Carl Gauss

Carl Gauss

Carl Gauss was known as the prince of mathematics. He excelled in arithmetic at a very early age. For example, he was able to correct his parents math by the time he was three years old, at twelve he began to question the axioms of Euclid and at the age of nineteen he proved that the regular n-gon (ex: octagon, pentagon, nonigon)  was constructible only when it is the product of distinct prime Fermat numbers. And finally at the age of twenty-four he published Disquisitiones Arithmeticae.

"It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, ... which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again ..." - Carl Gauss

Carl Gauss was known as a "theorem prover."  He was first to show proof of Euclid's Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (that every natural number has a unique expression as product of primes); and first to show proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra (that an n-th degree polynomial has n complex roots). Gauss proved the n=3 case of Fermat's Last Theorem for a class of complex integers. He also did things like:  Fundamental Theorems in Statistics, Vector Analysis, Function Theory, and generalizations of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.

SOURCES:

30 Greatest

 

Archimedes

Archimedes of Syracuse

Archimedes was considered the greatest of the ancient mathematicians. He was born 287 years BEFORE CHRIST! He grew up in Syracuse, Italy and went to Euclid's school after Euclid had already died. It is believed that Archimedes far better than Euclid with the complexity of his work and his work's relativity.
Considering the lack of any technology whatsoever in that time, his work was amazing and most of it we still use today. He wrote several books including: Floating Bodies, Spirals, The Sand Reckoner, Measurement of the Circle, Sphere and Cylinder, and a few more.

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." - Archimedes

Pi is known as Archimedes' constant because he was the one to first formulate the volume and surface area of a sphere and the first to prove the  relationship between a circle's circumference and area. His estimation of π was: 223/71 < π < 22/7 (and it was the best of it's day until Apollonius).

His book The Method  wasn't discovered until 1998 which leads people to belive that some of his writing is still unknown. We know know that he discovered things that weren't thought to have been discovered until 2300 years later. He was INCREDIBLY far ahead of his time.

Sources

30 Greatest
Quote
Archimedes Pictures

Isaac (sir) Newton

Isaac (sir) Newton

Most people know Isaac (sir) Newton for his three laws of motion, whitch were: inertia, force and reciprocal action. Although he didn't completely create these (Hipparchus, Ibn al-Haytham, Galileo and Huygens had already built these basic principles) he was the first to realize that gravity was what kept the planets in orbit. He also published the Cooling Law of Thermodynamics and was a early role in the atomic theory.

Newton's early fame though, came from his inventions like the first reflecting telescope (which were the best of that time), the first reflecting microscope and the sextant.

Newton was known as the father of calculus (even though he didn't invent it) he applied it to several purposes like finding areas, tangents and the maxima and minima of functions.  Along with other geometric wonders he made the Binomial Theorem and power series for exponential and trigonometric functions. His equation e^x = ∑ x^k / k! has been named the most important series in mathematics ever. He developed facts about cubic equations (like the shadow of a cone) and took the time to create an approximation to π (it was better than Vieta's but not as good as al-Kashi's.)

"It is the weight not the numbers of experiments that is to be regarded,"- Isaac Newton

Most people know Isaac Newton as a scientist and would not think of him as a mathematician (I was one of them until I did my reasearch) but his amazing work with algebra, calculus and geometry proves that wrong. He was also the first to solve the Problem of Pappus and  Problem of the Brachistochrone.

In the year of 1687 he published a book called Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica,in of which he analyzed the consequences of his Laws of Motion and introduced the Law of Universal Gravitation. 

In conclusion Newton is one of the most mathematically (and scientifically) influential people that ever lived.

Sources

30 Greatest
Isaac Newton Biography
Isaac Newton Quotes

Isaac Newton

     Isaac Newton was a very special person because he gave future scientists the tools to discover how to enter outer space. He also discovered gravitational force and then discovered the three Universal laws of motion. He was the first person to propose a set of motion laws which described the motion of how things move in outer space. This was the base of our knowledge on how the universe functions and why the way the universe is. For his time and even now this was a major breakthrough for science. 

    His math discoveries were just as important. He made the Binomial Theorem and was one of the two creators of calculus. Without the math he invented we would not have the vehicles to travel to space. This math later on helped Scientist such as Einstein with even greater discoveries like the Theory of Reality and the Nuclear Fission.

                                          Fun facts about Isaac Newton        

                                     1.  Isaac Newton was born on Christmas day but the doctors thought he was                                           going to die because he was born very premature. 

                                     2. In his early years he was a very bad student.

                                     3. During his early years he was beat up by a bully but later on he challenged                                          the bully and ended up beating up the bully. 

                                     4. In 1668 he developed the Newtonian the first ever reflecting telescope.

                                     5. Newton's passion was the Bible. He wrote more about the bible than he                                           did math or science. He calculated Jesus Christ's  crucifixion which
                                          was April 3, A.D. 33.

                               You can find more about Isaac Newton HERE or HERE.        

                                                     

Pythagoras of Samos

My mathematician I will be telling you about is Pythagoras of Samos. He was not only a famous mathematician but also a great philosopher and astronomer in ancient Greece. 

He is a well known mathematician because of his famous theorem in geometry called the 'Pythagorean Theorem'. 
The ‘Pythagorean Theorem’ is one of the earliest theorems in geometry, which states that in right-angle triangles, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

                           a² + b² = c²

I think that Pythagoras was a fabulous mathematician.

You can find more about this theorem at http://www.mathsisfun.com/pythagoras.html

Albert Einstein!

I would like to talk to you a little bit about what Albert Einstein did in mathematics over his lifetime!

Albert Einstein was very clever in all mathematics from a very early age. He even understood things like calculus before he was even 15!

One thing that he was very known for was his math in gravity's physics. What he did with gravity is still a large contribution to what we know in gravity today.

Einstein was very famous for his relativity achievements. People developing Einstein's original theory of relativity led scientists to come to the theory of black holes existing in space. The black holes have been almost confirmed through different space research.

He was also famous for his expression E=mc2 which tells about energy and mass.

Albert Einstein was a great contributor to math and without him math would not be what it is today.

Sources: 1.) http://www.biography.com/people/albert-einstein-9285408#!
               2.) http://www.history.com/topics/albert-einstein
               3.) http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1921/einstein-bio.html