his attempt to explain the paradox is incorrect. Cramer's name has sometimes been attached to another problem, namely the CastillonCramer problem. This problem, proposed by Cramer to Castillon, asked how to inscribe a triangle in a circle so that it passed through three given points. Castillon solved the problem 25 years after Cramer's death, and the problem went on to various generalisations about inscribed polygons in a conic section. Cramer had worked extremely hard over a long period with writing his Introduction l'analyse and undertaking the large amount of editorial work in addition to all his normal duties. Always of good health, this overwork coupled with a fall from his carriage, brought on a sudden decline. He spent two months in bed recovering, and his doctor then recommended that he spend a quiet period in the south of France to completely regain his strength. Leaving Geneva on 21 December 1751 he began his journey but he died two weeks later while still on the journey. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson

May 2000

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Cramer.html]

Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind

Born: 6 Oct 1831 in Braunschweig, duchy of Braunschweig (now Germany) Died: 12 Feb 1916 in Braunschweig, duchy of Braunschweig (now Germany)

Richard Dedekind's father was a professor at the Collegium Carolinum in Brunswick. His mother was the daughter of a professor who also worked at the Collegium Carolinum. Richard was the youngest of four children and never married. He was to live with one of his sisters, who also remained unmarried, for most of his adult life. He attended school in Brunswick from the age of seven and at this stage mathematics was not his main interest. The school, Martino-Catharineum, was a good one and Dedekind studied science, in particular physics and chemistry. However, physics became less than satisfactory to Dedekind with what he considered an imprecise logical structure and his attention turned towards mathematics. The Collegium Carolinum was an educational institution between a high school and a university and he entered it in 1848 at the age of 16. There he was to receive a good understanding of basic mathematics studying differential and integral calculus, analytic geometry and the foundations of analysis. He entered the University of Gttingen in the spring of 1850 with a solid grounding in mathematics. Gttingen was a rather disappointing place to study mathematics at this time, and it had not yet become the vigorous research centre that it turned into soon afterwards. Mathematics was directed by M A Stern and G Ulrich. Gauss also taught courses in mathematics, but mostly at an elementary level. The physics department was directed by Listing and Wilhelm Weber. The two departments combined to initiate a seminar which Dedekind joined from its beginning. There he learnt number theory which was the most advanced material he studied. His other courses covered material such as the differential and integral calculus, of which he already had a good understanding. The first course to really make Dedekind enthusiastic was, rather surprisingly, a course on experimental physics taught by Weber. More likely it was Weber who inspired Dedekind rather than the topic of the course.

In the autumn term of 1850, Dedekind attended his first course given by Gauss. It was a course on least squares and [1]:... fifty years later Dedekind remembered the lectures as the most beautiful he had ever heard, writing that he had followed Gauss with constantly increasing interest and that he could not forget the experience. Dedekind did his doctoral work in four semesters under Gauss's supervision and submitted a thesis on the theory of Eulerian integrals. He received his doctorate from Gttingen in 1852 and he was to be the last pupil of Gauss. However he was not well trained in advanced mathematics and fully realised the deficiencies in his mathematical education. At this time Berlin was the place where courses were given on the latest mathematical developments but Dedekind had not been able to learn such material at Gttingen. By this time Riemann was also at Gttingen and he too found that the mathematical education was aimed at students who were intending to become secondary school teachers, not those with the very top abilities who would go on to research careers. Dedekind therefore spent the two years following the award of his doctorate learning the latest mathematical developments and working for his habilitation. In 1854 both Riemann and Dedekind were awarded their habilitation degrees within a few weeks of each other. Dedekind was then qualified as a university teacher and he began teaching at Gttingen giving courses on probability and geometry. Gauss died in 1855 and Dirichlet was appointed to fill the vacant chair at Gttingen. This was an extremely important event for Dedekind who found working with Dirichlet extremely profitable. He attended courses by Dirichlet on the theory of numbers, on potential theory, on definite integrals, and on partial differential equations. Dedekind and Dirichlet soon became close friends and the relationship was in many ways the making of Dedekind, whose mathematical interests took a new lease of life with the discussions between the two. Bachmann, who was a student in Gttingen at this time [12]:... recalled in later years that he only knew Dedekind by sight because Dedekind always arrived and left with Dirichlet and was completely eclipsed by him. Dedekind wrote in a letter in July 1856 [4]:What is most useful to me is the almost daily association with Dirichlet, with whom I am for the first time beginning to learn properly; he is always completely amiable towards me, and he tells me without beating about the bush what gaps I need to fill and at the same time he gives me the instructions and the means to do it. I thank him already for infinitely many things, and no doubt there will be many more. Dedekind certainly still continued to learn mathematics at this time as a student would by attending courses, such as those by Riemann on abelian functions and elliptic functions. Around this time Dedekind studied the work of Galois and he was the first to lecture on Galois theory when he taught a course on the topic at Gttingen during this period.

While at Gttingen, Dedekind applied for J L Raabe's chair at the Polytechnikum in Zrich. Dirichlet supported his application writing that Dedekind was 'an exceptional pedagogue'. In the spring of 1858 the Swiss councillor who made appointments came to Gttingen and Dedekind was quickly chosen for the post. Dedekind was appointed to the Polytechnikum in Zrich and began teaching there in the autumn of 1858. In fact it was while he was thinking how to teach differential and integral calculus, the first time that he had taught the topic, that the idea of a Dedekind cut came to him. He recounts that the idea came to him on 24 November 1858. His idea was that every real number r divides the rational numbers into two subsets, namely those greater than r and those less than r. Dedekind's brilliant idea was to represent the real numbers by such divisions of the rationals. Dedekind and Riemann travelled together to Berlin in September 1859 on the occasion of Riemann's election to the Berlin Academy of Sciences. In Berlin, Dedekind met Weierstrass, Kummer, Borchardt and Kronecker. The Collegium Carolinum in Brunswick had been upgraded to the Brunswick Polytechnikum by the 1860s, and Dedekind was appointed to the Polytechnikum in 1862. With this appointment he returned to his home town and even to his old educational establishment where his father had been one of the senior administrators for many years. Dedekind remained there for the rest of his life, retiring on 1 April 1894. He lived his life as a professor in Brunswick [1]:... in close association with his brother and sister, ignoring all possibilities of change or attainment of a higher sphere of activity. The small, familiar world in which he lived completely satisfied his demands: in it his relatives completely replaced a wife and children of his own and there he found sufficient leisure and freedom for scientific work in basic mathematical research. He did not feel pressed to have a more marked effect in the outside world: such confirmation of himself was unnecessary. After he retired, Dedekind continued to teach the occasional course and remained in good health in his long retirement. The only spell of bad health which Dedekind had experienced was 10 years after he was appointed to the Brunswick Polytechnikum when he had a serious illness, shortly after the death of his father. However he completely recovered and, as we mentioned, remained in good health. Dedekind made a number of highly significant contributions to mathematics and his work would change the style of mathematics into what is familiar to us today. One remarkable piece of work was his redefinition of irrational numbers in terms of Dedekind cuts which, as we mentioned above, first came to him as early as 1858. He published this in Stetigkeit und Irrationale Zahlen in 1872. In it he wrote:Now, in each case when there is a cut (A1, A2) which is not produced by any rational number, then we create a new, irrational number a, which we regard as completely defined by this cut; we will say that this number a corresponds to this cut, or that it produces this cut.

