03-17-2006, 09:12 AM
e? What the f?
With all due respect to Mr. Wiedenman, to call Euler the second most famous mathematician is a joke. Among mathematicians, it's difficult to say who is the most known, but there are certain names that appear in practically every mathematics book (Gauss and Euler are exceptionally ubiquitous). That said, I am not concerned with famousness because fame depends on who you ask. But I am shocked to see, in a list of mathematicians, Euler second to a physicist.
I would not call Einstein a mathematician. A physicist explains physical things using mathematics. A mathematician explains mathematics using mathematics. What did Einstein explain? Physics. If he was also a mathematician, I'd like to know where he made contributions, his field of study.
Two closing notes:
(1) The importance of e cannot be overstated. In mathematics, e is perhaps more ubiquitous than Euler, often appearing quite unexpectedly. If pi gets a day, e deserves a whole month.
(2) You can tell math majors who are not destined to become mathematicians by looking at those who, in their senior year of undergraduate studies, persist in pronouncing "Euler" so that it rhymes with "ruler."
-Lemmy
Alram,Mar 14 2006, 04:13 PM Wrote:From: Jack Wiedenman
(liberal snipping)
Well, the fifth letter of the alphabet happens to be "e" and the
most famous mathematician whose name begins with e is of course,
Albert Einstein - well, guess what . . . Today (pi day) happens to be
Einstein's birthday!
And, as an extra added attraction, the second most famous "e"
mathematician is Leonhard Euler from whom we get the irrational
number e = 2.718281828 . . Which is the basis of so many functions
from compound interest to radioactive decay to population growth.
With all due respect to Mr. Wiedenman, to call Euler the second most famous mathematician is a joke. Among mathematicians, it's difficult to say who is the most known, but there are certain names that appear in practically every mathematics book (Gauss and Euler are exceptionally ubiquitous). That said, I am not concerned with famousness because fame depends on who you ask. But I am shocked to see, in a list of mathematicians, Euler second to a physicist.
I would not call Einstein a mathematician. A physicist explains physical things using mathematics. A mathematician explains mathematics using mathematics. What did Einstein explain? Physics. If he was also a mathematician, I'd like to know where he made contributions, his field of study.
Two closing notes:
(1) The importance of e cannot be overstated. In mathematics, e is perhaps more ubiquitous than Euler, often appearing quite unexpectedly. If pi gets a day, e deserves a whole month.
(2) You can tell math majors who are not destined to become mathematicians by looking at those who, in their senior year of undergraduate studies, persist in pronouncing "Euler" so that it rhymes with "ruler."
-Lemmy