The Week in Math: September

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

September 1:

Deaths: Marin Mersenne (1588-1648)

September 2:

Math News:  In 1808, Gauss writes a letter to Wolfgang Bolyai which includes his famous quote, “It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.”  (See MathDL for details.)

Deaths: Sir William Hamilton (1805-1865),  Pierre Laurent (1813-1854)

September 3:

Birthdays: James Joseph Sylvester (1814-1897)

September 4:

Birthdays: Heinrich Bruns (1848-1919)

September 5:

Birthdays: Giovanni Saccheri (1667-1733)

September 6:

Math News: In 1930, Kurt Godel presents his Completeness Theorem at an annual mathematics meeting in Königsberg.  (SeeMathDL for details.)

Deaths: J. E. Littlewood (1885-1977)

September 7:

Math News:  In 1930, Kurt Godel announces his famous (or infamous) Incompleteness Theorem.  Note:  A great book written about Godel and the Incompleteness Theorem is Incompleteness by Rebecca Goldstein.  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Georges Buffon (1707-1788)

Deaths: Ludwig Sylow (1832-1918), George Pólya (1887-1985)

September 8:

Birthdays: Marin Mersenne (1588-1648)

Deaths: Joseph Liouville (1809-1882), Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894)

September 9:

Birthdays: Frank Morley (1860-1937)

Deaths: Giovanni Ricci (1904-1973)

September 11:

Deaths: Felice Casorati (1835-1890)

September 12:

Deaths: Maxime Bocher (1867-1918)

September 14:

Deaths: Giovanni Cassini (1625-1712)

September 15:

Math News:  In 1739, Euler writes to Johann Bernoulli regarding homogeneous linear differential equations with constant coefficients.  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Oskar Klein (1894-1977)

September 17:

Birthdays: Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794), Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866), Hans Freudenthal (1905-1990)

September 18:

Birthdays: Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752-1833), Leon Foucault (1819-1868)

Deaths: Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) – click here to read my birthday post about Leonhard Euler.

September 19:

Math News: In 1894, Peano writes to Klein regarding mathematical logic – “The purpose of mathematical logic is to analyze the ideas and reasoning that especially figure in the mathematical sciences.”  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Emory McClintock (1840-1916)

September 20:

Birthdays: Frank Cole (1861-1926) – click here to read about Frank Cole’s amazing feat.

Deaths: Paul Erdős (1913-1996) – click here to read my birthday post about Erdős and here to read about his youthful personality, Moritz Pasch (1843-1930)

September 21:

Math News: In 1781, Lagrange writes to d’Alembert, predicting the end of new mathematical discoveries – “It appears to me also that the mine is already very deep and that unless one discovers new veins it will be necessary sooner or later to abandon it.”  (See MathDL for details.)

Deaths: Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576)

September 22:

Birthdays: Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

September 23:

Math News: In 1647, two of the great mathematical giants, Descartes and Pascal, meet in France.  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: William Wallace (1768-1843)

Deaths: Heinrich Bruns (1848-1919)

September 24:

Birthdays: Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576)

September 25:

Math News: In 1654, Fermat writes to Pascal defending his combinatorial method against the criticism of Pascal.  (See MathDL for details.)

Deaths: Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728-1777), Paul Ehrenfest (1880-1933)

September 26:

Deaths: Giulio Fagnano (1682-1766), Hermann Grassmann (1809-1877), August Möbius (1790-1868), Paul Turán (1910-1976)

September 27:

Deaths: William Edge (1904-1997)

September 28:

Birthdays: Julian Coolidge (1873-1954)

Deaths: Edwin Hubble (1889-1953)

September 29:

Math News: In 1801, Gauss’s legendary “Disquisitiones Aritmeticae” is published.  (See MathDL for details.)

Birthdays: Charles-François Sturm (1803-1855), Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)

September 30:

Math News: In 1717, at age 19, Maclaurin is appointed the Mathematics Chair at Marischal College in Aberdeen, Scotland.  (See MathDL for details.)

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