- published: 15 Oct 2015
- views: 297
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss ( /ˈɡaʊs/; German: Gauß listen (help·info), Latin: Carolus Fridericus Gauss) (30 April 1777 – 23 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physical scientist who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, electrostatics, astronomy and optics.
Sometimes referred to as the Princeps mathematicorum (Latin, "the Prince of Mathematicians" or "the foremost of mathematicians") and "greatest mathematician since antiquity", Gauss had a remarkable influence in many fields of mathematics and science and is ranked as one of history's most influential mathematicians. He referred to mathematics as "the queen of sciences".
Carl Friedrich Gauss was born on 30 April 1777 in Braunschweig, in the duchy of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, now part of Lower Saxony, Germany, as the son of poor working-class parents. Indeed, his mother was illiterate and never recorded the date of his birth, remembering only that he had been born on a Wednesday, eight days before the Feast of the Ascension, which itself occurs 40 days after Easter. Gauss would later solve this puzzle for his birthdate in the context of finding the date of Easter, deriving methods to compute the date in both past and future years. He was christened and confirmed in a church near the school he attended as a child.
Blaise Pascal (French pronunciation: [blɛz paskal]; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defense of the scientific method.
In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines, and after three years of effort and 50 prototypes he invented the mechanical calculator. He built twenty of these machines (called the Pascaline) in the following ten years. Pascal was an important mathematician, helping create two major new areas of research: he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of sixteen, and later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science. Following Galileo and Torricelli, in 1646 he refuted Aristotle's followers who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum. Pascal's results caused many disputes before being accepted.
Actors: David Stern (director), Christianne Tisdale (actress), Christianne Tisdale (actress), Gilles Chiasson (actor), Gilles Chiasson (actor), Arthur Jaffe (producer), Carrie Wilshusen (actress), Mitchell Kantor (actor), Mitchell Kantor (actor), Joanne Sydney Lessner (writer), Joshua Rosenblum (writer), Joanne Sydney Lessner (composer), Joshua Rosenblum (composer), Carrie Wilshusen (actress), Edwardyne Cowan (actress),
Plot: Fermat's Last Tango was inspired by the achievements of Princeton University Mathematics Professor Andrew Wiles, who in June 1993 presented a proof to the theorem first set forth by French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in 1637. "Fermat's Last Tango" is a musical fantasia based on the true encounter between mathematician Andrew Wiles and Fermat's last theorem. The music composed by Joshua Rosenblum, the book by his wife Joanne Lessner, and the clever lyrics by the pair provide extraordinary entertainment. The play makes a clear statement about the enduring importance of mathematics and its intellectual impact over the millennia.
Genres: ,