Mathematicians Of The Day

6th April



On this day in 1846, James Clerk Maxwell's paper On the description of oval curves, and those having a plurality of foci was read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. These ideas were not entirely new as Descartes had defined such curves before but the work was remarkable for a 14 year old.

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Quotation of the day

From Niels Abel
With the exception of the geometric series, there does not exist in all of mathematics a single infinite series whose sum has been determined rigorously.
Quoted in E Maor, To Infinity and Beyond: a Cultural History of the Infinite