#OTD in 1675.
Leibniz makes the first use of the long s (∫) as a symbol of the integral in calculus. He adapted the integral symbol, ∫, from the letter ſ (long s), standing for summa (written as ſumma; Latin for "sum" or "total").
mathematics
#lispyGopherClimate #archived #now ! https://archives.anonradio.net/202411270000_screwtape.mp3 every Wednesday 000UTC
#climateCrisis #haiku by @kentpitman
#lisp #mathematics #writing #lambdaMOO #MOOing generally:
My #lispmoo2 and remembering #softwareIndividuals
In paradise sushi!
telnet lambda.moo.mud.org 8888
co guest
@join screwtape
We'll look at Cat's gopher given enough time
the music this week is the silence in between my thoughts
Edited 222d ago
"A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas."
Godfrey Harold Hardy, who died #OTD in 1947, was an English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory & mathematical analysis.
In biology, he is known for the Hardy–Weinberg principle, a basic principle of population genetics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._H._Hardy
Books by G.H. Hardy at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/39236
American admiral and computer scientist, (designed COBOL) Grace Hopper was born #OTD in 1906.
She created the first compiler, the A-0 System, in 1952. She was also one of the first programmers on the Harvard Mark I computer. Hopper popularized the term "debugging" in computing after discovering an actual moth causing a malfunction in the Mark II computer.
Edited 210d ago
Alfred North Whitehead, who died #OTD in 1947, was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology, among other areas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/8283
Mary Cartwright, English mathematician & academic, one of the first people to analyze a dynamical system with chaos, was born #OTD in 1900.
Along with J. E. Littlewood, Cartwright saw many solutions to a problem which would later be seen as an example of the butterfly effect. In 1947, she was elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society; although she was not the first woman to be elected to that Society, she was the first female mathematician.
English polymath Isaac Newton was born #OTD in 1642.
Newton's book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687, achieved the first great unification in physics and established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for formulating infinitesimal calculus, though he developed calculus years before Leibniz.
Jacob Bernoulli was born #OTD in 1655.
He was an early proponent of Leibnizian calculus; along with his brother Johann, he was one of the founders of the calculus of variations. He also discovered the fundamental mathematical constant e. However, his most important contribution was in the field of probability, where he derived the first version of the law of large numbers in his work Ars Conjectandi.
To G. H. Hardy who had expressed worry that the number of a taxi - 1729:
"No, it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two different ways, the two ways being 1^3+12^3 and 9^3+10^3."
Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan was born #OTD in 1887. He is noted for his extraordinary achievements in the field of mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions.
Edited 197d ago
Rational or Not? This Basic Math Question Took Decades to Answer.
It’s surprisingly difficult to prove one of the most basic properties of a number: whether it can be written as a fraction. A broad new method can help settle this ancient question.
By Erica Klarrech
Science in Defiance of the Tsar: The Women of the 1860s
Sofia Kovalevskaia became the first woman in Europe to obtain her doctorate in mathematics—but only after leaving Russia for Germany.
By: Danny Robb
https://daily.jstor.org/science-in-defiance-of-the-tsar-the-women-of-the-1860s/
#OTD in 1913.
Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan writes his first letter to G. H. Hardy at Cambridge (whom he knew from studying Orders of Infinity), stating without proof various formulae involving integrals, infinite series, and continued fractions, beginning a long correspondence between the two as well as widespread recognition of Ramanujan's results.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan
Orders of Infinity at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38079
Swedish mathematician Niels Fabian Helge von Koch was born #OTD in 1870.
He gave his name to the famous fractal known as the Koch snowflake, one of the earliest fractal curves to be described. It is based on the Koch curve, which appeared in a 1904 paper titled "On a Continuous Curve Without Tangents, Constructible from Elementary Geometry."