As well as his analysis of the nature of number, his work on mathematical induction, including the definition of finite and infinite sets, and his work in number theory, particularly in algebraic number fields, is of major importance. Dedekind loved to take his holidays in Switzerland, the Austrian Tyrol or the Black Forest in southern Germany. On one such holiday in 1874 he met Cantor while staying in the beautiful city of Interlaken and the two discussed set theory. Dedekind was sympathetic to Cantor's set theory as is illustrated by this quote from Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen (1888) regarding determining whether a given element belongs to a given set :In what way the determination comes about, or whether we know a way to decide it, is a matter of no consequence in what follows. The general laws that are to be developed do not depend on this at all. In this quote Dedekind is arguing against Kronecker's objections to the infinite and, therefore, is agreeing with Cantor's views. Among Dedekind's other notable contributions to mathematics were his editions of the collected works of Peter Dirichlet, Carl Gauss, and Georg Riemann. Dedekind's study of Dirichlet's work did, in fact, lead to his own study of algebraic number fields, as well as to his introduction of ideals. Dedekind edited Dirichlet's lectures on number theory and published these as Vorlesungen ber Zahlentheorie in 1863. It is noted in [12] that:Although the book is assuredly based on Dirichlet's lectures, and although Dedekind himself referred to the book throughout his life as Dirichlet's, the book itself was entirely written by Dedekind, for the most part after Dirichlet's death. It was in the third and fourth editions of Vorlesungen ber Zahlentheorie, published in 1879 and 1894, that Dedekind wrote supplements in which he introduced the notion of an ideal which is fundamental to ring theory. Dedekind formulated his theory in the ring of integers of an algebraic number field. The general term 'ring' does not appear, it was introduced later by Hilbert. Dedekind, in a joint paper with Heinrich Weber published in 1882, applies his theory of ideals to the theory of Riemann surfaces. This gave powerful results such as a purely algebraic proof of the Riemann-Roch theorem. Dedekind's work was quickly accepted, partly because of the clarity with which he presented his ideas and partly since Heinrich Weber lectured to Hilbert on these topics at the University of Knigsberg. Dedekind's notion of ideal was taken up and extended by Hilbert and then later by Emmy Noether. This led to the unique factorisation of integers into powers of primes to be generalised to ideals in other rings. In 1879 Dedekind published ber die Theorie der ganzen algebraischen Zahlen which was again to have a large influence on the foundations of mathematics. In the book Dedekind [1]:... presented a logical theory of number and of complete induction, presented his principal conception of the essence of arithmetic, and dealt with the role of the complete

system of real numbers in geometry in the problem of the continuity of space. Among other things, he provides a definition independent of the concept of number for the infiniteness or finiteness of a set by using the concept of mapping and treating the recursive definition, which is so important to the theory of ordinal numbers. Dedekind's brilliance consisted not only of the theorems and concepts that he studied but, because of his ability to formulate and express his ideas so clearly, he introduced a new style of mathematics that been a major influence on mathematicians ever since. As Edwards writes in [12]:Dedekind's legacy ... consisted not only of important theorems, examples, and concepts, but a whole style of mathematics that has been an inspiration to each succeeding generation. Many honours were given to Dedekind for his outstanding work, although he always remained extraordinarily modest regarding his own abilities and achievements. He was elected to the Gttingen Academy (1862), the Berlin Academy (1880), the Academy of Rome, the Leopoldino-Carolina Naturae Curiosorum Academia, and the Acadmie des Sciences in Paris (1900). Honorary doctorates were awarded to him by the universities of Kristiania (Oslo), Zurich and Brunswick. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson September 1998

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Dedekind.html]

Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre

Born: 19 Sept 1749 in Amiens, France Died: 19 Aug 1822 in Paris, France

Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre's father was a draper. The name Delambre is a form of "de Lambre" which probably comes from "lambeau" meaning "rag". He was the eldest of his parents children. Childhood illnesses at this time were extremely serious and when he developed smallpox at the age of 15 months his parents must have doubted that he would ever have much of a future. He almost lost his eyesight as a result of this illness and he did lose his eyelashes which never grew in again. In all his portraits he has a rather unusual appearance because of this but often, unless one is aware that he has no eyelashes, one does not realise why he looks unusual. Given his poor eyesight it is even more remarkable that he took up astronomy, but it has to be said that his

eyesight continued to improve during the thirty years following the smallpox. To give an indication of just how bad his eyesight still was when he was 20 years old, we should note that even at that time he could hardly read his own handwriting and could not bear to be in direct sunlight. He attended the Jesuit College in Amiens, studying under the abb Jacques Delille who was a poet and classicist. There Delambre studied English and German but in 1764 the Jesuits were banned from France and at this stage he continued his education in Amiens, studying under teachers who had been brought from Paris. At this time he was intent on becoming a parish priest, but one of these new teachers encouraged him to continue his education in Paris. He was awarded a scholarship to the Collge du Plessis in Paris and there he studied classical languages preparing himself for a university education. However, when he sat the university entrance examinations his weak eyesight meant that he could not read the examination paper properly and he failed to gain a scholarship. His parents could not afford to send him to university without the scholarship and so encouraged him to return to Amiens but he remained in Paris trying to educate himself. Claude Mathieu, who was a student of Delambre, wrote in his article on him in Biographie universelle:One would have to have heard this modest and sincere man giving an account of his way of life after leaving the Collge du Plessis in order to believe the tiny amount that he spent during one year. Up until this time Delambre had little reason to learn mathematics but now this changed. To support himself he took a position as a tutor to the son of a nobleman in Compigne and he now had to teach himself mathematics so that he could teach his pupil. He soon became an expert, developing exceptional calculating skills. In 1771 Delambre came back to Paris where he became tutor to the son of Jean-Claude Geoffroy d'Assy, Receiver General of Finances. It was an ideal position for Delambre for he lived at in Geoffroy d'Assy's house and, choosing to accept far less in payment that d'Assy offered, he accepted a small pension and enjoyed living cheaply but learning all he could. At this time, although he had never taken holy orders, he called himself the Abb de Lambre. He would change "de Lambre" to "Delambre" at the time of the Revolution to avoid its aristocratic appearance. Delambre's interests moved from the study of Greek and Greek literature to Greek science, and he read much on the topic. Soon his interest in Greek astronomy led him to find out about modern astronomy and in about 1780 he read Lalande's Trait d'astronomie. He began attending Lalande's astronomy lectures at the Collge de France and soon impressed Lalande with his knowledge. When Lalande was looking for a new assistant in 1783 to undertake observations for a new edition of his Trait d'astronomie, he turned to Delambre who was his best student. Lalande lent Delambre some equipment and the observational data he collected with it was incorporated into the third edition of Lalande's Trait d'astronomie which would appear in print in 1792. In 1786 Delambre recorded a transit of Mercury across the Sun. At the time which had been predicted for the transit there was cloud and nothing was visible. Most astronomers gave up, but not Delambre who did not believe that the time predicted for the transit by Lalande was correct. When the cloud cleared forty minutes after the transit

