Students can understand the occurrence and development of mathematics through the stories of mathematicians, which helps cultivate interest, broaden their horizons, pioneer and innovate, and more deeply understand the role of mathematics in the development of human civilization. Today I have compiled a collection of stories about mathematicians for you. Let’s take a look at them next!
Stories about mathematicians (1)
Thales (ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer) came to Egypt. People wanted to test his ability and asked him if he could measure the height of the pyramid. Thales said yes, but there was one condition - the Pharaoh must be present. The next day, the Pharaoh came as promised At the end of the day, many people gathered around the pyramid. Qin Leis came to the pyramid, and the sunlight cast his shadow on the ground. After a while, he asked someone to measure the length of his shadow. When the measurement value matched his When the heights matched perfectly, he immediately made a mark on the projection of the Great Pyramid on the ground, and then measured the distance from the bottom of the pyramid to the projected spire. In this way, he reported the exact height of the pyramid. At the request of the Pharaoh, he He explained to everyone how to push the principle from "the length of the shadow is equal to the length of the body" to "the shadow of the tower is equal to the height of the tower". This is what is known today as the similar triangle theorem.
Some mathematicians devoted themselves to mathematics during their lifetime and died. Later, symbols representing their life achievements were engraved on their tombstones.
After the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes died at the hands of the Roman enemy soldiers who attacked Sicily (before his death, he still prayed: "Don't break my circle."), people commemorated him. The figure of a ball inscribed in a cylinder is engraved on his tombstone to commemorate his discovery that the volume and surface area of ??a ball are two-thirds of the volume and surface area of ??a cylinder circumscribed by it.
After the German mathematician Gauss discovered the rule and compass method of the regular heptagon, he gave up his original intention to study literature
and devoted himself to mathematics, even in mathematics. made many significant contributions. He even suggested in his will that a tombstone with a regular heptagonal prism as its base should be built for him.
The 16th-century German mathematician Rudolf spent his whole life calculating pi to 35 decimal places. Later generations called it the Rudolf number.
After his death, others named it Carve this number on his tombstone.
Swiss mathematician Jacques Bernoulli studied spirals (known as the thread of life) during his lifetime. After his death, a line was engraved on his tombstone
Counting the spirals, the inscription also reads: "Although I have changed, I am still the same as before." This is a pun that both depicts the nature of the spiral and symbolizes his love for mathematics
The Story of a Mathematician (2)
Yau Shing-tung?
Yau Shing-tung 1949 Born in Shantou, Guangdong, his hometown is Jiaoling, Meizhou, and he grew up in Hong Kong. His father taught at Hong Kong College and Chung Chi College, the predecessor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. With a loving father and mother, Qiu Chengtong had a carefree childhood and excellent grades. But when he was 14 years old, his father passed away suddenly, and the family suddenly lost their financial resources. Although Qiu Chengtong had to work and study at the same time, he was still admitted to the Department of Mathematics of the Chinese University of Hong Kong with excellent results. ?
His father died when he was 14 years old, and his family was poor. When he was in middle school, he skipped school for a year. His grades were very poor and he almost failed. When he was 19 years old, he came to Berkeley in the United States. "When I graduated at the age of 21, I was destined to change the face of mathematics." These are not my words. This is what Mr. Chen Shengshen said during a discussion in the department when UCLA wanted to hire Professor Qiu a few years ago. Ten years later, he became a genius in mathematics. It was less than 10 years from the time he enrolled at Berkeley to giving a one-hour report at the World Congress of Mathematicians. He was only 28 years old at the time. It was also that year that Mr. Chen Jingrun was invited to give a 45-minute report. During this period, he proved the Calabi conjecture and the positive mass conjecture, and created a new field: geometric analysis.
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In 1981, when he was 32 years old, he won the Veblen Prize of the American Mathematical Society - one of the highest awards in the world of differential geometry; in 1983, he was awarded the Philippine Medal Fields Medal - the world's highest honor in mathematics; in 1994, he won the Crawford Medal. ?
In addition, he has also won the U.S. National Medal of Science and the title of the most outstanding scientist in California. He is an academician of the American Academy of Sciences, an honorary doctorate of Harvard University, a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and an honorary doctor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Doctorate...? During college, he completed all the required courses in three years and also read a lot of extracurricular materials. His outstanding achievements and research spirit were appreciated by Salaf, an American professor at the time, who strongly recommended him to study for a doctoral degree at the University of California, Berkeley. Around the 1970s, Berkeley was the center of differential geometry in the world, gathering many outstanding geometers and young scholars. Here, Qiu Chengtong received an IBM scholarship and studied under the famous differential geometer Chen Shengshen. ?
Fate is fair. Medals and honors are awarded to the person who persists in the classroom until the end. This did not stop Qiu Chengtong from moving forward. He continued to carry out a large amount of complicated research work and continued to make achievements. ?
