Mathematicians Of The Day

19th February



On this day in 1672, Newton's first publication appeared as a letter in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. It dealt with his new theory of light, showing that a prism separates white light into its component colours. Huygens, Hooke, and others objected so strongly that he vowed not to publish again. Fortunately that vow was not kept.

On this day in 2013 Google released a Nicolaus Copernicus doodle.

Click on for a poster.


Quotation of the day

From Otto Neugebauer
It seems to me that all the evidence points to Apollonius as the founder of Greek mathematical astronomy.
Quoted in C B Boyer, A History of Mathematics (New York 1968)