Great mathematicians and their discoveries

Mathematics appeared simultaneously with man's desire to explore the world around him. Initially, it was part of philosophy - the mother of science - and was not singled out as a separate discipline on a par with the same astronomy, physics. However, over time, the situation has changed. In this article, we will find out who they are - great mathematicians, whose list has already exceeded a hundred. Let us select the main names.

Start

Knowledge from people accumulated more and more, as a result, there was a division of exact and natural sciences. After the official "birth", each of them went its own way, developing, reinforcing the foundation with a theory reinforced by practice. It would seem, what kind of practice can mathematics have, the most abstract of the sciences? This subject is able to describe absolutely all the processes taking place on our planet and beyond, and knowing the nature of the phenomenon allows us to draw conclusions and make predictions. Hence it can be concluded that all sciences are related, the most obvious is the relationship between mathematics and physics. Therefore, in most cases, great mathematicians and physicists make up one group of scientists. Judge for yourself - how can you describe something without getting a justification?

Human history is not only the conquest of new territories and wars, in which the strongholds of this world primarily pursue their own interests, but also endless scientific calculations designed to explain, to show, to know and to clarify the perspective of tomorrow. In this article, we will consider those who have made a significant contribution to the creation of the present. Who are they, great mathematicians of the past, that have prepared the ground for modern discoveries?

Pythagoras

When great mathematicians are mentioned, it is this name that comes first to most people. No one knows for certain that the facts of his biography are true, and that is fiction, since the name has been overgrown with legends. During the period of life, the date range from 570 to 490 BC was adopted. E.

Unfortunately, there were no written works after him, but it is generally accepted that it was with his blessing that many of the discoveries of that time were made. However, we will mention only those achievements that are unquestionably the fruits of his work:

• Geometry is the famous theorem, which says that in a right triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the legs. Do not forget the Pythagorean table, according to which primary school students study the principle of multiplication of natural numbers. He also developed a method for constructing certain polygons.
• Geography - the great mathematician Pythagoras first suggested that the planet Earth is round.
• Astronomy is a hypothesis about the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations.

Euclid

To this ancient Greek mathematician modern science owes its geometry.

Euclid was born in 365 BC. E. In Athens and for 65 years (until the end of life, in fact) lived in Alexandria. It can be safely called a revolutionary among the scientific figures of the time, as he has done a tremendous job combining all the accumulated experience of past years into one smooth, logical system without "holes" and contradictions. This great scientist (physicist and mathematician) created the treatise of "The Beginning," which included more than a dozen volumes! In addition, from under his hand came out the work, describing the propagation of a beam of light in a straight line.

Euclid's theory is good because he pushed it away from the abstract "maybe", giving a number of postulates (statements that do not require proof), and already from them, using a dry mathematical logic, brought out a harmonious system of the now existing geometry.

Francois Viet

Great mathematicians and their discoveries also depend on the will of the case. This was proved by Mr. Viiet (years of life - 1540-1603), who lived in France and served at the royal court first as a lawyer, and then as an adviser to the monarch. When instead of Henry III Henry IV ascended to the throne, Francois changed his line of business. A number of "World Great Mathematicians," whose list is not small, was replenished with a new name thanks to the war between France and Spain. The latter in its correspondence used a complex cipher, which could not be deciphered. Thus, the enemies of the French crown could conduct free correspondence to the territory of the enemy without fear of being caught.

After trying all the methods, the king turned to Viet. During the crescent, the mathematician worked without rest, until he achieved the desired result. Thanks to this, the mathematician again became a personal adviser, but already a new king. Parallel to this, Spain began to suffer defeat after defeat, not understanding what was the matter. Finally, the truth surfaced, and the Inquisition handed down in absentia the verdict of François to execution, but never fulfilled it.

In his new position, the adviser was able to immerse himself in mathematics, giving himself to his beloved cause, like all great people. About mathematics and Vieta they spoke with bewilderment, emphasizing that he managed to combine the hobby with the legal practice.

Among the achievements of Vieta are:

• Alphabet letter designations. The French mathematician replaced the parameters and part of the coefficients with letters, reducing the expression several times. This measure made algebraic statements more simple and accessible for understanding, while facilitating further conclusions along with it. This step became revolutionary, as it eased the way for the people behind. A truly great mathematician Pythagoras left his offspring in reliable hands. The ideology of tomorrow is completely transferred.
• The derivation of the theory of solving equations up to the fourth degree inclusive.
• The derivation of the formula of the name of itself, according to which the roots of the quadratic equations are still found to this day.
• The conclusion and justification of the first in the history of science of an infinite work.

Leonhard Euler

The light of science with an amazing fate. Born in Switzerland (1707), he can safely enter the list of "Great Russian mathematicians," since he most fruitfully worked and found the last refuge in Russia (1783).

The period of his works and discoveries is connected with our country, in which he moved in 1726 at the invitation of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. For a decade and a half he wrote a lot of work in both mathematics and physics. In total, he made about 9 hundred of the most difficult conclusions that enriched the science of that time. By the end of Leonard Euler's life, contrary to the rules (but with the approval of the French government), the Paris Academy of Sciences made him the ninth member, whereas according to the rules there should be eight. Only great mathematicians could be awarded such an honor, since any scientific organization is pedantic when it comes to observing the rules.

