MATHEMATICIANS FOR TEST 1
Thales of Miletus (ca. 600 B.C.)
With the rise of Grecian culture a new look at deductive reasoning took place. Thales was among
the first to apply deductive reasoning to geometry. He was the first to prove that the base angles
of an isosceles triangle are equal.
Pythagoras (ca. 572 - 495 B.C.)
Born on the Aegean island of Samos, Pythagoras migrated to the Greek seaport of Crotona in
southern Italy. There he founded an academy devoted to the study of philosophy, mathematics
and natural science. The school's religious and philosophical roots were shaken by the discovery
that 2 was not a rational number.
Euclid (ca. 300 B.C.)
Euclid was a Greek. Little is known about Euclid's life beyond the fact that he was a professor of
mathematics at the university in Alexandria (Egypt). His most famous work is the Elements.
Over a thousand editions have appeared since it was first printed in 1482.
Archimedes ( 287 - 212 B.C.)
The greatest mathematician of antiquity, Archimedes was a native of the Greek city of Syracuse on
the island of Sicily. Archimedes invented a scheme for computing pi ( π ) and wrote some of
the first works on three-dimensional geometry. When he was 73, Romans besieged Syracuse and
the city held the Romans off by using inventions of Archimedes. (ex. catapult)
Eratosthenes (276 - 194 B.C.)
In addition to being the director of the library at Alexandria, Erathosthenes was gifted as a
mathematician, astronomer, geographer, historian, philosopher, poet and athlete. He created a
scheme for determining all prime numbers less than a given number and also used trigonometry to
determine the circumference of the earth.
Hypatia (370 - 415 A.D.)
The last scientist to work in the great library at Alexandria was a mathematician, astronomer,
physicist and philosopher. An unusual woman in traditionally male domains, she was killed by a
mob of Christians in reaction to her position as a symbol of pagan learning.
Girolamo Cardano (1501 - 1576)
Cardano was a practicing doctor as well as a mathematician, physicist, and astrologer. He wrote
the first great Latin treatise devoted solely to algebra. An inveterate gambler, Cardano wrote a
gambler's manual which considered some interesting questions in probability.
Galileo (1564 - 1642)
Galileo Galilei, generally known only by his first name, was born in Pisa, Italy. His father sent
him to study medicine, but he soon changed to a career in science. He discovered the law of the
pendulum, thus giving society the first reliable means of keeping time. He was a lecturer on
mathematics at the University of Pisa. According to a popular story, he dropped weights from the
leaning tower of Pisa to prove his views concerning falling bodies. During his last eight years
Galileo lived under house arrest for having taught the Copernican doctrine. He discovered that
the path of a projectile is a parabola.
Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650)
Modern mathematics began with the work of Rene Descartes. His invention of coordinate
geometry prepared the way for advances in mathematics. Born in France, he received a law
degree in 1616 and then served as a volunteer in the army. After giving up army life, he spent
time trying to find a principle, which could not be doubted, on which to build all knowledge. He
established as his first principle the statement “I think, therefore I am”. In 1649 he was invited to
teach philosophy to the Queen of Sweden. Unused to the climate, he became ill and died in
Stockholm on February 11, 1650.
Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
A mathematical child prodigy, Pascal developed the first mechanical calculator, contributed to the
theory of geometry and probability and discovered a method for computing binomial coefficients
which is still in use by algebra students. In later life, he abandoned mathematical research in
favor of religious contemplation.