The Euler Archive is an online resource for Leonhard Euler's original works and modern Euler scholarship. This dynamic library and database provides access to original publications, and references to available translations and current research.
“Je suis, ou ai été, un mathématicien. [...] J’ai eu 90 ans le 1er octobre 2011. Un groupe d’une trentaine d’anciens élèves, d’amis et de collègues [...] m’ont fait cadeau d’un site Internet à mon nom contenant quelques dizaines de textes que j’ai écrits, mais pas toujours publiés, sur les relations entre science, technologie et armement, la course aux armements et autres sujets analogues.”
On September 24, 1501, Italian Renaissance mathematician, physician, astrologer and gambler Gerolamo Cardano was born. He wrote more than 200 works on medicine, mathematics, physics, philosophy, religion, and music. But, he is best known for his gambling that led him to formulate elementary rules in probability, making him one of the founders of probability theory.
On April 30, 1777, German mathematician and physical scientist Carl Friedrich Gauß was born. He who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, electrostatics, astronomy and optics. He is often referred to as Princeps mathematicorum (Latin, "the Prince of Mathematicians") as well as "greatest mathematician since antiquity".
On March 3, 1845, German mathematician Georg Cantor, creator of the set theory was born Set Theory is considered the fundamental theory of mathematics. He also proved that the real numbers are "more numerous" than the natural numbers, which was quite shocking for his contemporaries that there should be different numbers of infinity.
On November 27, 1852, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, who is considered to be the world's very first programmer, passed away. Every student of computer science should have heart of the world's first programmer, Ada Countess of Lovelace, assistant to Charles Babbage, inventor of the very first programmable (mechanical) computer, the analytical engine.
On October 23, 1635, German astronomer and mathematician Wilhelm Schickard, who constructued the very first mechanical calculator, passed away. His famous calculator was able to perform additions and subtractions. For more complicated operations, it provided so-called Napier bones, named after the Scottish mathematician John Napier, who came up with the idea of logarithms. Although it is widely believed that the first mechanical calculating device was created by the French mathematician Blaise Pascal in 1642. However, that distinction actually belongs to Wilhelm Schickard.
"It is not certain that everything is uncertain." is one of the many profound insights that philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) published in his seminal work entiteled "Pensées" (Thoughts, published in 1669). He literally had versatile scientific interests, as he provided influential contributions in the field of mathematics, physics, engineering, as well as in religious philosophy.
The millenium seemed to spur a lot of people to compile "Top 100" or "Best 100" lists of many things, including movies (by the American Film Institute) and books (by the Modern Library). Mathematicians were not immune, and at a mathematics conference in July, 1999, Paul and Jack Abad presented their list of "The Hundred Greatest Theorems." Their ranking is based on the following criteria: "the place the theorem holds in the literature, the quality of the proof, and the unexpectedness of the result."
F. Arzarello, M. Bussi, and O. Robutti. Proceedings of the 28th International Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 4, page 89-96. (2004)