Notable Mathematicians Posters “R...-S...-”
for classrooms and homeschoolers.

Regiomontanus
Matteo Ricci

Bernhard Riemann
Julia Robinson

Johannes Müller von Königsberg, “Regiomontanus”
b. 6-6-1436; Bavaria
d. 7-6-1476

Regiomontanus (L. = from King's mountain) was a late Middle Ages mathematician, astronomer and astrologer.

Father Matteo Ricci in Mandarin Costume, Giclee Print

Matteo Ricci
b. 10-6-1552; Papal States
d. 5-11-1610; China

Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary, mathematician and cartographer, and Xu Guangqi, a Chinese bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer, mathematician, were a colleagues who translated part of Euclid's Elements into Chinese, and Confucianism text into a western language.

• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was also a Jesuit priest

Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics

Bernhard Riemann
b. 9-17-1826; Kingdom of Hanover (Germany)
d. 7-20-1866; Italy

Bernhard Riemann contributed to analysis and differential geometry which lead to the development of general relativity. Riemann geometry (compared to Euclidean geometry) describes higher dimensions.

Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem (DVD)

Julia Robinson
b. 12-8-1919; St. Louis, MO (raised in California)
d. 7-30-1985; Oakland

Mathematician Julia Robinson is best known for her work on decision problems and Hilbert's Tenth Problem.

Bertrand Russell
b. 5-18-1872; Trellech, Monmouthshire, Wales
d. 2-7-1970; Wales

Social reformer and pacifist Bertrand Arthur William Russell was a philosopher, logician, mathematician, and historian. He was awarded the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought”.

Russell collaborated with Alfred North Whitehead on Principia Mathematica, an attempt to ground mathematics on logic.

Bertrand Russell quotes ~
• “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither . . . over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.”
• “A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”
• “Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.”
• “If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.”
• “Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.”

• The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Mary Fairfax Somerville
b. 12-26-1780; Scotland
d. 11-28-1872; Naples, Italy

At a time when women's participation in science was not encouraged, Mary Somerville studied mathematics and astronomy. She translated Pierre-Simon de Laplace's work, invented variables from algebraic math, was the second woman to receive recognition as a scientist in the United Kingdom after Caroline Herschel.