WWM: MATHS AND HISTORY

3500-600 BC Babylonians Egyptians

Period: 3500 BCE to 600 BCE

The earliest evidence of written mathematics dates back to the ancient Sumerians. From around 2500 BC onwards, the Sumerians wrote multiplication tables on clay tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises and division problems.
Babylonian mathematics were written using sexagesimal (base-60) numerals sistems. The power of the Babylonian notational system lay in that it could be used to represent fractions. The notational system of the Babylonians was the best of any ancient civilization.

Aethra (Αίθρα)

900 BCE

Activities: she taught the children of Triziana accounting (practical arithmetic) that was based on the use of abacus and some symbols, where there no zero, making the symbolism of numbers very difficult.

Polygnotos (Πολυγνώτη)

650 BCE

Activities: she knew many geometric theorems and also she introduced the principle of acrophonic at the symbolism of arithmetic characters. These symbols are called “Herodianus’’. Polygnotos , was the first person who wrote and proved the “each registered angle going in a semicircle is right”.

Thales of Miletus (Θαλής ο Μιλήσιος)

624 BCE

624 – 546 BC
Activities: the Thales’ theorem, the intercept theorem, the discovery that a circle is bisected by its diameter, that the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal and that vertical angles are equal.

Female mathematicians in the School of Pythagoras

600 BCE

Themistoclean (Θεμιστόκλεια): Priestess of Delphi, tutor of Pythagoras
Deino (Δεινώ): Pythagoras’ mother in law, she worked on the insufficient numbers
Theano (Θεανώ): Pythagoras’ wife and student, tutor at Pythagorean school, worked on the theory of numbers
Damo (Δαμώ): Pythagoras’ daughter, constructor of tetrahedron and was the first who inscribed a dodecahedron in a sphere
Myria(Μυρία): She worked on geometry and the invention of the third analogue between two segments was attributed to her.

6th century BC

Period: 600 BCE to 500 BCE

The most important mathematicians in this century are:
Téano, born in Crotona in the 6th century BC. Pythagoras´ wife. She is credited with writing treatises on mathematics, physics and medicine, and also on the golden ratio.
Pythagoras contributed significantly in the advance of Hellenic mathematics, geometry, arithmetic, derived in particular from the numerical relations.
Thales of Miletus: several mathematical discoveries recorded in the Elements of Euclid are attributed to Thales.

Pythagoras of Samos (Πυθαγόρας ο Σάμιος)

570 BCE

570 –  495 BC
Activities: the Pythagorean theorem, the Pythagorean tuning, the five regular solids, the Theory of Proportions and the sphericity of the Earth.

Diotima (Διοτίμα)

550 BCE

Diotima was a priestess of Mantinea, an expert in the Pythagorean numbers' wisdom and geometry. She was the only woman who participated in the male-dominated Plato's Symposium.

Periktioni (Περικτιόνη)

550 BCE

6th -5th century BC
Periktioni was Plato's mother, a Pythagorean philosopher, writer and mathematician. Stovaios states that Periktioni ''is an expert in geometry and arithmetic''

Fintis or Filtis (Φιντύς ή Φίλτυς)

550 BCE

6th -5th century BC
Fintis was Theofori's daughter and taught at the School of Croton. The following equality relation that is associated with the Pythagorean triples is attributed to her.
type: a^2 +[ (a^2 -1)/2]^2=[(a^2+1)/2]^2

Arignote (Αριγνώτη)

500 BCE

6th -5th century BC
Arignoti, the daughter of Pythagoras, was a philoshopher, a writer and a mathematician. She wrote a mathematical book entitled ''On Numbers'', which is unfortunately lost.

Ptolemais (Πτολεμαϊς)

500 BCE

6th -5th century BC
Ptolemais was a new-Pythagorean philosopher, physicist, musician and mathematician who approved the commutative property of numbers.

Tymicha (Tυμίχα)

500 BCE

6th -5th century BC
Tymicha was born in Croton and wrote about the ''Friend Numbers''. The tyrant Dionysius asked her to reveal the content of the Pythagorean teaching which she absolutely denied.

