The Week in Math: July

Here are the highlights from the historical world of mathematics for the month of July.  While this list is not meant to be all-encompassing, I have tried to pick out those things that I find most interesting.

July 1:

Birthdays: Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)

Deaths: Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)

July 4:

Math News: In 1843, Liouville announces that he has found a solution (in the writings of Galois) to the problem as to whether or not a general fifth degree polynomial is solvable by radicals.  (See MathDL for details.)

July 5:

Math News: In 1698, Johann Bernoulli defines the term “function“.  The term was first used by Leibniz.  (See MathDL for details.)

July 6:

Birthdays: Johann Muller Regiomontanus (1436-1476)

Deaths: Georg Simon Ohm (1789-1854)

July 8:

Deaths: Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)

July 9:

Math News: In 1814, Gauss writes his last entry into his mathematical diary concerning biquadratic residues and lemniscate functions.  This entry will eventually lead to the famous Weil conjectures.  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: George Darwin (1845-1912)

July 10:

Birthdays: Roger Cotes (1682-1716)

Deaths: Emory McClintock (1840-1916)

July 11:

Math News: In 1686, Leibniz publishes his results on the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus in Acta Eruditorum.  (See MathDL for details.)

Deaths: Lillian R. Lieber (1886-1986)

July 12:

Math News: In 1831, Gauss writes protesting against “the use of an infinite quantity as an actual entity; this is never allowed in mathematics.”  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)

July 13:

Deaths: Johann (III) Bernoulli (1744-1807)

July 17:

Deaths: Johann (II) Bernoulli (1710-1790), Henri Poincare (1854-1912)

July 18:

Math News: In 1872, Weierstrass provides the quintessential example of a continuous but nowhere differentiable function (known as the Weierstrass function.)  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Robert Hooke (1635-1703), Pierre Laurent (1813-1854), Hendrik Lorentz (1853-1928)

July 20:

Math News: In 1969, Neil Armstrong becomes the first man on the moon.  (See MathDL for details.)

Deaths: John Playfair (1748-1819), Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866), Andrei Markov (1856-1922)

July 22:

Math News: In 1694, Johann Bernoulli sends L’Hospital’s rule to L’Hospital in accordance with their contract.  Click here to read my post on the controversy.  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Wilhelm Bessel (1784-1846)

Deaths: William Osgood (1864-1943)

July 23:

Math News: In 1754, Lagrange publishes his first work concerning the nth derivatives of the product of functions.  (See MathDL for details.)

July 24:

Deaths: Erwin Freundlich (1885-1964)

July 26:

Math News: In 1976, Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken announce their “controversal” solution to the Four Color Problem.  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Lillian R. Lieber (1886-1986)

Deaths: Henri Lebesgue (1875-1941), Gottlob Frege (1848-1925)

July 27:

Math News: In 1837, Dirichlet lectures on his first paper in Analytic Number Theory.  In the paper, he proves what will be called Dirichlet’s Theorem.  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Johann Bernoulli (1667-1748), Lorand Eotvos (1848-1919), Ernst Zermelo (1871-1953)

July 28:

Math News: In 1619, Kepler writes to Napier thanking him for his invention of Logarithms.  In 1899, Cantor writes toDedekind asking “whether the set of all cardinal numbers is itself a set, because, if it is, it would have a cardinal number larger than any other cardinal.”  (See MathDL for details.)

July 29:

Math News: In 1654, Pascal writes to Fermat, wondering as to whether or not Fermat’s solution to the “problem of points” is correct.  (See MathDL for details.)

July 31:

Math News: In 1669, Barrow sends Newton’s manuscript “De analysi” to Collins, thereby introducing Newton to the world.  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Gabriel Cramer (1704-1752)

Deaths: Nicolaus(II) Bernoulli (1695-1726)

References: If you are interested in additional facts or birthdays, please visit the sites that I used to generate these lists:

• http://mathdl.maa.org – general mathematical facts
• http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk:80/~history/Day_files/Now.html – birthdays