was predicted to end, Delambre was able to observe that the transit was still taking place. It was the realisation that the existing tables were inaccurate which led him to devote much effort into producing new ones. Delambre attended a meeting of the Acadmie des Sciences at which Lalande presented the data from the Mercury observations. At the same meeting Laplace presented a paper on his mathematical results which allowed the perturbations produce by one planet on the orbit of another to be calculated. Delambre was very impressed and decided to make observations of the orbit of Uranus in order to verify Laplace's theoretical results. A letter which Lalande wrote to Bugge on 16 June 1788 shows how impressed he was with Delambre:Monsieur Delambre ... is currently the most able astronomer of any country in the world. ... We must encourage so valuable a recruit, and bind him to a science in which he performs prodigious feats without hope of any position or advantage. When the Academy announced that the Grand Prix for 1789 would be for the calculation of the precise orbit of Uranus, Delambre had already done much of the work. The topic had been suggested by Laplace and Lalande with Delambre in mind, and the committee consisting of Dominique Cassini, Lalande and Mchain duly awarded him the prize, declaring him to be:... an astronomer of wisdom and fortitude, able to review 130 years of astronomical observations, assess their inadequacies, and extract their value. By this time Delambre had his own observatory. In 1787 Geoffroy d'Assy moved into a new house in the le Marais district of Paris, west of the Bastille, and in 1788, encouraged by Lalande, he began building an observatory for Delambre above his bedroom on the top floor of the house. The observatory, fitted with the latest equipment, was completed by 1789. Delambre worked in his observatory and in 1792 he published Tables du Soleil, de Jupiter, de Saturne, d'Uranus et des satellites de Jupiter . Wilson, in [10] and [11]:... undertakes to follow the steps whereby the lunar and planetary perturbations of the Earth's motion were introduced into solar tables. The principal landmarks in the development were the tables of Lacaille (1758), and the tables of Delambre that were published in the third edition of Lalande's Astronomie (1792), and the revised version of these tables published by the Bureau des Longitudes in 1806. Arago wrote of Delambre's work (see for example [1]):In perfecting the methods of astronomical calculation he merits, by reason of the variety and elegance of his methods, a distinguished place among the ablest mathematicians France can boast. In the same year of 1792 Delambre received the Grand Prix of the Acadmie des Sciences for the second time. He had already been elected an associate member in the mathematical sciences section of the Acadmie on 15 February of that year. In fact it

was a major project undertaken by the Acadmie des Sciences which would occupy him for the next few years and his election came at precisely the right time. The Acadmie had already set up a Commission of Weights and Measures in 1790 consisting of Borda, Condorcet, Laplace, Legendre and Lavoisier to advise on a metric system of weights and measures. After some changes of direction, it eventually recommended, in a report of 19 March 1791, that the system be based on a metre defined as one ten millionth part of one quarter of the Earth's meridian. The report was approved by the National Assembly one week later and it remained to calculate a more accurate value of the length of the meridian. The Acadmie des Sciences appointed Mchain, Legendre and Dominique Cassini to carry out this task. It was decided to measure, using the method of triangulation with sightings made with the Borda repeating circle which was an extremely accurate new instrument, that part of the meridian between Dunkerque and Barcelona. This was divided into two unequal parts, Dunkerque to Rodez and Rodez to Barcelona. The northern part was much the longer since it had been accurately measured by Cassini de Thury in 1740. Although Dominique Cassini was keen to take charge of the project, he refused to personally measure one sector and, on 5 May 1792 Delambre was given charge of the Dunkerque to Rodez sector and Mchain the Rodez to Barcelona sector. The task proved much harder than anticipated because of the French Revolution and wars with France's neighbours.

Delambre set out in June and began to seek triangulation points round Paris. However he was arrested in September since his authorisation came from the King who by this time had himself been arrested. Released after getting new official papers, Delambre was arrested again shortly afterwards since his instruments were thought to be suspicious and meant he was a spy. He was able to obtain official papers from the National Convention in Paris and continued his mission. Delambre made comparatively little progress before returning to Paris for the winter, then set out the next spring to begin working his way south from Dunkerque. In December 1793, however, he was removed from the meridian measuring task by the Committee of Public Safety who decreed that (see for example [3]):... government officials [must] delegate their powers and functions solely to men known to be trustworthy for their republican virtues and their abhorrence of kings ... In May 1795 Delambre was reinstated and carried on the task he had been forced to end abruptly eighteen months earlier. He triangulated between Orlans and Bourges in the second half of 1795, between Bourges and Evaux in the summer of 1796, completing his part of the task by triangulating between Evaux and Rodez in 1797. Between these triangulation tasks he had travelled to Dunkerque in December 1795 and spent the first months of 1796 calculating very precise latitude data. Also required was an accurate baseline measurement so that the scale of the triangulation could be fixed precisely. Delambre made accurate baseline measurements in Melun, near Paris, in April 1798. An International Commission for Weights and Measures was set up and Delambre reported his results to it in February 1799. By June of that year, after Mchain had also reported, a definitive platinum bar of length one metre was made to become the basis of

the metric system. Details of the whole project were published by Delambre in Base du systme mtrique. The first of the three volumes, containing the history of measurement of the Earth and the project's triangulation data, was published in 1806. When Delambre presented it to Napoleon, the emperor said ([1] or [3]):Conquests will come and go but this work will endure. The second volume of the work, published in 1807, contained the data for the accurate latitude calculations of Dunkerque and Barcelona. The third volume of 1810 looked at the errors in the calculations and at the Earth's eccentricity. Fourier, who wrote an obituary of Delambre for the Acadmie des Sciences, wrote (see for example [1]):... the geodetic operation, for which we are chiefly indebted to him, and of which he bore the greatest share, is the most perfect and extensive which has been executed in any country. It has served as the model of all enterprises of the kind which have been since projected. Let us now look at some other landmarks in Delambre's career. In 1795 he was admitted to the Bureau des Longitudes, becoming President in 1800. In 1801 he was appointed secretary to the Acadmie des Sciences making him the most powerful figure in science in France. In 1803 his health took a turn for the worse when he developed rheumatic fever but he continued to devote most of his time to work. However, in 1804, he married Elizabeth de Pommard, the widowed mother of his assistant. They lived at first in the d'Assy house in the le Marais district of Paris where, except for when he had been on his travels, he had continued to observe in the observatory above his room from the time it was first built for him. Tragedy struck his family in 1807 when his wife's son, who had previously been Delambre's assistant, died in Naples at the age of 26. Delambre attained further achievements in his career, however, including his appointment to the chair of astronomy at the Collge de France in Paris in 1807. The position had been held by Lalande until his death in that year and Delambre was proud to succeed his former teacher. He was also appointed treasurer to the Imperial University in 1808 and at this time moved with his wife from the d'Assy house in the le Marais district to the official residence of the Treasurer of the University. In 1809 Napoleon requested that the Acadmie des Sciences award a prize for the best scientific publication of the decade. The award went to Delambre for his work on the meridian. He won so many other distinctions that it is impossible to list them all here. However we should mention that after he retired from public life in 1815 he was made a chevalier of Saint Michel. He had earlier been invested as chevalier of the Legion of Honour by Napoleon at the first such occasion in 1804 at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, and in 1821 he was made an officier of the Legion of Honour. In the last part of his career Delambre became interested in the history of mathematics and astronomy. We have already noted that in the first volume of Base du systme mtrique he presented a history of measurement of the Earth. In his Rapport historique sur les progrs des sciences mathmatiques depuis 1789, which he read to the Institute in February 1808 and published in 1810, he says:-

