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100
Pythagoras
Pythagoras was said to live from 570BC to 495BC. Pythagoras was perhaps one of the most famous mathematicians of all time. Credit of Pythagoras' contributions cannot completely be given to him as he did not leave behind any mathematical writings when he died. Most of what is known about Pythagoras is in the writings of his followers. Most of Pythagoras' known contributions were to the field of geometry. His best known contribution is the Pythagorean theorem other wise known as a^2+b^2=c^2. -
100
Heron of Alexandria
Heron of Alexandria was said to have been born around the year of 20AD. Heron created many works based upon geometry. His most famous work was "Metrica" which was considered to be lost until 1896. "Metrica" contained many geometrical rules and formulas including Heron's Formula which gave the area of a triangle when all sides are known. -
100
Euclid
Euclid was said to be alive around 300 BC. Euclid was a Greek mathematician and he is known as the "father of geometry." Very little is known about this man's life including his exact birth and death dates. Euclid is best known for his work known as the Elements. Elements is a thirteen book work that consists of geometrical definitions, theorems, proofs, as well as early versions of the number theory and geometric algebra. -
Jan 1, 780
Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi
Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi is known as the father of algebra. Around the year 830, he published a work known as "Al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-muqabala.” The word algebra was derived from his work's title "al-jabr." Al-Khwarizmi's work is considered to be the foundation of modern algebra. Within the work words are used to describe problems and diagrams are pictured to help solve it. Also within the work are the introductions of reducing, completing, and balancing equaions. -
Jan 1, 1170
Leonardo Fibonacci
Leonardo Fibonacci also known as Bigollo, is most famous for his introduction of the Fibonacci Series. The Fibonacci series is a series of numbers in which the next number in the series can be found by adding the previous two numbers. Ex. 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,etc. Fibonacci is also credited with helping to introduce the Arabic numerals into modern day mathematics after he published his work "Liber Abaci." Arabic numerals are the number 1-9 that we use everyday in math. -
Feb 1, 1561
Henry Briggs
Henry Briggs was a mathematician born in Yorkshire, England. Briggs is credited with developing the common log also known as the Briggsian log. The common log uses base 10 and is used in our intro to funcions class repeatedly. Briggs met with a fellow mathematician John Napier after Napier published his work "Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio" which thoroughly explained logarithms. Briggs' sought to improve Napier's ideas by using base 10. -
Rene Descartes
"I think therefore I am." Rene Descartes is known as the man that linked algebra and geometry together. By linking them together, this helped establish the basic principles of modern geometry which in turn lead to the development of calculus. Perhaps Descartes most important contribution to math was his development of the Cartesian coordinate system better known as the standard graph on which we graph functions, points, etc. Descartes also first introduced superscripts in regards to expressing -
Leonhard Euler
In regards to intelligence Euler has been compared to Albert Einstein. At just sixteen years old he recieved his masters degree from the University of Basel. Euler is credited with introducing the way a function is written f(x). He also created the symbols for pi, sigma, and for imaginary numbers. Euler also created the Euler Constant which is the base e for a natural logarithm.
