Mathematicians Of The Day

10th March



On this day in 1797, Caspar Wessel presented his one and only mathematics paper to the Danish Academy of Sciences, on the geometric representation of the complex numbers that we use today. The paper was essentially unknown until 1895 when Christian Juel pointed out its significance.

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Quotation of the day

From William Osgood
Geometry is the noblest branch of physics.
Quoted in D MacHale, Comic Sections (Dublin 1993)