Top 10

Mathematicians

By: Noah
RompasPythagoras
of Samos
Biography:
Accurate facts about the life of Pythagoras are so few that most information
concerning him is untrustworthy, making it nearly impossible to provide more
than a vague outline of his life. The lack of information by contemporary writers,
together with the secrecy which surrounded the Pythagorean brotherhood,
meant that invention took the place of facts. The stories which were created
were eagerly sought by the Neoplatonist writers who provide most of the details
about Pythagoras, but who were uncritical concerning anything which related to
the gods or which was considered divine. Thus many myths were created such
as that Apollo was his father; that Pythagoras gleamed with a supernatural
brightness; that he had a golden thigh; that Abaris came flying to him on a
golden arrow; that he was seen in different places at the same time. With the
exception of a few remarks by Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Herodotus, Plato,
Aristotle, and Isocrates, we are mainly dependent on Diogenes Lartius,
Porphyry, and Iamblichus for biographical details. Aristotle had written a
separate work on the Pythagoreans, which unfortunately has not survived. [8] His
disciples Dicaearchus, Aristoxenus, and Heraclides Ponticus had written on the
same subject. These writers, late as they are, were among the best sources from
whom Porphyry and Iamblichus drew, while still adding some legendary accounts
and their own inventions to the mix. Hence, historians are often reduced to
considering the statements based on their inherent probability, but even then, if
all the credible stories concerning Pythagoras were supposed true, his range of
activity would be impossibly vast.

Reference:

http://www-groups.dcs.st-

and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Pythagoras.html

Leonardo Pisano Blgollo

Biography:
Leonardo Pisano Bigollo was an Italian mathematician. He is usually better known by his
nickname, Fibonacci, and is considered to be among the foremost European mathematicians
of the medieval era. He was instrumental in bringing the widespread use of Arabic numerals
to the West. The Fibonacci number sequence is named after him, although he merely
referenced it rather than devising it himself. During the last few years of the 12th century,
Fibonacci undertook a series of travels around the Mediterranean. At this time, the worlds
most prominent mathematicians were Arabs, and he spent much time studying with them. In
about 1200, he returned home to Italy, and two years later he published his book, Liber Abaci.
This work, whose title translates as the Book of Calculation, was extremely influential in that
it popularized the use of the Arabic numerals in Europe, thereby revolutionizing arithmetic
and allowing scientific experiment and discovery to progress more quickly.
In Liber Abaci, Fibonacci used as an example a problem regarding the growth of a rabbit
population. The sequence of numbers which he used to solve the problem was that which
later became known as the Fibonacci sequence. However, it had been known in India several
centuries earlier; this was merely the first time that it had been seen in Western mathematics.
The fact that the ratio of successive numbers in the sequence tends to the Golden Ratio of
around 1.618:1 may or may not have been known to Fibonacci; in any event, he did not
mention it in his book.

Reference: http://famousmathematicians.org/leonardo-pisanobigollo/

Wilhelm Leibniz
Biography:
Gottfried Lelbniz was born in Leipzig, endeavor Germany to influential parents. His father, a
professor of moral philosophy at the citys university, died when Leibniz was only six. His
mother was the daughter of a rich local lawyer.
Leibniz was a childhood prodigy. He became fluent in Latin and studied works of Greeks
scholars such as when he was only twelve. He entered the University of Leipzig when he was
fourteen, where he took philosophy, mathematics and law.
After graduation, he applied for a doctorate in law, but was refused due to his young age.
Leibniz chose to present his thesis to the University of Altdorf, where professors were so
impressed that they immediately awarded him the degree of Doctor of Laws and gave him a
job of professorship.
Gottfried Leibniz was a great polymath who knew almost everything that could be known at
the time about any subject or intellectual enterprise. He made important contributions to
philosophy, engineering, physics, law, politics, philology and theology.
Probably his greatest achievement was the discovery of a new mathematical method called
calculus. Scientists use to deal with quantities that are constantly varying. Newton had
devised a similar method for his work on gravity. Therefore, there was a harsh debate about
who had been first.
Newton began working on his version in 1665, but Leibniz published his results in 1684,
almost three years before Newton. However, the consensus is that they discovered the method
simultaneously.
Leibniz also discovered the binary number system and invented the first calculating machine
that could add, subtract, multiply and divide. When it came to metaphysics, he formulated the
famous theory of monads which explained the relation between soul and the body. Leibniz is
often known as the founder of symbolic logic as he developed the universal characteristic, a
symbolic language in which any item of information can be represented in a natural and
systematic way.

Reference:
http://www.famousscientists.org/gottfri
ed-leibniz/

Isaac Newton
Biography:
Isaac Newton is perhaps the greatest physicist who has ever lived. He and Albert Einstein are
almost equally matched contenders for this title.
Each of these great scientists produced dramatic and startling transformations in the physical
laws we believe our universe obeys, changing the way we understand and relate to the world
around us.
Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 in the tiny village of Woolsthorpe-byColsterworth, Lincolnshire, England.
His father, whose name was also Isaac Newton, was a farmer who died before Isaac Junior
was born. Although comfortable financially, his father could not read or write.
His mother, Hannah Ayscough, married a churchman when Newton was three years old.
Newton disliked his mothers new husband and did not join their household, living instead
with his mothers mother, Margery Ayscough.
His resentment of his mother and stepfathers new life did not subside with time; as a
teenager he threatened to burn their house down!
Beginning at age 12, Newton attended The Kings School, Grantham, where he was taught
the classics, but no science or mathematics. When he was 17, his mother stopped his
schooling so that he could become a farmer. Fortunately for the future of science Newton
found he had neither aptitude nor liking for farming; his mother allowed him to return to
school, where he finished as top student.
Isaac Newton, who was largely self-taught in mathematics and physics:

generalized the binomial theorem

showed that sunlight is made up of all of the colors of the rainbow. He used one glass
prism to split a beam of sunlight into its separate colors, then another prism to
recombine the rainbow colors to make a beam of white light again.

built the worlds first working reflecting telescope.

discovered/invented calculus, the mathematics of change, without which we could not

understand the behavior of objects as tiny as electrons or as large as galaxies.

wrote the Principia, one of the most important scientific books ever written; in it he
used mathematics to explain gravity and motion. (Principia is pronounced with a hard
c.)

discovered the law of universal gravitation, proving that the force holding the moon in
orbit around the earth is the same force that causes an apple to fall from a tree.

formulated his three laws of motion Newtons Laws which lie at the heart of the
science of movement.

showed that Keplers laws of planetary motion are special cases of Newtons
universal gravitation.

proved that all objects moving through space under the influence of gravity must
follow a path shaped in the form of one of the conic sections, such as a circle, an
ellipse, or a parabola, hence explaining the paths all planets and comets follow.

showed that the tides are caused by gravitational interactions between the earth, the
moon and the sun.

predicted, correctly, that the earth is not perfectly spherical but is squashed into an
oblate spheroid, larger around the equator than around the poles.

Used mathematics to model the movement of fluids from which the concept of a
Newtonian fluid comes.

devised Newtons Method for finding the roots of mathematical functions.

Reference:
http://www.famousscientists.org/isaacnewton/