![von Koch, Helge (1904). "Sur une courbe continue sans tangente, obtenue par une construction géométrique élémentaire" [On a continuous curve without tangent, obtained by an elementary geometric construction]. Arkiv för Matematik (in French). 1: 681–704. JFM 35.0387.02.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000100114564&view=1up&seq=691](/proxy/post_attachment/592616/16ad6e4e88.jpg "von Koch, Helge (1904). \"Sur une courbe continue sans tangente, obtenue par une construction géométrique élémentaire\" [On a continuous curve without tangent, obtained by an elementary geometric construction]. Arkiv för Matematik (in French). 1: 681–704. JFM 35.0387.02.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000100114564&view=1up&seq=691")
Edited 163d ago
New blog post: A short solution to the Monty Hall problem that I have not seen elsewhere (https://functor.network/user/414/entry/867).
Edited 162d ago
Beyond causality
In order to bridge the yawning gulf between the humanities and the sciences we must turn to an unexpected field: mathematics
By Gordon Gillespie
https://aeon.co/essays/to-better-understand-the-world-follow-the-paths-of-mathematics
Katherine Johnson died #OTD in 2020.
Her work included calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard and John Glenn, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a mission to Mars.
Dutch-Swiss mathematician and physicist Daniel Bernoulli was born #OTD in 1700.
He is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in probability and statistics. His name is commemorated in the Bernoulli's principle, a particular example of the conservation of energy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Bernoulli
Books by Daniel Bernoulli at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/41345
"My methods are really methods of working and thinking; this is why they have crept in everywhere anonymously."
Happy Birthday Emmy Noether!!
She made many important contributions to abstract algebra. She proved Noether's 1st and 2nd theorems, which are fundamental in mathematical physics. She developed theories of rings, fields, & algebras. In physics, Noether's theorem explains the connection between symmetry & conservation laws.
![Portrait of Emmy Noether, around 1900.
Unknown author Publisher: Mathematical Association of America [3], Brooklyn Museum [4], Agnes Scott College [5], [6] - Emmy Noether (1882-1935), Archived
The photograph shows Noether as a poised young woman, reflecting the academic environment of the era. Dressed in period attire typical of the late 19th to early 20th century, she appears composed and introspective, a visual contrast to the intellectual revolution she would later ignite in mathematics.](/proxy/post_attachment/656703/c37623fa20.jpg "Portrait of Emmy Noether, around 1900.
Unknown author Publisher: Mathematical Association of America [3], Brooklyn Museum [4], Agnes Scott College [5], [6] - Emmy Noether (1882-1935), Archived
The photograph shows Noether as a poised young woman, reflecting the academic environment of the era. Dressed in period attire typical of the late 19th to early 20th century, she appears composed and introspective, a visual contrast to the intellectual revolution she would later ignite in mathematics.")
Years After the Early Death of a Math Genius, Her Ideas Gain New Life
A new proof extends the work of the late Maryam Mirzakhani, cementing her legacy as a pioneer of alien mathematical realms.
By Kristina Armitage
French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes died #OTD in 1650.
He is known for his influential arguments for substance dualism, where mind and body are considered to have distinct essences, one being characterized by thought, the other by spatial extension. He has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy" and the "Father of Modern Mathematics."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
Books by René Descartes at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/44
Why nothing matters
It took centuries for people to embrace the zero. Now it’s helping neuroscientists understand how the brain perceives absences
By Benjy Barnett. Edited by Richard Fisher.
Edited 119d ago
5 Women in Logic You Should Know
Let’s take a deep dive into some of the most notable women who have contributed to the field of logic.
By Vanja Subotic
"A scientist worthy of the name, above all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature. "
~Henri Poincaré (29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912)
Poincaré at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/5958
Mathematician solves algebra's oldest problem using intriguing new number sequences
A UNSW Sydney mathematician has discovered a new method to tackle algebra's oldest challenge—solving higher polynomial equations.
by University of New South Wales
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-mathematician-algebra-oldest-problem-intriguing.html
More information:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00029890.2025.2460966#abstract