Melissa (Μελίσσα)

500 BCE

6th -5th century BC
She worked on the construction of regular polygons which are inscribable in a circle. The following relation is attributed to Melissa.
type:1^2+2^2+...+v^2=[v(v+1)/2]^2

5th century BC

Period: 500 BCE to 400 BCE

Many advances were made in the area of mathematics in this period; for example:
The infinitesimal thought started being developed.
A method of exhaustion was developed (geometric-mathematical procedure of approximation to a result), where as the calculation progressed, the degree of precision increased.
The quadratrix was discovered and it was used to look for the solution to two of the three problems of the Greek geometry, the trisection of the angle and the quadrature of the circle.

Hippocrates of Chios (Ιπποκράτης ο Χίος)

450 BCE

470 – 410 BC
He was born on the greek island Chios and was an ancient Greek mathematician, geometer, and astronomer.
His most important accomplishment is that he was the first to write a systematically organized geometry textbook, called Elements (Στοιχεῖα, Stoicheia) which is consisted of basic theorems, or building blocks of mathematical theory.

Academy of Plato

400 BCE

4th century BC 1.Lastheneia (Λασθένεια)
She was coming from Mantinea. It is said that she entered the Plato’s Academy to study mathematics and philosophy, dressed like a man, as the entrance was not allowed to women. 2.Axiotheas the Fliasia (Αξιοθέα η Φλιασία)
She focused particularly on mathematics and natural philosophy and taught in Corinth and in Athens.

4th century BC

Period: 400 BCE to 300 BCE

370 BC – Eudoxus states the method of exhaustion for area determination.
310 BC – 230 BC Aristarchus of Samos presented the first known heliocentric model that placed the Sun at the center of the known universe with the Earth revolving around it.
300 BC – Euclid in his Elements studies geometry as an axiomatic system, proves the infinitude of prime numbers and presents the Euclidean algorithm.
300 BC – Brahmi numerals (ancestor of the common modern base 10 numeral system) are conceived in India.

Menaechmus (Μέναιχμος)

360 BCE

380-320 BC
• Ancient greek mathematician and geometer.
• Student of Platon.
• Leader of Cyzicus’ math university.
• Tutor of Alexander the Great.
• First to discover the conic sections (ellipse, parabola, hyperbola).
• He managed to solve the then-long-standing problem of doubling the cube (delian problem) using parabola and hyperbola.
 

Eudoxus of Cnidus (Εύδοξος ο Κνίδιος)

350 BCE

Eudoxus of Cnidus ( 390 –  337 BC) was an ancient Greek astronomer, mathematician, scholar, and student of Archytas and Plato.
He is known for the Kampyle of Eudoxus

Epikorou School

350 BCE

4th – 3rd century BC
Themisi (Θέμιση) and Leondis the Corinthean (Λεοντία η Κορινθία) expertised in mathematics. Leondis wrote many works, but unfortunately nothing is saved

The Cyrenaica School

350 BCE

4th -3rd century BC
Areti the Cyrenean (Αρετή η Κυρηνεία)
Areti the Cyrenean was Aristippos’ daughter. Her father was the founder of the Cyrenaica School which Areti inherited after his death. She wrote forty books. Two of them contained and treatised on mathematics. She also taught mathematics, physics and moral philosophy in Athens

Euclid (Ευκλείδης)

320 BCE

300 BC - 270 BC
Euclid of Alexandria was a mathematician who taught and died in Alexandria, Egypt. On our days he is known as the father of geometry. Euclid was the first to make a strictly structured and coherent system of proposals based on a set of definitions and only five original unproved proposals (requests). Euclid also wrote other writings on Optics, Mirrors, Elements of Music, Conical Section, Spherical Geometry, Number Theory.

3rd century BC

Period: 300 BCE to 200 BCE

Euclid gave the earliest example of the mathematical methodology used today, with definitions, axioms, theorems and demonstrations. He also studied conics. His book Elements collects all the mathematics of the time. The Screen of Eratosthenes was used for the discovery of prime numbers.
Archimedes of Syracuse used the exhaustive method to calculate the area under a parabola arc and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi. He also studied the spiral, giving it its name.