Tenacity, perseverance, and perseverance are the spirit of Qiu Chengtong. Of course, not everyone with such a spirit can achieve the same achievements as Qiu Chengtong. Mathematics requires diligence, but also genius. As the famous mathematician Nirenberg said, Yau "not only possesses the intuitive ability of a geometer, but also has the talents of an analyst." The famous mathematician Mr. Zheng Shaoyuan recalled that Qiu Chengtong has been thinking about many difficult mathematical problems for nearly 20 years. Although they have not yet been solved, he has not given up thinking easily. ?
Qiu Chengtong has always been very concerned about China’s mathematics career. Since 1984, he has recruited more than a dozen doctoral students from China to cultivate talents in differential geometry for China. His approach is not only to teach students some special skills, but more importantly, to teach them how to appreciate the incisiveness of mathematics. His student Tian Gang also won the Veblen Prize in 1996 and is recognized as one of the most outstanding differential geometers in the world. ?
Mathematics is wonderful, and only by perseverance can we explore its true meaning. For mathematicians like Yau Shing-tung, this kind of exploration is not only the meaning of life, but also the joy of life. ?
Mr. Qiu is definitely not a perfect person, but he is definitely a great mathematician. You may not like this person, but you cannot dislike his mathematics. He has proved many wonderful theorems. If you study mathematics and go to graduate school, you will know that his theorems are very beautiful. His Calabi conjecture is undoubtedly one of the most profound theorems in mathematics, especially in superstring theory, which has an incredible range of applications. I Professor Qiu himself didn't even think of it back then. ?
He has a strong personality, never gives up, never gives up, has written numerous books and won numerous awards. These also brought him many misunderstandings. Because he was successful at a young age and became famous in his 20s, some people said that he was arrogant and arrogant. Of course, having such an achievement also gives him the capital to be arrogant. I compare him with Chen Shengshen. Mr. Chen Shengshen, everyone who has been with him for a long time knows that he is also arrogant, but they express their arrogance in different forms. Qiu Chengtong is straightforward. Mathematics and personality are his standards for measuring you. If he looks at you, you are not good at math, he He doesn't want to talk to you anymore, what you do doesn't suit him, and he doesn't want to talk to you. ?
The gentleman smiles and says nothing. He can get along with everyone peacefully, but this smile contains respect or disdain, and you can feel it yourself. They are all true gentlemen, and they are all great mathematicians whom I admire most. They all respect true gentlemen and true mathematicians. I think this is what is really valuable about them.
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Over the past 30 years, Mr. Qiu has not only kept abreast of the beating pulse of mathematics and physics and guided the development of mathematics in the world, but has also always cared about and helped the progress of Chinese mathematics with an innocent heart. . He trained many Chinese mathematicians. His students and postdocs are in various important universities abroad.
The Story of a Mathematician (Part 3)
Mathematics Wizard - Naple
Do you remember the four great inventions? They are Indo-Arabic notation, decimal fraction, logarithms and computers. The logarithm was invented by Knepper in the seventeenth century. He was born in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, in 1550. He loved mathematics and science since childhood and was recorded in the history of mathematics for his four genius achievements. The invention of logarithms set Europe ablaze. Laplace believed that "the discovery of logarithms extended the life of astronomers by saving labor." It can be said that the discovery of logarithms advanced modernization by at least two hundred years. Now I want to tell you two little stories about him:
Once, he claimed that his black-feathered rooster could confirm for him which of his servants had stolen something from him. The servants were sent into the dark room one by one and asked to pat the rooster's back. The servants did not know that Naple had painted the rooster's back with black smoke. The servant who felt guilty was afraid of being near the rooster, so his hands were clean when he came back. of.
Another time Napper was troubled by the fact that his neighbor's pigeons were eating his food. He threatened that if his neighbor did not restrict the pigeons and let them fly around, he would confiscate some of the pigeons. The neighbor thought that his pigeons were impossible to catch, so he told Nepper that if he could catch them, go ahead. The next day, the neighbor was surprised to see his pigeons waddling around on Naipel's lawn. Naipel calmly put them into a large bag. It turned out that Napper had spread some peas soaked in brandy here and there on his lawn, making the pigeons drunk.
Mathematician Descartes
Descartes’ most outstanding achievement is the creation of analytic geometry in the development of mathematics. In Descartes' time, algebra was still a relatively new subject, and geometric thinking still dominated the minds of mathematicians. Descartes devoted himself to the study of the connection between algebra and geometry. In 1637, after creating the coordinate system, he successfully founded analytic geometry. His achievement laid the foundation for the creation of calculus. Analytic geometry is still one of the important mathematical methods until now.
Mathematician von Neumann
One of the most outstanding mathematicians of the 20th century, von Neumann. As we all know, the electronic computer invented in 1946 has greatly promoted the progress of science and technology and social life. In view of the key role von Neumann played in the invention of electronic computers, he was hailed by Westerners as the "Father of Computers". From 1911 to 1921, von Neumann was studying at the Lutheran High School in Budapest. , he stood out and was highly valued by his teachers. Von Neumann was less than 18 years old when he published his first mathematical paper under the individual guidance of Mr. Feicht and collaborated with him.
The Story of a Mathematician (4)
Euler is a famous mathematician in the history of mathematics. He has worked in several branches of mathematics such as number theory, geometry, astronomical mathematics, and calculus. Both have achieved outstanding results. However, this great mathematician was not liked by his teachers at all when he was a child. He was a primary school student who was expelled from the school.