In almost all branches of Mathematics one is blocked by insurmountable difficulties (but) the spectacle of analysis and mechanics in our time (convinces me that) the generations to come will not see anything impossible in what remains to be done. He published a two volume work Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne in 1817, then Histoire de l'astronomie du moyen age in 1819, two volumes of Histoire de l'astronomie moderne in 1821, and his work on the history of astronomy in the eighteenth century was published by Claude Mathieu after Delambre's death. GrattanGuinness in [5] notes that he approached the subject matter more as a calculating astronomer than as a historian. This is fair, for Delambre did not see himself writing for historians, rather (see for example [1]):... mainly for astronomers and mathematicians. He says that his aim was to produce:... a repository where could be found all the ideas, all the methods, and all the theorems that have served successively for the calculation of phenomena. Bernard Cohen writes in [1]:Delambre ... presents each major chronological period in a series of discrete analyses of one treatise after another. ... As one would expect, Delambre is especially good on astronomical tables and on methods of observation and calculation. A great virtue is the wealth of information on minor figures, for whom no other account may be available. Above all, Delambre spices his presentation with acerb and delightful comments ... Unquestionably the six volume Histoire is the greatest full-scale technical history of any branch of science ever written by a single individual. It sets a standard very few historians of science may ever achieve. Fourier wrote in his obituary of Delambre (see for example [1]):Before him astronomical calculations were founded on numerical processes, which were at one indirect and irregular. These he has changed throughout, or ingeniously remodelled. Most of those which astronomers use at the present time belong to him, having been deduced from analytic formulae, which, in their application, have been found alike, sure, uniform and manageable. He is honoured by having a large lunar crater named after him. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson April 2003

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Delambre.html]

Albert Einstein
Born: 14 March 1879 in Ulm, Wrttemberg, Germany Died: 18 April 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey, USA

Around 1886 Albert Einstein began his school career in Munich. As well as his violin lessons, which he had from age six to age thirteen, he also had religious education at home where he was taught Judaism. Two years later he entered the Luitpold Gymnasium and after this his religious education was given at school. He studied mathematics, in particular the calculus, beginning around 1891. In 1894 Einstein's family moved to Milan but Einstein remained in Munich. In 1895 Einstein failed an examination that would have allowed him to study for a diploma as an electrical engineer at the Eidgenssische Technische Hochschule in Zurich. Einstein renounced German citizenship in 1896 and was to be stateless for a number of years. He did not even apply for Swiss citizenship until 1899, citizenship being granted in 1901. Following the failing of the entrance exam to the ETH, Einstein attended secondary school at Aarau planning to use this route to enter the ETH in Zurich. While at Aarau he wrote an essay (for which was only given a little above half marks!) in which he wrote of his plans for the future, see [13]:If I were to have the good fortune to pass my examinations, I would go to Zurich. I would stay there for four years in order to study mathematics and physics. I imagine myself becoming a teacher in those branches of the natural sciences, choosing the theoretical part of them. Here are the reasons which lead me to this plan. Above all, it is my disposition for abstract and mathematical thought, and my lack of imagination and practical ability. Indeed Einstein succeeded with his plan graduating in 1900 as a teacher of mathematics and physics. One of his friends at ETH was Marcel Grossmann who was in the same class as Einstein. Einstein tried to obtain a post, writing to Hurwitz who held out some hope of a position but nothing came of it. Three of Einstein's fellow students, including Grossmann, were appointed assistants at ETH in Zurich but clearly Einstein had not impressed enough and still in 1901 he was writing round universities in the hope of obtaining a job, but without success. He did manage to avoid Swiss military service on the grounds that he had flat feet and varicose veins. By mid 1901 he had a temporary job as a teacher, teaching mathematics at the Technical High School in Winterthur. Around this time he wrote:I have given up the ambition to get to a university ...

Another temporary position teaching in a private school in Schaffhausen followed. Then Grossmann's father tried to help Einstein get a job by recommending him to the director of the patent office in Bern. Einstein was appointed as a technical expert third class. Einstein worked in this patent office from 1902 to 1909, holding a temporary post when he was first appointed, but by 1904 the position was made permanent and in 1906 he was promoted to technical expert second class. While in the Bern patent office he completed an astonishing range of theoretical physics publications, written in his spare time without the benefit of close contact with scientific literature or colleagues. Einstein earned a doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1905 for a thesis On a new determination of molecular dimensions. He dedicated the thesis to Grossmann. In the first of three papers, all written in 1905, Einstein examined the phenomenon discovered by Max Planck, according to which electromagnetic energy seemed to be emitted from radiating objects in discrete quantities. The energy of these quanta was directly proportional to the frequency of the radiation. This seemed to contradict classical electromagnetic theory, based on Maxwell's equations and the laws of thermodynamics which assumed that electromagnetic energy consisted of waves which could contain any small amount of energy. Einstein used Planck's quantum hypothesis to describe the electromagnetic radiation of light. Einstein's second 1905 paper proposed what is today called the special theory of relativity. He based his new theory on a reinterpretation of the classical principle of relativity, namely that the laws of physics had to have the same form in any frame of reference. As a second fundamental hypothesis, Einstein assumed that the speed of light remained constant in all frames of reference, as required by Maxwell's theory. Later in 1905 Einstein showed how mass and energy were equivalent. Einstein was not the first to propose all the components of special theory of relativity. His contribution is unifying important parts of classical mechanics and Maxwell's electrodynamics. The third of Einstein's papers of 1905 concerned statistical mechanics, a field of that had been studied by Ludwig Boltzmann and Josiah Gibbs. After 1905 Einstein continued working in the areas described above. He made important contributions to quantum theory, but he sought to extend the special theory of relativity to phenomena involving acceleration. The key appeared in 1907 with the principle of equivalence, in which gravitational acceleration was held to be indistinguishable from acceleration caused by mechanical forces. Gravitational mass was therefore identical with inertial mass. In 1908 Einstein became a lecturer at the University of Bern after submitting his Habilitation thesis Consequences for the constitution of radiation following from the energy distribution law of black bodies. The following year he become professor of physics at the University of Zurich, having resigned his lectureship at Bern and his job in the patent office in Bern. By 1909 Einstein was recognised as a leading scientific thinker and in that year he resigned from the patent office. He was appointed a full professor at the Karl-Ferdinand