Archimedes ( Ἀρχιμήδης)

287 BCE

287- 212 BC
Archimedes Syracusios was an ancient Greek mathematician, engineer, physicist, inventor and astronomer. During the siege of Syracuse, he was killed by a Roman soldier, despite the instructions that he should not be touched. His stock in physics is, among other things, the bases of hydrostatic, static and an explanation of the principle of the lever. He is credited with the design of innovative machines, including besieging machines and screw-bearing pumps bearing his name.

Aristarchus of Samos (Αρίσταρχος ο Σάμιος)

280 BCE

Aristarchus of Samos (310 BC – 230 BC) was born on the Greek island Samos. He was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known heliocentric model. According his theory the Sun placed at the center of the known universe with the Earth revolving around it.

Eratosthenes (Ἐρατοσθένης)

276 BCE

276-194 BC
Eratosthenes Cyrenaios was an ancient Greek mathematician, geographer, astronomer, geodata, historian and philologist.
He is the first to calculate the size of the Earth and to construct a co-ordinate system with parallel and meridian. While he was still
building a map of the world as he considered it. Also he invented the global astrolabe and he was the first to claim that Earth is a globe located in the center of the Universe.

2nd century BC- 3rd century AC

Period: 200 BCE to 300

Some of the most relevant advances in mathematics took place between 200 BC and 350AC:
Hipparchus of Nicaea(c.190-120 BC) is considered the founder of trigonometry.
Heron of Alexandria (c.190-120 BC) is credited with Heron’s formula for finding the area of a scalene triangle.
Menelaus of Alexandria (c.100 AD) was pioneer of spherical trigonometry through Menelaus theorem.
The period between 250 and 350 AD is named the “Silver Age” of Greek mathematics. During this period lived Diophantus.

Diophantus of Alexandria (Διόφαντος ο Αλεξανδρεύς)

210

He was born probably sometime between AD 201 and 215; died around 84 years old, Diophantus was an Alexandrian Hellenistic mathematician, author of a series of books called Arithmetica, many of which are now lost. Sometimes called "the father of algebra", his texts deal with solving algebraic equations.

4th century-15th century

Period: 300 to 1500

These years Europe was a stage where the knowledge (despite the fact that there were several sages and scholars) was reduced by the Church. So many scientific advances, literary, and mathematical occurred mostly in the Arab people, who had to learn of the Hellenic and Indian culture, leading them to Europe in the Middle Ages, especially the algebra. To highlight these mathematicians: Brahmagupta (598 d.c – 668 d.C) Al-Juarismi (780 d.C – 835 d.C) Leonardo Fibonacci (1180-d.C – 1241 d.C).

Hypatia (Υπατία)

350

350-415 AC
She was a Hellenistic Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. Hypatia was renowned in her own lifetime as a great teacher and a wise counselor. She wrote mathematical books and made them accessible to her students:
Edition of the Almagest, Independent writings and Reputed inventions. Hypatia wrote in Greek, which was the language spoken by the most educated people in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time.

Settlement of Iceland

874

The settlement of Iceland is generally believed to have begun in the year 874, when Norse settlers migrated across the North Atlantic.

Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík was founded

1056

Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík is the oldest junior college in Iceland. The school traces its origin to 1056, when the school was established in Skálhot, and it remains one of the oldest institutions in Iceland. In 1846 the school was moved to its current location a new building that was the largest building in Iceland at the time. Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík offers a three-year course of study. It ends with a degree which gives the graduating student the right to advance to an Icelandic University.

Fibonacci

1175

Fibonacci was born in Pisa in 1175 into a family of wealthy merchants. He was called "Leonardo da Pisa". As a young man he learned mathematics from Muslims in North Africa and learned the concept of "zero" that he later introduced in the West. His fundamental works are the “Liber Abaci” published in 1202. Italian bankers and merchants appreciated him and the zero began to be used as a number. He is most known for the sequence of numbers in which each term is the sum of the previous two.

