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May 18, 1048
Omar Khayyam
Omar Khayyam was a Persian mathematican who wrote Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra. He laid down the principles of algebra. He showed how to express roots of cubic equations by line segments obtained by intersecting conic sections. -
Jan 1, 1550
John Napier
John Napier discovered logarithms. Napier found that all numbers can be expressed in what is now called exponential form. He also discovered the rules of exponents, such as when multiplying numbers with the same base you have to add the exponents. -
Rene Descartes
Descartes's most significant contribution to mathematics was his discovery of analytic geometry, which reduces the solution of geometric problems to the solution of algebraic ones. He is also known his rule of signs which is commonly used as a method to determine the number of positive and negative roots of a polynomial. -
Pierre de Fermat
Pierre de Fermat is He is best known for Fermat's Last Theorem. Fermat was the first person known to have evaluated the integral of general power functions. -
Blaise Pascal
At the age of 18, Blaise Pascal constructed a mechanical calculator that was capable of addition and subtraction, called Pascal's calculator or the Pascaline. Pascal is also known for "Pascals Triangle." -
Leonhard Euler
Euler may be known as one of the most influential mathematicians who ever lived. Four of the most important constant symbols in mathematics (π, e, i = √-1, and γ = 0.57721566...) were all introduced or popularized by Euler. Euler also developed the first method to estimate the Moon's orbit. -
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Carl Friedrich Gauss was known as the "Prince of Mathematics." Gauss discovered that every positive integer is represented as a sum of at most three triangular numbers. Gaussian elimination is named after him even though he did not invent it. -
Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya
Kovalevskaya was the first Russian mathematician. She is known for the Cauchy-Kovalevskaya Theorem.