University in Prague in 1911. In fact 1911 was a very significant year for Einstein since he was able to make preliminary predictions about how a ray of light from a distant star, passing near the Sun, would appear to be bent slightly, in the direction of the Sun. This would be highly significant as it would lead to the first experimental evidence in favour of Einstein's theory. About 1912, Einstein began a new phase of his gravitational research, with the help of his mathematician friend Marcel Grossmann, by expressing his work in terms of the tensor calculus of Tullio Levi-Civita and Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro. Einstein called his new work the general theory of relativity. He moved from Prague to Zurich in 1912 to take up a chair at the Eidgenssische Technische Hochschule in Zurich. Einstein returned to Germany in 1914 but did not reapply for German citizenship. What he accepted was an impressive offer. It was a research position in the Prussian Academy of Sciences together with a chair (but no teaching duties) at the University of Berlin. He was also offered the directorship of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics in Berlin which was about to be established. After a number of false starts Einstein published, late in 1915, the definitive version of general theory. Just before publishing this work he lectured on general relativity at Gttingen and he wrote:To my great joy, I completely succeeded in convincing Hilbert and Klein. In fact Hilbert submitted for publication, a week before Einstein completed his work, a paper which contains the correct field equations of general relativity. When British eclipse expeditions in 1919 confirmed his predictions, Einstein was idolised by the popular press. The London Times ran the headline on 7 November 1919:Revolution in science - New theory of the Universe - Newtonian ideas overthrown. In 1920 Einstein's lectures in Berlin were disrupted by demonstrations which, although officially denied, were almost certainly anti-Jewish. Certainly there were strong feelings expressed against his works during this period which Einstein replied to in the press quoting Lorentz, Planck and Eddington as supporting his theories and stating that certain Germans would have attacked them if he had been:... a German national with or without swastika instead of a Jew with liberal international convictions... During 1921 Einstein made his first visit to the United States. His main reason was to raise funds for the planned Hebrew University of Jerusalem. However he received the Barnard Medal during his visit and lectured several times on relativity. He is reported to have commented to the chairman at the lecture he gave in a large hall at Princeton which was overflowing with people:I never realised that so many Americans were interested in tensor analysis.

Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921 but not for relativity rather for his 1905 work on the photoelectric effect. In fact he was not present in December 1922 to receive the prize being on a voyage to Japan. Around this time he made many international visits. He had visited Paris earlier in 1922 and during 1923 he visited Palestine. After making his last major scientific discovery on the association of waves with matter in 1924 he made further visits in 1925, this time to South America. Among further honours which Einstein received were the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1925 and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1926. Niels Bohr and Einstein were to carry on a debate on quantum theory which began at the Solvay Conference in 1927. Planck, Niels Bohr, de Broglie, Heisenberg, Schrdinger and Dirac were at this conference, in addition to Einstein. Einstein had declined to give a paper at the conference and:... said hardly anything beyond presenting a very simple objection to the probability interpretation .... Then he fell back into silence ... Indeed Einstein's life had been hectic and he was to pay the price in 1928 with a physical collapse brought on through overwork. However he made a full recovery despite having to take things easy throughout 1928. By 1930 he was making international visits again, back to the United States. A third visit to the United States in 1932 was followed by the offer of a post at Princeton. The idea was that Einstein would spend seven months a year in Berlin, five months at Princeton. Einstein accepted and left Germany in December 1932 for the United States. The following month the Nazis came to power in Germany and Einstein was never to return there. During 1933 Einstein travelled in Europe visiting Oxford, Glasgow, Brussels and Zurich. Offers of academic posts which he had found it so hard to get in 1901, were plentiful. He received offers from Jerusalem, Leiden, Oxford, Madrid and Paris. What was intended only as a visit became a permanent arrangement by 1935 when he applied and was granted permanent residency in the United States. At Princeton his work attempted to unify the laws of physics. However he was attempting problems of great depth and he wrote:I have locked myself into quite hopeless scientific problems - the more so since, as an elderly man, I have remained estranged from the society here... In 1940 Einstein became a citizen of the United States, but chose to retain his Swiss citizenship. He made many contributions to peace during his life. In 1944 he made a contribution to the war effort by hand writing his 1905 paper on special relativity and putting it up for auction. It raised six million dollars, the manuscript today being in the Library of Congress. By 1949 Einstein was unwell. A spell in hospital helped him recover but he began to prepare for death by drawing up his will in 1950. He left his scientific papers to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a university which he had raised funds for on his first

visit to the USA, served as a governor of the university from 1925 to 1928 but he had turned down the offer of a post in 1933 as he was very critical of its administration. One more major event was to take place in his life. After the death of the first president of Israel in 1952, the Israeli government decided to offer the post of second president to Einstein. He refused but found the offer an embarrassment since it was hard for him to refuse without causing offence. One week before his death Einstein signed his last letter. It was a letter to Bertrand Russell in which he agreed that his name should go on a manifesto urging all nations to give up nuclear weapons. It is fitting that one of his last acts was to argue, as he had done all his life, for international peace. Einstein was cremated at Trenton, New Jersey at 4 pm on 18 April 1955 (the day of his death). His ashes were scattered at an undisclosed place. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson April 1997

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Einstein.html]

Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier

Born: 21 March 1768 in Auxerre, Bourgogne, France Died: 16 May 1830 in Paris, France

Joseph Fourier's father was a tailor in Auxerre. After the death of his first wife, with whom he had three children, he remarried and Joseph was the ninth of the twelve children of this second marriage. Joseph's mother died went he was nine years old and his father died the following year. His first schooling was at Pallais's school, run by the music master from the cathedral. There Joseph studied Latin and French and showed great promise. He proceeded in 1780 to the cole Royale Militaire of Auxerre where at first he showed talents for literature but very soon, by the age of thirteen, mathematics became his real interest. By the age of 14 he had completed a study of the six volumes of Bzout's Cours de mathmatiques. In 1783 he received the first prize for his study of Bossut's Mcanique en gnral.