Luca Pacioli

1445

Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli (San Sepolcro 1445 - Rome 1517) was an Italian clergyman, mathematician and economist. He is recognized as the founder of accounting. He studied and started his education in Sansepolcro, his hometown, then completing it in Venice. In 1509 he published in Venice “the Divine proportion”, an essay on the applications of the golden section. He cooperated with Leonardo da Vinci, Piero della Francesca, Leon Battista Alberti, Bramante, Raffaello and Albrecht Dürer.

Adam Ries *1492, †1559

1492

*1492 in Staffelstein,Franconia.
†30th March 1559 in Erfurt, Germany
Adam Ries was a popular German master of calculus. He invented written calculation and the appropriate methods. He also contributed to the replacement of Roman numeral through Arabic numeral. Adam Ries is known as the first German maths-teacher because he taught young people in his school of mathematics. Furthermore he published plain and didactic essays which were used as textbooks for a long time.

Fransesco Maurolico (16/09/1494 – 21/07/1575)

Sep 16, 1494

Italian mathematician, astronomer, geometer, historian writer and poet, whose family had greek descent.
He created the first known proof on mathematical induction (Arithmeticorum libri duo).
He attempted to calculate the barycenter of various of bodies like pyramid and paraboloid (De momentis aequalibus).
He described a methodology for measuring the earth (cosmographia), which later was used by Jean Picard in measuring the length of meridian arc in 1670.
Tutor at the university of Messina.

16th century

Period: 1500 to 1600

In the 16th century, European mathematicians began to make unprecedented advances throughout the world. The first was the general solution of the cubic equations. From that moment on, mathematics evolved rapidly, contributing and benefiting from contemporary advances in the physical sciences. This progress was greatly helped by advances in printing. Driven by the demands of navigation and the growing need for accurate maps of large areas, trigonometry became an important branch of mathematics.

Gerolamo Cardano

Sep 24, 1501

Gerolamo Cardano was born in Pavia on September 24, 1501. He was an Italian astrologer, mathematician and philosopher. As a young boy he was initiated into the study of mathematics by his father Fazio. Because of his eccentric personality he got many enemies, he had a very lively life. Often in debt because of his being a gambler. He published the solutions of the cubic equation and fourth degree equation in the "Ars magna" work of 1545. He died in Rome on September 21, 1576

MATTEO RICCI

1552

Matteo Ricci (Macerata 1552 - 1610 Beijing) was an Italian mathematician, who has done a very important job in sharing scientific knowledge between the West and China.
He was a Jesuit and had the mission to export to China, European science and technology.
In China Ricci introduced the foundations of Western science, such as Euclidean geometry. In Europe he also tried to promote the system of Indo-Arabic notation with zero (already imported from Fibonacci) and negative numbers.

Johannes Kepler *1571, †1630

1571

He was a mathematician, astronomer and astrologer
In 1597 he published his first work, named “Mysterium cosmographicum”. He was lucky to become the Emperor’s mathematician Tycho. In 1906 he published his great work “Astronomia nava” in which he tried to explain that the planets are moved by forces. He developed an astronomic telescope and discovered the laws after which the planets spin around the sun. His greatest work was the “Harmonice mundi”, which describes the movement of planets.

Metius

1571

Adriaan Adriaanszoon, called Metius, (9 December 1571 – 6 September 1635), was a Dutch geometer and astronomer born in Alkmaar. The name "Metius" comes from the Dutch word meten ("measuring"), and therefore means something like "measurer" or "surveyor."
In 1585, his father had estimated the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, later called pi, to be approximately 355/113. He later published his father's results, and the value 355/113 is traditionally referred to as Metius' number

17th century

Period: 1600 to 1700

In the seventeenth century there was an explosion of mathematics and scientific ideas throughout Europe. The Italian Galileo observed the moons of Jupiter in orbit around that planet, using a telescope based on a toy imported from the Netherlands. The Danish Tycho Brahe had put together a huge amount of mathematical data describing the positions of the planets in the sky. This supposed a great development of the mathematics, emphasizing Newton and Leibniz.

