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Greatest Mathematician Ever; Including Potential.

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Mike Hunt

Original post by nuodai

It shows that, despite his genius, he had his flaws. It's often nice to see a brilliant mathematician who is also a human being (particularly having been, for the last two years, in contact and direct competition with people who I swear are actually robots).

Sorry - I think I got the tone of that last post wrong. I was trying for a Chuck Norris Facts / Bruce Schneier Facts vibe but I think I missed. (Unlike Gauss...)

Reply 62

DFranklin

And it turns out (should have googled it before the last post) that there is in fact a Gauss Facts page (with almost 500 entries).

Some of them are brilliant:

•

Erdos believed God had a book of all perfect mathematical proofs. God believes Gauss has such a book.

•

Gauss never runs out of room in the margin.

•

"I couldn't find a counterexample" is an admissible mathematical proof if it's written by Gauss.

•

You know that theorem you just proved in your thesis?
Gauss already proved it 200 years ago.

•

A typical human brain has a magnetic field of 10^-9 to 10^-8 Gauss. The unit Gauss was invented to describe the magnetic field of Gauss' brain. Coincidence? I think not.

•

When Godel heard that Gauss could prove anything, he asked Gauss to prove the statement "There exists a statement that Gauss cannot prove." gauss proved the statement, but there was still no statement he could not prove. This is how the quantum state was born.

•

Hilbert put forward 23 unsolved problems because he hadn't properly read Gauss' notebooks.

Sadly, it appears there is no Galois Facts page.

Reply 63

RichE

Original post by nuodai

Maybe (I mean, Gauss did do everything), but I read about it in a Galois Theory book, so my guess is that Gauss did it one way and then Galois did it the Galois way, which is clearly cooler, because he's Galois, and died in a duel.

It was Gauss that did it originally and further it was he who showed which polygons can be constructed. Ruler and compass constructions usually appear in books on Galois Theory because they're an early pay-off from the study of field extensions.

Reply 64

qgujxj39

Original post by nuodai

Fair enough. Galois was indeed a ****ing cool guy.

Kurt Godel anyone?

Original post by JoMo1

However much I love the Galois story, I'm one of the camp who think it's probably at least partially made up.

errmmm which part of Galois' biography is made up ?

bear

:badger:

Reply 67

Arianto

Original post by Drunk Punx

I'm pretty sure right angles existed before Pythagoras :awesome:

What you just did is synonymous with "Sir Isaac Newton? Didn't he invent gravity?"

But there are no straight lines in nature...?

Or perhaps we had unknowingly constructed structures with right angles in them, but didn't yet acknowledge what they were? :holmes:

Reply 68

Retrodiction

Original post by lovely_me

Mathematicians can't see outside the rules of their compasses.

Spoiler

Here's a painting of Newton, so obsessed with his calculations he fails to see the beauty of the world around him. Mathematician should be ashamed tbh.

Ashamed of themselves for discovering truths about the numerical systems? Yes, such a disgusting, worthless, useless pursuit. /sarcasm

Reply 69

Gregster

Bit boring for a first post maybe but I have to say Euler. Technically he might not have been as good as Gauss etc... but crikey! That guy had his finger in every damned pie that mathematics had to offer. :biggrin:

Legendary amount of work he did!

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 70

Extricated

Original post by nuodai

Reply 71

wanderlust.xx

Has to be Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park.

"You'll have to get used to Dr. Malcolm, he suffers from a deplorable excess of personality, especially for a mathematician."

His only plausible explanation for anything, ever, was "life will find a way". Felt like punching the moron, and I was only 8 or something.

Reply 72

Welsh Leprecaun

Pure genius
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLprXHbn19I

Reply 73

MaturePharm

Euler, for the Euler Identity (it's beautiful)

Godel, for the Incompleteness Theorems (seriously messes with your foundations)

MP

Reply 74

JoMo1

Original post by the bear

errmmm which part of Galois' biography is made up ?

bear

:badger:

The duel. It seems much more likely given the circumstances that he committed suicide as a form of political catalyst.

Reply 75

Drunk Punx

Original post by Arianto

But there are no straight lines in nature...?

Or perhaps we had unknowingly constructed structures with right angles in them, but didn't yet acknowledge what they were? :holmes:

I would imagine at some point that yes, someone did construct something that had a right angle in it before Pythagoras thought that he'd put a name to it.

Reply 76

MathsLadette

Original post by Arianto

But there are no straight lines in nature...?

Or perhaps we had unknowingly constructed structures with right angles in them, but didn't yet acknowledge what they were? :holmes:

Babylonians were fully aware of right angles.

Reply 77

Arianto

Original post by MathsLadette

Babylonians were fully aware of right angles.

In that case, Pythagoras could only lay claim to inventing mathematical formulae about the sides of a right angle triangle (did he also go into angle sizes...?)

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 78

MathsLadette

Original post by Arianto

In that case, Pythagoras could only lay claim to inventing mathematical formulae about the sides of a right angle triangle (did he also go into angle sizes...?)

Well, the first to explicitly state it as a formula anyway. It's tough to say what Pythagoras actually did himself as all his teaching was verbal and all Pythagoreans' work was attributed to Pythagoras. Geometry wise, they knew that a triangle's angle sum is two right angles, Pythagoras' Theorem (obv) and three regular polyhedra.

Reply 79

Eldedu

Original post by Aristotle's' Disciple

I wouldn't say Einstein counts, his field was physics. They are NOT the same. An amazing man nonetheless. Greatest Physicist of all time.

Whole different thread, but I prefer Plank or Feynman.

As for Mathematics, I realise I have no place arguing with those clearly much better informed than myself (I hadn't even heard of Ramanujan) but I think historically my favorite would have to be Pythagoras, as for the one with greatest potential nowadays Perelman definitely gets my vote.