In 1787 Fourier decided to train for the priesthood and entered the Benedictine abbey of St Benoit-sur-Loire. His interest in mathematics continued, however, and he corresponded with C L Bonard, the professor of mathematics at Auxerre. Fourier was unsure if he was making the right decision in training for the priesthood. He submitted a paper on algebra to Montucla in Paris and his letters to Bonard suggest that he really wanted to make a major impact in mathematics. In one letter Fourier wrote Yesterday was my 21st birthday, at that age Newton and Pascal had already acquired many claims to immortality. Fourier did not take his religious vows. Having left St Benoit in 1789, he visited Paris and read a paper on algebraic equations at the Acadmie Royale des Sciences. In 1790 he became a teacher at the Benedictine college, cole Royale Militaire of Auxerre, where he had studied. Up until this time there had been a conflict inside Fourier about whether he should follow a religious life or one of mathematical research. However in 1793 a third element was added to this conflict when he became involved in politics and joined the local Revolutionary Committee. As he wrote:As the natural ideas of equality developed it was possible to conceive the sublime hope of establishing among us a free government exempt from kings and priests, and to free from this double yoke the long-usurped soil of Europe. I readily became enamoured of this cause, in my opinion the greatest and most beautiful which any nation has ever undertaken. Certainly Fourier was unhappy about the Terror which resulted from the French Revolution and he attempted to resign from the committee. However this proved impossible and Fourier was now firmly entangled with the Revolution and unable to withdraw. The revolution was a complicated affair with many factions, with broadly similar aims, violently opposed to each other. Fourier defended members of one faction while in Orlans. A letter describing events relates:Citizen Fourier, a young man full of intelligence, eloquence and zeal, was sent to Loiret. ... It seems that Fourier ... got up on certain popular platforms. He can talk very well and if he put forward the views of the Society of Auxerre he has done nothing blameworthy... This incident was to have serious consequences but after it Fourier returned to Auxerre and continued to work on the revolutionary committee and continued to teach at the College. In July 1794 he was arrested, the charges relating to the Orlans incident, and he was imprisoned. Fourier feared the he would go to the guillotine but, after Robespierre himself went to the guillotine, political changes resulted in Fourier being freed. Later in 1794 Fourier was nominated to study at the cole Normale in Paris. This institution had been set up for training teachers and it was intended to serve as a model for other teacher-training schools. The school opened in January 1795 and Fourier was certainly the most able of the pupils whose abilities ranged widely. He was taught by Lagrange, who Fourier described as the first among European men of science,

and also by Laplace, who Fourier rated less highly, and by Monge who Fourier described as having a loud voice and is active, ingenious and very learned. Fourier began teaching at the Collge de France and, having excellent relations with Lagrange, Laplace and Monge, began further mathematical research. He was appointed to a position at the cole Centrale des Travaux Publiques, the school being under the direction of Lazare Carnot and Gaspard Monge, which was soon to be renamed cole Polytechnique. However, repercussions of his earlier arrest remained and he was arrested again and imprisoned. His release has been put down to a variety of different causes, pleas by his pupils, pleas by Lagrange, Laplace or Monge or a change in the political climate. In fact all three may have played a part. By 1 September 1795 Fourier was back teaching at the cole Polytechnique. In 1797 he succeeded Lagrange in being appointed to the chair of analysis and mechanics. He was renowned as an outstanding lecturer but he does not appear to have undertaken original research during this time. In 1798 Fourier joined Napoleon's army in its invasion of Egypt as scientific adviser. Monge and Malus were also part of the expeditionary force. The expedition was at first a great success. Malta was occupied on 10 June 1798, Alexandria taken by storm on 1 July, and the delta of the Nile quickly taken. However, on 1 August 1798 the French fleet was completely destroyed by Nelson's fleet in the Battle of the Nile, so that Napoleon found himself confined to the land that he was occupying. Fourier acted as an administrator as French type political institutions and administration was set up. In particular he helped establish educational facilities in Egypt and carried out archaeological explorations. While in Cairo Fourier helped found the Cairo Institute and was one of the twelve members of the mathematics division, the others included Monge, Malus and Napoleon himself. Fourier was elected secretary to the Institute, a position he continued to hold during the entire French occupation of Egypt. Fourier was also put in charge of collating the scientific and literary discoveries made during the time in Egypt. Napoleon abandoned his army and returned to Paris in 1799, he soon held absolute power in France. Fourier returned to France in 1801 with the remains of the expeditionary force and resumed his post as Professor of Analysis at the cole Polytechnique. However Napoleon had other ideas about how Fourier might serve him and wrote:... the Prefect of the Department of Isre having recently died, I would like to express my confidence in citizen Fourier by appointing him to this place. Fourier was not happy at the prospect of leaving the academic world and Paris but could not refuse Napoleon's request. He went to Grenoble where his duties as Prefect were many and varied. His two greatest achievements in this administrative position were overseeing the operation to drain the swamps of Bourgoin and supervising the construction of a new highway from Grenoble to Turin. He also spent much time working on the Description of Egypt which was not completed until 1810 when

Napoleon made changes, rewriting history in places, to it before publication. By the time a second edition appeared every reference to Napoleon would have been removed. It was during his time in Grenoble that Fourier did his important mathematical work on the theory of heat. His work on the topic began around 1804 and by 1807 he had completed his important memoir On the Propagation of Heat in Solid Bodies. The memoir was read to the Paris Institute on 21 December 1807 and a committee consisting of Lagrange, Laplace, Monge and Lacroix was set up to report on the work. Now this memoir is very highly regarded but at the time it caused controversy. There were two reasons for the committee to feel unhappy with the work. The first objection, made by Lagrange and Laplace in 1808, was to Fourier's expansions of functions as trigonometrical series, what we now call Fourier series. Further clarification by Fourier still failed to convince them. As is pointed out in [4]:All these are written with such exemplary clarity - from a logical as opposed to calligraphic point of view - that their inability to persuade Laplace and Lagrange ... provides a good index of the originality of Fourier's views. The second objection was made by Biot against Fourier's derivation of the equations of transfer of heat. Fourier had not made reference to Biot's 1804 paper on this topic but Biot's paper is certainly incorrect. Laplace, and later Poisson, had similar objections. The Institute set as a prize competition subject the propagation of heat in solid bodies for the 1811 mathematics prize. Fourier submitted his 1807 memoir together with additional work on the cooling of infinite solids and terrestrial and radiant heat. Only one other entry was received and the committee set up to decide on the award of the prize, Lagrange, Laplace, Malus, Hay and Legendre, awarded Fourier the prize. The report was not however completely favourable and states:... the manner in which the author arrives at these equations is not exempt of difficulties and that his analysis to integrate them still leaves something to be desired on the score of generality and even rigour. With this rather mixed report there was no move in Paris to publish Fourier's work. When Napoleon was defeated and on his way to exile in Elba, his route should have been through Grenoble. Fourier managed to avoid this difficult confrontation by sending word that it would be dangerous for Napoleon. When he learnt of Napoleon's escape from Elba and that he was marching towards Grenoble with an army, Fourier was extremely worried. He tried to persuade the people of Grenoble to oppose Napoleon and give their allegiance to the King. However as Napoleon marched into the town Fourier left in haste. Napoleon was angry with Fourier who he had hoped would welcome his return. Fourier was able to talk his way into favour with both sides and Napoleon made him Prefect of the Rhne. However Fourier soon resigned on receiving orders, possibly from Carnot, that the was to remove all administrators with royalist sympathies. He could not have completely fallen out with Napoleon and Carnot, however, for on 10 June 1815, Napoleon awarded him a pension of 6000 francs, payable from 1 July. However

