Mathematicians who changed the world: Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Rene Descartes was a French mathematician who transformed the way we look at the world – through maps! His most famous contribution was the ‘Cartesian Coordinate System’, which is named after him. Descartes didn’t come up with this idea on his own though – he had help from a fly! When he was lying on […]
Mathematicians who changed the world: Johann Gauss (1777-1855)
Johann Gauss was a German mathematician and is often considered to have been one of the most productive mathematicians in history. Gauss was consumed by mathematics – it is said that, upon being interrupted in the middle of a maths problem to be told his wife was was dying, he merely responded, “Tell her to […]
Mathematicians who changed the world: Alan Turing (1912-1954)
Alan Turing was a British Mathematician and Cryptographer (code-breaker) and is known today as the ‘Father of Computer Science’. Turing is best known for helping the UK win the Second World War through his code breaking efforts at Bletchley Park, although this didn’t become public knowledge until 20 years after his death! For many years […]