2010 Spring Articles

Mathematical Might

Doing a number on numbers

Remember the movie Good Will Hunting? Remember how you thought, Wouldn't it be cool to be a math genius like the one portrayed by Matt Damon? Or how about A Beautiful Mind? Did you admire the phenomenal brainpower of John Nash, but think to yourself that paranoid schizophrenia really wasn't all that cool? And don't forget "Charlie Eppes" on Numb3rs. What isn't cool about solving crimes with glowing numerals?

Cool or not, mathematics geniuses continue to total up as the best and brightest in humanity's cerebral arsenal. From Pythagoras to Euclid to Newton to Euler, mathematicians have always been the first to look at the world, scratch their heads and say, "Go figure."

What follows is a short list of some of the top math marvels of all time. Your job is to match the numbers guru to his or her quote.
Don't forget to multipy your luck by Googling!
Archimedes Hypatia of Alexandria
Archimedes, aka the "Greatest Ancient" Hypatia of Alexandria, aka the "Pagan Scholar"
Born in Sicily c. 287 BC, Archimedes was a thousand years ahead of his time. Cheered for inventing the plane astrolabe, 1 Hypatia was slaughtered by Christian monks in AD 415.
   
Henri Poincaré Carl Friedrich Gauss
Henri Poincaré, aka the "Father of Topology" 2 Carl Friedrich Gauss, aka the "Prince of Mathematics"
Feeble and awkward, the French egghead Poincaré supposedly once flunked an IQ test. This German-born wizard was only three years old when he started correcting his dad's arithmetic.
   
Srinivasa Ramanujan Ada Lovelace
Srinivasa Ramanujan, aka "The Natural" Ada Lovelace, aka "Lord Byron's Daughter"
A self-taught Indian prodigy, Ramanujan made intuitive vaults that still mystify elite mathematicians 90 years after his death. Working in the 1840s, the comely Lovelace is widely regarded as the world's first computer programmer.
   
René Descartes  
René Descartes, aka the "Father of Modern Mathematics" 3  
Also a pioneering philosopher and physicist, the lofty Frenchman Descartes was all aces in geometry and the workings of the human mind.  

The Quotes

  • "An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God."
  • "I think; therefore I am."
  • "I never am really satisfied that I understand anything."
  • "Eureka! I have found it!"
  • "Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things."
  • "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all."
  • "Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes."

The Prize

The first five to will win a FREE DCTC T-shirt. Just stop by Marketing & Communications in Room 2-130 and tell them the secret codeword, which will be given to you after successfully passing the Mathematical Might Quiz.

Take The Mathematical Might Quiz

 

1 You probably knew this, but an astrolabe is an astronomical instrument used to find the altitude of the Sun or stars.

2 You probably knew this, too, but topology is the mathematical study of the properties of geometric forms that hold up when deformed or twisted or bent or whatever—yeah, like that explains anything.

3 Okay, why seven mathematicians? Why not 10 or an even dozen? Well, in numerology, the occult stepsister of mathematics, the number seven routinely clings to people with analytical, intellectual, focused, scientific, inventive, contemplative and enigmatic minds—you know, people like mathematicians. And don't forget about all those precedents set by Snow White's buddies, Japanese swordsmen, awesome gunslingers, fatal misdeeds, Monday and friends, ancient thinkers, and planetary sensations.

 

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