Napoleon was defeated on 1 July and Fourier did not receive any money. He returned to Paris. Fourier was elected to the Acadmie des Sciences in 1817. In 1822 Delambre, who was the Secretary to the mathematical section of the Acadmie des Sciences, died and Fourier together with Biot and Arago applied for the post. After Arago withdrew the election gave Fourier an easy win. Shortly after Fourier became Secretary, the Acadmie published his prize winning essay Thorie analytique de la chaleur in 1822. This was not a piece of political manoeuvring by Fourier however since Delambre had arranged for the printing before he died. During Fourier's eight last years in Paris he resumed his mathematical researches and published a number of papers, some in pure mathematics while some were on applied mathematical topics. His life was not without problems however since his theory of heat still provoked controversy. Biot claimed priority over Fourier, a claim which Fourier had little difficulty showing to be false. Poisson, however, attacked both Fourier's mathematical techniques and also claimed to have an alternative theory. Fourier wrote Historical Prcis as a reply to these claims but, although the work was shown to various mathematicians, it was never published. Fourier's views on the claims of Biot and Poisson are given in the following, see [4]:Having contested the various results [Biot and Poisson] now recognise that they are exact but they protest that they have invented another method of expounding them and that this method is excellent and the true one. If they had illuminated this branch of physics by important and general views and had greatly perfected the analysis of partial differential equations, if they had established a principal element of the theory of heat by fine experiments ... they would have the right to judge my work and to correct it. I would submit with much pleasure .. But one does not extend the bounds of science by presenting, in a form said to be different, results which one has not found oneself and, above all, by forestalling the true author in publication. Fourier's work provided the impetus for later work on trigonometric series and the theory of functions of a real variable. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson January 1997

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Fourier.html]

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss

Born: 30 April 1777 in Brunswick, Duchy of Brunswick (now Germany) Died: 23 Feb 1855 in Gttingen, Hanover (now Germany)

At the age of seven, Carl Friedrich Gauss started elementary school, and his potential was noticed almost immediately. His teacher, Bttner, and his assistant, Martin Bartels, were amazed when Gauss summed the integers from 1 to 100 instantly by spotting that the sum was 50 pairs of numbers each pair summing to 101. In 1788 Gauss began his education at the Gymnasium with the help of Bttner and Bartels, where he learnt High German and Latin. After receiving a stipend from the Duke of Brunswick- Wolfenbttel, Gauss entered Brunswick Collegium Carolinum in 1792. At the academy Gauss independently discovered Bode's law, the binomial theorem and the arithmetic- geometric mean, as well as the law of quadratic reciprocity and the prime number theorem. In 1795 Gauss left Brunswick to study at Gttingen University. Gauss's teacher there was Kstner, whom Gauss often ridiculed. His only known friend amongst the students was Farkas Bolyai. They met in 1799 and corresponded with each other for many years. Gauss left Gttingen in 1798 without a diploma, but by this time he had made one of his most important discoveries - the construction of a regular 17-gon by ruler and compasses This was the most major advance in this field since the time of Greek mathematics and was published as Section VII of Gauss's famous work, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. Gauss returned to Brunswick where he received a degree in 1799. After the Duke of Brunswick had agreed to continue Gauss's stipend, he requested that Gauss submit a doctoral dissertation to the University of Helmstedt. He already knew Pfaff, who was chosen to be his advisor. Gauss's dissertation was a discussion of the fundamental theorem of algebra. With his stipend to support him, Gauss did not need to find a job so devoted himself to research. He published the book Disquisitiones Arithmeticae in the summer of 1801. There were seven sections, all but the last section, referred to above, being devoted to number theory. In June 1801, Zach, an astronomer whom Gauss had come to know two or three years previously, published the orbital positions of Ceres, a new "small planet" which was discovered by G Piazzi, an Italian astronomer on 1 January, 1801. Unfortunately, Piazzi had only been able to observe 9 degrees of its orbit before it disappeared behind the Sun. Zach published several predictions of its position, including one by Gauss which differed greatly from the others. When Ceres was rediscovered by Zach on 7 December 1801 it was almost exactly where Gauss had predicted. Although he did not disclose his methods at the time, Gauss had used his least squares approximation method. In June 1802 Gauss visited Olbers who had discovered Pallas in March of that year and Gauss investigated its orbit. Olbers requested that Gauss be made director of the

proposed new observatory in Gttingen, but no action was taken. Gauss began corresponding with Bessel, whom he did not meet until 1825, and with Sophie Germain. Gauss married Johanna Ostoff on 9 October, 1805. Despite having a happy personal life for the first time, his benefactor, the Duke of Brunswick, was killed fighting for the Prussian army. In 1807 Gauss left Brunswick to take up the position of director of the Gttingen observatory. Gauss arrived in Gttingen in late 1807. In 1808 his father died, and a year later Gauss's wife Johanna died after giving birth to their second son, who was to die soon after her. Gauss was shattered and wrote to Olbers asking him to give him a home for a few weeks, to gather new strength in the arms of your friendship - strength for a life which is only valuable because it belongs to my three small children. Gauss was married for a second time the next year, to Minna the best friend of Johanna, and although they had three children, this marriage seemed to be one of convenience for Gauss. Gauss's work never seemed to suffer from his personal tragedy. He published his second book, Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis Solem ambientium, in 1809, a major two volume treatise on the motion of celestial bodies. In the first volume he discussed differential equations, conic sections and elliptic orbits, while in the second volume, the main part of the work, he showed how to estimate and then to refine the estimation of a planet's orbit. Gauss's contributions to theoretical astronomy stopped after 1817, although he went on making observations until the age of 70. Much of Gauss's time was spent on a new observatory, completed in 1816, but he still found the time to work on other subjects. His publications during this time include Disquisitiones generales circa seriem infinitam, a rigorous treatment of series and an introduction of the hypergeometric function, Methodus nova integralium valores per approximationem inveniendi, a practical essay on approximate integration, Bestimmung der Genauigkeit der Beobachtungen, a discussion of statistical estimators, and Theoria attractionis corporum sphaeroidicorum ellipticorum homogeneorum methodus nova tractata. The latter work was inspired by geodesic problems and was principally concerned with potential theory. In fact, Gauss found himself more and more interested in geodesy in the 1820s. Gauss had been asked in 1818 to carry out a geodesic survey of the state of Hanover to link up with the existing Danish grid. Gauss was pleased to accept and took personal charge of the survey, making measurements during the day and reducing them at night, using his extraordinary mental capacity for calculations. He regularly wrote to Schumacher, Olbers and Bessel, reporting on his progress and discussing problems. Because of the survey, Gauss invented the heliotrope which worked by reflecting the Sun's rays using a design of mirrors and a small telescope. However, inaccurate base lines were used for the survey and an unsatisfactory network of triangles. Gauss often wondered if he would have been better advised to have pursued some other occupation but he published over 70 papers between 1820 and 1830.

