Mathematician Who build Mathematics
This article is about the short biographies of great Mathematicians with whom mathematic's did start.Article include the short description of the life and work of Thales,Pythagoras and Euclid.
- Thales(ca.625-547 B.C.)
- Thales Work
- Pythagoras(ca. 580-500 B.C.)
- Pythagoras Work
- Euclid(flourished ca.300 B.C.)
- Euclid's Work
World lived in the darkness of thoughts for centuries until Thales was born who with his rational thought and skepticism gave the flow of thought a new direction.Many other branches like art,craft etc existed and flourished for centuries.But with the advent of the thought of skepticism did come an urge, to know.Thales was born in Miletus on the western coast of Asia minor.Initially,he is said to be a prosperous mercent who acquired wealth to secure his comfort and then devoted rest of his life to the study of Mathematics and in travelling various places. He astoned the priest of the Egypt by calculating the height of the pyramid by its shadow and the concept of similar triangles.
He was probably the first Greek Astronomer who studied the planet deeply and helped in distinguishing in from its source Astrology.He is also adored as the creator of Geometry and founder of the Ionian school.He is reffered to be the first one to think everythig to be apart of just single matter.As the legend proclaim, he considered everything to be WATER.This thought was of great importance as it brought into light the idea of Unification of energy which have been the major problem posed by scientists and physicists today.
Thales is regarded as the first person who gave the first systematised proof of the first theorem.Various Mathematical theorem credited to his excellence are:-
1. A circle is bisected by a diameter.
2. The base angle of an isoscles triangle are equal.
3 .Vertical angles are equal.
4. An angle inscribed in a semi-circle is a right angle.
5. A triangle is completely determined if two angles and the include sides are given.
Pythagoras(ca. 580-500 B.C.)
Pythagoras is the first to use the word –Mathematike instead of Mathemata.Though, Thales was the first to give the mathematical proof of something,Pythagoras was the first to relate one proof with the other.He used the knowledge of one proof ie. the fundamental theorem to derive the other theorem.Pythagoras who was born on the island of Samos off the western coast of Asia minor is considered to to be the first to use the word, Kosmos for the ordered and understandable whole.
In order to enrich his knowledge and widen his perspective he travelled through the world and founded the Pythagorean School which argubly has the honour of being the first University.His pupil were known as Pythagorean who did spread through the world and propagated his knowledge and teachings among the mass.
His studies with reference to Mathematics was mainly concentrated on Geometry and Arithmatic.He was also intrested in the art of Music and Astronomy.The various famous theorems given by him are-
1.Sum of the angle in any triangle equals two right angles.
2.The Pythagoras theorem about the square of hypotenuese.
3.There is no rational whose square is 2.
It is Pythagoras who brought the new concept that for anything to be true,it should be represented as Numbers.Though there has been great contribution from Pythagoras and his pupil,there has been no clear indication as to who was the real generator of some of the proofs and its theorem.There has been a great contribution from the part of Pythagoreans who’s observations ,problems encounterd and question raised led to the discovery of irrrational numbers.Some of the interest of the Pythagoreans were in figurates,musical notes and its relation with numbers etc.
Euclid(flourished ca.300 B.C.)
As it is said that the person is known by the work he has done;this has been more than appropriately applicable on Euclid’s ELEMENT.Element has been the major mind teaser for the various mathematicians for centuries.Element starts with the defnition-“A point is that which has no part.”It consist of 14 books and 465 proposition none of which explicitly defined.What is known about Euclid is that he taught in Alexandria and was also a member of the staff of Ptolemy.
Euclid role was mainly as a compiler who collected and arranged the scattered knowledge of the world at one place.
As there has been no clear indication of the origin of some of the proofs and theorem in Element,these proofs have been by default credited to Euclid.Some of his famous works are:-
1.Euclidean Algorithm for finding the G.C.D. of two positive numbers.
2.Prime numbers that divide the product of two positive integers necessarily divides one of the factors.
3.Euclid theorem on the infinity of primes.
4.Thoerem on perfect numbers.
Element part 8 is dedicated to the construction of the regular polygon asnd polyhedra which gives the knowledge that there are only five regular polyhedra namely – tetrahedron,cube,octahedron,dofecahedron and icosahedron.Euclid basically helped in organising various thoughts that were scattered and thus gave a way of deducing one theorem from already known and assumed fundamental truths.Euclid model became so famous that it became the parameter for everything to be true and facts begun to be deduced with Euclidean thoughts in reference.