Johan de Witt

1625

Johan de Witt or Jan de Witt, heer van Zuid- en Noord-Linschoten (24 September 1625 – 20 August 1672) was a major figure in Dutch politics. De Witt contributed to financial mathematics: In 1671 his Waardije van Lyf-renten naer Proportie van Los-renten was published (The Worth of Life Annuities Compared to Redemption Bonds). This work combined his rôles as statesman and as mathematician, and was discussed in the correspondence between Leibniz and Bernoulli concerning the use of probabilities

Christiaan Huygens

1629

The first work Huygens put in print was Theoremata de quadratura (1651) in the field of quadrature. As a mathematician, Huygens was a pioneer on probability and wrote his first treatise on probality theory in 1657 with the work Van Rekeningh in Spelen van Gluck. Frans van Schooten, who was the private tutor of Huygens, translated the work as De ratiociniis in ludo aleae ("On Reasoning in Games of Chance").

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz *1646, †1716

1646

He studied Philosophy and Law in Leipzig and Jena but he was also interested in Maths.
In Paris he developed the first model of a calculator which had the function to multiply and divide next to adding and substracting the numbers.
Leibniz developed differential and integral calculation.
There was a conflict because Isaac Newton had the idea at the same time

18th century

Period: 1700 to 1800

During the eighteenth century , the disciples of Newton and Leibniz were based on his works to solve various problems of physics, astronomy and engineering, which allowed them to create new fields within mathematics.
THE GREATEST MATHEMATICIAN OF THE 18TH CENTURY was the Swiss Leonhard Euler (1707-1783):
He introduced the symbols “℮”, “f(x)”, the sumatory “∑” and the letter pi for that number in honor of Pythagoras.

Leonard Euler *1707, †1783

1707

He was known as the founder of the analysis and big parts of the mathematical symbolism can be traced back to him. Leonard Euler published textbooks about calculus of variations, differential- and integral calculus, difference equation as well as about gamma- and beta function. He was also considered to be one of the first, who worked on graph theory.

MARIA GAETANA AGNESI

1718

She was an Italian mathematician, philosopher and benefactor. She was the first female author of a maths book and the first to obtain a university maths chair, after having taught at the University of Bologna for three years to replace her father. Her most important work was “Analytical Institutions”, a text conceived as a handbook that dealt in a clear and concise manner the different areas of mathematics: algebra, geometry and newborn differential and integral calculus.

Stefán Björnsson

1721

Stefán Björnsson is believed to be the first Icelandic mathematician and physicist. He got his degree in Copenhagen University. In the year 1793 he was awarded gold medal from the University for mathematics, first Icelander. Since then there have only been three other Icelanders awarded this prize, Stefán worked as a calculator for the Danish science department. He wrote articles about physics,astronomy, weather science and a book in Latin about properties of squares.

Carl Friedrich Gauß *1777, †1855

1777

He was the son of a butcher but with the help of the Duke of Braunschweig he was able to study Maths in Göttingen after realizing at avery young age that he was fascinated by numbers. When he was only 9 years old, he discovered the “Gaußsche Summenformel“ when he had to sum up the numbers from 1 to 100.

Eruption in Lakagígar

1783

Eruption stared in southern Iceland. For eight months ash and gases from the eruption was carried away by the wind and poisoned the land and sea. It carried to Europe and the absorbed moisture and sunlight, changing the climate for years to come. It is believed to have triggered the French Revolution, because of the starvation that followed the result of crop failures.

August Ferdinand Möbius *1790, †1868

Nov 17, 1790

*17th November in Naumburg, Germany
†26th September 1868 in Leipzig, Germany
August Ferdinand Möbius was a German mathematician and astronomer. He published many essays about astronomy, geometry and statics and is known as a pioneer of topology. A.F. Möbius was the co-founder of the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences. Furthermore he was observer in the academical observatory in Leipzig.

19th century

Period: 1800 to 1900

“The three L’s”, Lagrange, Laplace and Legendre, Fourier and Galois lived on this period.
Joseph Fourier's study, at the beginning of the 19th Century, of infinite sums in which the terms are trigonometric functions were another important advance in mathematical analysis. Fourier also contributed towards defining exactly what is meant by a function.