In 1822 Gauss won the Copenhagen University Prize with Theoria attractionis... together with the idea of mapping one surface onto another so that the two are similar in their smallest parts. This paper was published in 1825 and led to the much later publication of Untersuchungen ber Gegenstnde der Hheren Geodsie (1843 and 1846). The paper Theoria combinationis observationum erroribus minimis obnoxiae (1823), with its supplement (1828), was devoted to mathematical statistics, in particular to the least squares method. From the early 1800s Gauss had an interest in the question of the possible existence of a non-Euclidean geometry. He discussed this topic at length with Farkas Bolyai and in his correspondence with Gerling and Schumacher. In a book review in 1816 he discussed proofs which deduced the axiom of parallels from the other Euclidean axioms, suggesting that he believed in the existence of non-Euclidean geometry, although he was rather vague. Gauss confided in Schumacher, telling him that he believed his reputation would suffer if he admitted in public that he believed in the existence of such a geometry. In 1831 Farkas Bolyai sent to Gauss his son Jnos Bolyai's work on the subject. Gauss replied to praise it would mean to praise myself . Again, a decade later, when he was informed of Lobachevsky's work on the subject, he praised its "genuinely geometric" character, while in a letter to Schumacher in 1846, states that he had the same convictions for 54 years indicating that he had known of the existence of a non-Euclidean geometry since he was 15 years of age (this seems unlikely). Gauss had a major interest in differential geometry, and published many papers on the subject. Disquisitiones generales circa superficies curva (1828) was his most renowned work in this field. In fact, this paper rose from his geodesic interests, but it contained such geometrical ideas as Gaussian curvature. The paper also includes Gauss's famous theorema egregrium: If an area in E3 can be developed (i.e. mapped isometrically) into another area of E3, the values of the Gaussian curvatures are identical in corresponding points. The period 1817-1832 was a particularly distressing time for Gauss. He took in his sick mother in 1817, who stayed until her death in 1839, while he was arguing with his wife and her family about whether they should go to Berlin. He had been offered a position at Berlin University and Minna and her family were keen to move there. Gauss, however, never liked change and decided to stay in Gttingen. In 1831 Gauss's second wife died after a long illness. In 1831, Wilhelm Weber arrived in Gttingen as physics professor filling Tobias Mayer's chair. Gauss had known Weber since 1828 and supported his appointment. Gauss had worked on physics before 1831, publishing ber ein neues allgemeines

Grundgesetz der Mechanik, which contained the principle of least constraint, and Principia generalia theoriae figurae fluidorum in statu aequilibrii which discussed forces of attraction. These papers were based on Gauss's potential theory, which proved of great importance in his work on physics. He later came to believe his potential theory and his method of least squares provided vital links between science and nature. In 1832, Gauss and Weber began investigating the theory of terrestrial magnetism after Alexander von Humboldt attempted to obtain Gauss's assistance in making a grid of magnetic observation points around the Earth. Gauss was excited by this prospect and by 1840 he had written three important papers on the subject: Intensitas vis magneticae terrestris ad mensuram absolutam revocata (1832), Allgemeine Theorie des Erdmagnetismus (1839) and Allgemeine Lehrstze in Beziehung auf die im verkehrten Verhltnisse des Quadrats der Entfernung wirkenden Anziehungs- und Abstossungskrfte (1840). These papers all dealt with the current theories on terrestrial magnetism, including Poisson's ideas, absolute measure for magnetic force and an empirical definition of terrestrial magnetism. Dirichlet's principle was mentioned without proof. Allgemeine Theorie... showed that there can only be two poles in the globe and went on to prove an important theorem, which concerned the determination of the intensity of the horizontal component of the magnetic force along with the angle of inclination. Gauss used the Laplace equation to aid him with his calculations, and ended up specifying a location for the magnetic South pole. Humboldt had devised a calendar for observations of magnetic declination. However, once Gauss's new magnetic observatory (completed in 1833 - free of all magnetic metals) had been built, he proceeded to alter many of Humboldt's procedures, not pleasing Humboldt greatly. However, Gauss's changes obtained more accurate results with less effort. Gauss and Weber achieved much in their six years together. They discovered Kirchhoff's laws, as well as building a primitive telegraph device which could send messages over a distance of 5000 ft. However, this was just an enjoyable pastime for Gauss. He was more interested in the task of establishing a world-wide net of magnetic observation points. This occupation produced many concrete results. The Magnetischer Verein and its journal were founded, and the atlas of geomagnetism was published, while Gauss and Weber's own journal in which their results were published ran from 1836 to 1841. In 1837, Weber was forced to leave Gttingen when he became involved in a political dispute and, from this time, Gauss's activity gradually decreased. He still produced letters in response to fellow scientists' discoveries usually remarking that he had known the methods for years but had never felt the need to publish. Sometimes he seemed extremely pleased with advances made by other mathematicians, particularly that of Eisenstein and of Lobachevsky. Gauss spent the years from 1845 to 1851 updating the Gttingen University widow's fund. This work gave him practical experience in financial matters, and he went on to make his fortune through shrewd investments in bonds issued by private companies.

Two of Gauss's last doctoral students were Moritz Cantor and Dedekind. Dedekind wrote a fine description of his supervisor ... usually he sat in a comfortable attitude, looking down, slightly stooped, with hands folded above his lap. He spoke quite freely, very clearly, simply and plainly: but when he wanted to emphasise a new viewpoint ... then he lifted his head, turned to one of those sitting next to him, and gazed at him with his beautiful, penetrating blue eyes during the emphatic speech. ... If he proceeded from an explanation of principles to the development of mathematical formulas, then he got up, and in a stately very upright posture he wrote on a blackboard beside him in his peculiarly beautiful handwriting: he always succeeded through economy and deliberate arrangement in making do with a rather small space. For numerical examples, on whose careful completion he placed special value, he brought along the requisite data on little slips of paper. Gauss presented his golden jubilee lecture in 1849, fifty years after his diploma had been granted by Helmstedt University. It was appropriately a variation on his dissertation of 1799. From the mathematical community only Jacobi and Dirichlet were present, but Gauss received many messages and honours. From 1850 onwards Gauss's work was again nearly all of a practical nature although he did approve Riemann's doctoral thesis and heard his probationary lecture. His last known scientific exchange was with Gerling. He discussed a modified Foucault pendulum in 1854. He was also able to attend the opening of the new railway link between Hanover and Gttingen, but this proved to be his last outing. His health deteriorated slowly, and Gauss died in his sleep early in the morning of 23 February, 1855. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson December 1996

MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Gauss.html]