Among the discoveries of Leonhard Euler, it should be noted:

• Unification of mathematics as a science. Until the XVIII century, which is considered to be the period of Euler's triumph, all disciplines were scattered. Algebra, mathematical analysis, geometry, probability theory, etc. existed on their own, without intersecting. He collected from them a harmonious, logical system, which is now being presented in educational institutions without changes.
• The output of the number e, which is approximately 2.7. As you can see, great mathematicians often find immortality in their works, the cup of this and Euler did not pass - the first letter of the name gave the name to this irrational number, without which there would not exist a natural logarithm.
• The first formulation of the theory of integration with an indication of the methods that are used in it. Introduction of double integrals.
• The foundation and distribution of Euler diagrams are laconic and graphical graphs that show the connection of sets regardless of their origin. For example, thanks to them it can be shown that an infinite set of natural numbers is included in an infinite set of rational numbers and so on.
• Writing revolutionary for that time works on differential calculus.
• Addition of elementary geometry, deduced by Euclid. For example, he derived and proved that all the heights of the triangle intersect at one point.

Galileo Galilei

This scientist, who lived all his life in Italy (from 1564 to 1642), is familiar to every schoolboy. The period of his activity fell on a troubled time, which took place under the sign of the Inquisition. Any dissent was punished, science was pursued, as it contradicted the statements of theologians. No one and nothing could be described, for all is the will of God.

It was the mathematician Galileo, according to legend, who became the author of the phrase "And yet it spins!" After having renounced his words that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and not vice versa. This step was due to the struggle for life, since the Inquisition considered heresy to be its hypothesis, in which the participants of the rotation reversed their positions. The clergy could not allow the Earth as the creation of God to cease to be the center of everything.

However, his works did not stop with this hypothesis, for he entered the history as a great physicist and mathematician. Galileo:

• By empirical studies rejected the statement of Aristotle, in which it was said that the rate of fall of the body is directly proportional to its weight;
• Derived a paradox of the name of itself, in which the number of natural numbers is equal to the number of their squares, while the greater part of the numbers is not squares;
• Wrote the work "The Discourse on the Dice", in which he considered a benchmark from the point of view of probability theory with a derivation and justification.

Andrei Nikolayevich Kolmogorov

When the great mathematicians of Russia are mentioned, one of the first to come to mind is this scientific figure.

Alexey Kolmogorov was born in the spring of 1903 in the city of Tambov. He received his primary education at home, after which he entered a private gymnasium. Already there were noted his amazing abilities in the field of exact sciences. Due to a number of circumstances, his family was forced to move to Moscow, where they were caught by the Civil War. Despite everything, Kolmogorov entered the Moscow University in the Faculty of Mathematics. The successes of the young student in the chosen field were so great that he could pass the exams ahead of schedule without taking a break from his main passion - probability theory. In scientific publications, the works of Andrei Nikolaevich began to appear, beginning in 1923, and he was barely 20 years old at the time. Methodically achieving the desired, the mathematician already in 1939 became an academician. He worked all his life in Moscow and died in the fall of 1987, he was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

His weighty work includes:

• Improvement of the methodology of teaching mathematics in primary and secondary schools. Great mathematicians and their world-wide discoveries are important, but no less valuable and necessary is the work on preparing a younger generation of future scientists. Everyone knows that the foundations are laid in early childhood.
• The development of mathematical methods and their transfer from abstract domains to applied ones. In other words, thanks to the works of Andrei Nikolayevich, mathematics has firmly become part of the natural sciences.
• The conclusion of the axioms accepted by the world scientific community of elementary probability theory. The latter is characterized by the fact that it describes a finite number of events.

Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky

This scholar, like all the great Russian mathematicians, has shown remarkable talents in the field of exact sciences since childhood.

Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky was born in 1793 in one of the provinces of Russia. At the age of 7, he moved with his family to Kazan, where he lived his whole life. He died at the age of 63 years, perpetuating his name for ages working, which supplemented the classical geometry of Euclid. He introduced several refinements into the familiar system, having proved a number of statements, for example, that parallel lines intersect at infinity. His work is defined in a plane that is characterized by speeds close to the speed of light. It would seem, what is the point of discovery for that time? The theory was found controversial, outrageous, but over time, great mathematics scientists recognized that Lobachevsky's work opened the door to the future.

Augustin Louis Cauchy

The name of this mathematician is known to every student, since he managed to be noted both in the general course of higher mathematics, and in its narrower directions, for example, in mathematical analysis.

Augustin Louis Cauchy (years of life - 1789-1857) can rightly be considered the father of mathematical analysis. It was he who brought to mind all that was in a suspended state, without any definition or justification. Thanks to his works, there appeared such pillars of discipline as continuity, limit, derivative and integral. Also Cauchy showed the convergence of the series and its radius, gave a mathematical justification for the variance in optics.

Cauchy's contribution to the development of modern mathematics was so large that his name occupied an honorable place on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower - it was there that chronologically listed scientists (including great mathematicians). This list serves as a kind of monument to science to this day.

The result

From century to century, mathematics attracted scientists to its unnaturalness, which surprisingly could describe everything that happens in the world around us.

Pythagoras claimed that the basis of everything lies in number. Virtually everything that happens to a person and inside a person, it can describe.

Galileo said that mathematics is the language of nature. Think about it. The magnitude that is of an artificial nature, describes everything natural.

The names of great mathematicians - it's not just a list of people who were addicted to their work, expanding and deepening the scientific base. These are the links that can connect the present and the future, to show mankind a perspective.

However, this is a double-edged sword, as the abundance of information gives more leverage for impact.

Knowledge is power. Unthinking abuse can destroy what has been so thoroughly studied and collected in bitterness. Awareness of this is paramount, science should go for good.

Great people about mathematics speak with infinite respect, since it is a pass in tomorrow.