Karl Weierstraß *1815, †1897

1815

• studied economy and later mathematics
• got a lot of appreciation for his resolutions of the “Abelian function theory“
• In 1856 he became professor at different universities in Berlin
• His influence on the development of the mathematics grew a lot Mathematic achievements:
• definition of the continuity of a function,
• "father of modern analysis“
• exact foundation of complex analysis power series expansion
• differential geometry
• elliptic functions
• calculus of variations

Bernard Riemann *1826, †1866

1826

Even though his life was very short, he is possibly one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.
He mostly researched on complex analysis and found what he is mostly known for: The first rigorous formulation of the integral, the “Riemann Integral”. With that and his paper on prime-counting function he founded the basis for the mathematics of general relativity. Einstein referred to him with his famous theory of relativity 60 years later.

Cantor *1845, †1918

1845

Cantor founded modern Mathematics. He studied Maths.
Cantor worked on the set theory, trigonometric series and he defined infinity.
• Set theory: natural and rational numbers are denumerable, real numbers not.
• Trigonometric series: Cantor had the solution how to plot a function oft he sum of trigonometric series (sinus and cosinus)
• Infinity: There is infinity! (Set theory)
Georg Cantor had a bipolar disorder. He died in a hospital in Halle at the age of 72.

Diederik Korteweg

1848

Diederik Johannes Korteweg (31 March 1848 – 10 May 1941) was a Dutch mathematician. He is now best remembered for his work on the Korteweg–de Vries equation, together with Gustav de Vries.

Giuseppe Peano

1858

Giuseppe Peano was born in Cuneo ( August 1858 - April 1932). He was an important mathematician. He specified the definition of the upper limit (limit superior), the axiomatic of natural numbers, the discovery of a continuous curve that fills a square and the existence theorem for ordinary differential equations.
He also famous for what it is called the Peano curve, a continuous curve that passes through every point of the unit square, that trace out FRACTALS.

David Hilbert *1862, †1943

1863

He studied mathematics and became professor later
His work was very important for the development of mathematics in the 20th century
In 1900 at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris he formulated 23 mathematic questions (“Hilbertsche Probleme“) that mathematicians should solve.
Hilbert had a research-programme called “Hilbertprogramm“ that specialized on consistent axiomatization. It failed but had astrong influence.
He designed his own system of axioms for Euclidean geometry.

Konstantin Carathéodory (Κωνσταντίνος Καραθεοδωρή) (1873- 1950)

Sep 13, 1873

(born Sept. 13, 1873, Berlin, Ger.—died Feb. 2, 1950, Munich)
Konstantinos Karatheodoris was a Greek mathematician who was distinguished on a global level. Konstantinos Karatheodoris' scientific work extends to many areas of Mathematics, Physics and Archeology. He made significant contribution, particularly to the areas of the real analysis, functional analysis and measure theory and integration.

Albert Einstein *1879, †1955

1879

In Zurich, with 21 years, he finished his studies to become a teacher for mathematics and physics. He kept working on theoretical physics. 1905 he became professor for physics at the university of Zurich. In that time he published his most important scientific work, the "annus mirabilis “. It contains four articles on photo- electric effect. This effect gave rise to quantum theory. The most revolutionary part was the special theory of relativity, regarding the relationship of space and time.

20th century

Period: 1900 to 2000

During the 20th century, maths grew exponentially, so in this section only some of the discoveries will be mentioned.
In 1976 Wolfgang Haken and Kennet Apple used a computer to prove the theorem of the four colours.
Andrew Wiles, basing his discoveries on other mathematicians theories, proved the last theorem of Fermat in 1995.
New areas of Mathematics such as mathematical logic, topology, the theory of complexity and the theory of games started in this period.

BRUNO DE FINETTI

1906

Bruno de Finetti (Innsbruck 1906 – Roma 1985) was born into an Italian family and he studied in Milan since 1923. He was one of the greatest Italian mathematicians of the twentieth century, known above all for his studies on PROBABILITY THEORY. He also published many articles, essays and speeches dedicated to Mathematics education and to social, economic and political problems. Many of his books and articles have been translated into many different languages.