Things are caused by stars. ?At that time, little Euler was studying in a mission school. Once, he asked the teacher how many stars there were in the sky. The teacher is a believer in theology. He does not know how many stars there are in the sky, and the Bible does not answer this question. In fact, the stars in the sky are countless and infinite. There are thousands of stars visible to our naked eyes. The teacher pretended to understand, and replied to Euler: "It doesn't matter how many stars there are in the sky, as long as you know that the stars in the sky are inlaid by God, it is enough.
Euler felt very strange: "The sky is so big, so high, and there are no escalators on the ground. How did God inlay the stars one by one on the screen?" God himself placed them in the sky one by one. Why did he forget the number of stars? Could God be too careless? "? He asked the teacher the question in his heart. The teacher was once again stunned by the question. His face turned red and he didn't know how to answer. A surge of anger suddenly arose in the teacher's heart. This was not only because a child who had just gone to school asked The teacher asked such a question, which made the teacher unable to step down. More importantly, the teacher valued God above all else. Little Euler actually blamed God for not remembering the number of stars. The implication was that he raised questions about the Almighty God. Doubt. In the teacher's mind, this was a serious problem. In Euler's time, there was absolutely no doubt about God. People could only be slaves of thought and were never allowed to think freely. "Be consistent" with God, the teacher asked him to leave school and go home. However, in little Euler's heart, God's sacred aura disappeared. He thought, God is a loser, why can't he remember the stars in the sky? He also thought that God was a dictator and even asking questions was a sin. He also thought that God might be someone who made it up and didn’t exist at all.
When he got home and had nothing to do, he would help. Dad herded sheep and became a shepherd boy. He read a lot of books while tending sheep. Dad's flock gradually grew to 100, and Dad decided that the sheep pen was a little too small. To build a new sheep pen, he measured a rectangular piece of land with a ruler, 40 meters long and 15 meters wide. He calculated that the area was exactly 600 square meters, and he was planning to start construction on average for each sheep. When he was young, he found that his material was only enough to encircle a 100-meter fence, which was not enough. If he wanted to enclose a sheepfold that was 40 meters long and 15 meters wide, its circumference would be 110 meters (15 15 40 40 = 110). He felt very embarrassed. If he wanted to build according to the original plan, he would have to add another 10 meters of material; if the area was reduced, the area of ??each sheep would be less than 6 square meters. However, little Euler told his father that there was no need to reduce the size of the sheepfold. Don't worry that each sheep's territory will be smaller than the original plan. He has a way. His father didn't believe that little Euler had a way, so he ignored him and said loudly that all he had to do was move the stakes in the sheepfold. After hearing this, my father shook his head and thought: "How can there be such a cheap thing in the world? "However, little Euler insisted that he could get the best of both worlds. The father finally agreed to let his son give it a try. Seeing that his father agreed, little Euler stood up and ran to the sheepfold where the construction was about to start. He said with a The wooden pile was used as the center, and the original side length of 40 meters was shortened to 25 meters. The father was anxious and said, "How can it be done?" How? This sheepfold is too small, too small. "Little Euler didn't answer. He ran to the other side and extended the original 15-meter side length by another 10 meters to 25 meters. After such changes, the originally planned sheepfold became A square with a side length of 25 meters (25 25 25 25 = 100). Then, little Euler confidently said to his father: "Now, the fence is enough and the area is enough. ”
My father put up a fence according to the sheepfold designed by little Euler. The 100-meter-long fence is really enough, no more, no less, all used up. The area is also enough, and it is slightly wider. A little older. The father felt very happy. The child was smarter than himself and would be very successful in the future.
The father felt that it was a pity to let such a smart child herd sheep. He tried to get little Euler to meet Bernoulli, a great mathematician. Through the recommendation of this mathematician, little Euler became a college student at the University of Basel in 1720. This year, little Euler was 13 years old. The youngest college student in the university.
The Story of a Mathematician (5)
Everyone may have heard of "Fahrenheit's Inequality", which is a masterpiece of a famous mathematician in my country. Today Let us take a look at the story of Hua Luogeng~
Hua Luogeng is a self-taught mathematician.
He only graduated from junior high school, but he published a paper in the magazine "Science" and was appreciated by the mathematician Xiong Qinglai. With the help of all parties, Hua Luogeng entered the Tsinghua University to work and started his mathematical research.
In 1936, on the recommendation of Professor Xiong Qinglai, Hua Luogeng went to the UK to study. The famous mathematician Hardy admired Hua Luogeng very much. He said to Hua Luogeng: "You can get a doctorate in two years." Surprisingly, Hua Luogeng said: "I don't want to get a doctorate, I just want to be a doctor." I came to Cambridge to learn, not to get a degree." During his two years of studying mathematics, he concentrated on the theory of stacked prime numbers and published on Waring's problem, Talley problem, and Goldbach's odd number problem. 18 papers were published and the famous "Fahrenheit's Theorem" was obtained, showing the outstanding wisdom and ability of Chinese mathematicians to the world.
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