Mathematicians and their Discoveries

Mathematicians have discovered many things that were unknown before them. They made discoveries that lead to better ways of doing things, better technology and even help our lives in ways we are unaware of. The mathematicians who are still living now are the ones who found these great discoveries and helped us a lot. These mathematicians each had something different with them which made them stand apart from others.

Srinivasa Ramanujan

He was a genius, but he was also a down-to-earth man. He would walk around the room and look at things from every angle, and then he'd say, "Oh, I see it now." He was very creative in his thinking.

Ramanujan is one of my favorite mathematicians because he was so good at algebra and geometry, which are my favorite subjects. But it's not just that he excelled in those subjects; it's also because he showed such creativity in his work.

For example, there's this one thing we call "the Ramanujan graph," which is an equation that describes an infinite number of solutions to an equation when you have a square root of minus one in it as an unknown quantity. You can find out how many solutions there are by adding up all the digits in each solution and getting their product—and then dividing by two because there are two solutions for each pair of digits (for example, 5×4=20). You get two answers for each pair of digits: 5×4=20 and 20×3=60; 60/2 = 30.

Isaac Newton

His most important contribution to mathematics was his discovery of calculus and the three laws of motion.

Newton's father died when he was only two years old and he was raised by his mother and grandmother. He did not have any formal education until he was thirteen years old when he entered Trinity College at Cambridge University. In 1661 he became a Fellow of Trinity College and began teaching mathematics at Cambridge. In 1665 he became Plumian Professor at Cambridge University, which is a chair that has been held by many great scientists including Isaac Newton himself. In 1669 he married Catherine Barton who was also a scientist and mathematician herself. They had four children together but only one daughter survived into adulthood (Maria).

In 1672 Newton discovered the law of gravity which explains why things fall to Earth from space without any help from anyone else (gravity). This law helped him discover his theory about how objects move on Earth so that they would land in order for everything to stay balanced on Earth's surface (force = mass x acceleration). This theory also proved

Leonhard Euler

Leonhard Euler was born in Basel, Switzerland, on August 17, 1707. His father was a pastor in that city and he died when Leonhard was five years old.

Euler's mother could not afford to send him to school, so he had private tutors. He studied at home until age 18 when he went to the University of Basel where he became interested in mathematics.

During this time he studied with Johann Bernoulli who worked on projective geometry and number theory. He also read works by Johann Kepler and others who were studying these subjects.

He received his doctorate degree from Basel in 1726 at age 25 and then spent two years working as an assistant professor at the University of Königsberg before returning to Bern where he became a professor at age 27.

Pythagoras

Pythagoras was an ancient Greek mathematician, who is most famous for his theorem that bears his name. He was born in 569 BCE, in Samos, on the island of the same name. He lived until about 495 BCE.

His father was a goldsmith and trader. Pythagoras had a brother who died while they were still children. Their father sent them to live with an uncle in Crotona when they were eight years old.

The uncle owned a school where young men could study mathematics and science as part of their education. Pythagoras studied there for several years before returning home.

Pythagoras married and had children, but he never seemed to settle down and get involved in any kind of community life or civic affairs, even though he lived in a large city like the one he grew up in!