Founding of the University of Iceland

1911

The University of Iceland was founded in 1911. The university originally taught only theology, medicine and law. During its first year of operation 45 students were enrolled but today they are about 14.000 in twenty-five faculties.

Edsger Dijkstra

1930

He developed the short-path algortime, now used in almost all routeplanning devices. He received the Turing -Award in 1972.

Enrico Bombieri

1940

Enrico Bombieri (1940 Milan) is the first Italian mathematician to have won the Fields Medal in 1974.
He then emigrated to the United States, where he was a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
Bombieri's studies mainly concerned the theory of prime numbers, The mathematician has also described the Riemann hypothesis, defined as one of the main problem of the Millennium.

Christos Papadimitriou ( Χρήστος-Χαρίλαος Παπαδημητρίου) August 16, 1949

Sep 16, 1949

He was born in Athens and is a theoretical computer scientist and professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. He has also taught at Harvard, MIT, the National Technical University of Athens, Stanford, UCSD, University of California, Berkeley. Author of the textbook Computational Complexity and has also co-authored the graphic novel Logicomix.He was awarded the: Von Neumann Medal-2016,EATCS Award-2015,Gödel Prize-2012, IEEE Computer Society Charles Babbage Award-2004,Knuth prize-2002

First Icelandic mathematicians where graduates from University of Iceland

1973

First Icelandic mathematicians where graduates from University of Iceland. For a long time only about 4 students graduated each year but today they are around 30.

Constantinos Daskalakis (Κωνσταντίνος Δασκαλάκης) 29 April 1981

Apr 29, 1981

He was born in Athens on 29 April 1981 and is originated from Crete. He is a theoretical computer scientist, a professor at MIT's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department and a member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He was awarded the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize in 2018 , Simons Foundation Investigator Award (2018), SIAM Outstanding Paper (2011), Sloan Fellowship (2010), ACM Dissertation Award (2008), Kalai Prize (2008). .

Icelandic Contribution in Maths Competitions

1984

Mathematics competition was first held in the winter of 1984 – 1985 and it has been an annual event since then. In this competition the Icelandic team for the IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad) is chosen. The IMO was first held in Romania in 1959 and 7 countries participated. When Iceland became a partner in 1985 there where 38 countries and today, they are around 110.

Peter Scholze *11.12.1987

Dec 11, 1987

Birthday: december 11th 1987 in Dresden
Family: Peter Scholze has a wife and a daughter
Interesting facts:
• studied mathematics, became professor and is now director at the university of Bonn
• his topic is arithmetic-algebraic geometry
• at 24 years old he became the youngest professor in Germany
• Scholze has won almost every mathematic award there is and is and in 2018 he received the Fields-medal, the International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics.

21st century

Period: 2000 to 2020

Mathematics are used all over the world as an essential tool in almost every field, being applied to other areas and even developing new disciplines.
The advance in maths knowledge is faster than ever and although most of the main problems have been solved, others, such as the Riemann hypothesis, remain unsolved.

Some of the most important mathematicians of the century XXI are
Peter Scholze, Terence Tao or Maryam Mirzajani.

The 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull

2010

The 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull were volcanic events at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland which, although relatively small for volcanic eruptions, caused enormous disruption to air travel across western and northern Europe over an initial period of six days in April 2010. Additional localised disruption continued into May 2010. About 20 countries closed their airspace to commercial jet traffic and it affected approximately 10 million travellers.

ALESSIO FIGALLI wins the Field medal

2018

Alessio Figalli (Rome, 2 April 1984) is an Italian mathematician, mainly active in the study of the calculation of variations and partial differential equations, winner of the Stampacchia Medal in 2015, of the Feltrinelli Giovani Award in 2017 and of the Fields Medal in 2018 for his work on the theory of optimal transport .
https://video.espresso.repubblica.it/tutti-i-video/fields-figalli-dalle-nuvole-alla-matematica-ecco-cos-e-il-trasporto-ottimale/12031/12129