Mathematicians of the Century
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Mathematicians of the Century
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The Math Program |
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When the year 2000 rolled around, we decided to create a "best" list of mathematicians; to look back, at the end of this 20th century, and honor this century's best mathematicians. Since some of the people might not be widely known, we have also set up links to websites at which you may learn something about these amazing mathematicians. At the bottom of this page, you'll also find brief biographies and multiple links for two of these mathematicians; they happened to make TIME magazine's list of greatest people of the century.
Kurt Friedrich Gödel Kurt Friedrich Gödel was born on April 28, 1906 in Brünn, Austria-Hungary (now Brno, Czech Republic). He was the second son of Marianne and Rudolph Gödel, a worker in the textile industry who worked his way up to being a partner in the firm. Gödel completed high school (or Gymnasium) in Brünn in 1923 and immediately entered the University of Vienna. While an undergraduate, he first became acquainted with Bertrand Russell's work on logic and the foundations of mathematics and completed his doctoral dissertation (which included the Gödel Completeness Theorem for first-order predicate logic) in 1929. From 1930 to 1938, Gödel was a member of the faculty at the University of Vienna and it was in 1931 that he published his best known results: The Gödel Incompleteness Theorems. Hitler's rise to power in the 1930's wound up having a dramatic effect on Gödel's life (as it did on many others). Gödel was profoundly affected by the murder of one his undergraduate professors and shortly afterwards suffered his first breakdown. He recovered and in 1938 married Adele Porkert. In 1940, Gödel emigrated to the United States via Russia and Japan and took up residence in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. He remained very active in his research and continued to make significant contributions in all areas of mathematical logic and in philosophy as well. In 1953, Gödel was awarded a chair at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and he held this position until his death. In the 1960's, Gödel made important contributions to the Continuum Problem, which concerns the relative size of different infinite numbers and in 1974 was awarded the National Medal of Science. Gödel struggled with hypochondria and nervous breakdowns at various times in his life and ultimately died of starvation in Princeton on January 14, 1978. Pictures Bibliography
Alan Mathison Turing Alan Mathison Turing was born on June 23, 1912 in London, England. He was the second son of Ethel and Julius Turing, who was an officer in the British administration in India. Julius decided that his sons should be raised in England and so they grew up in various foster homes and boarding schools. Turing completed high school at Sherbourne in 1931 and won a scholarship to attend King's College in Cambridge, England where he remained until 1936. It was during this time that he began working on questions regarding computability: what is a mathematically precise definition of algorithm and what questions can and cannot be solved via algorithms? He answered an open question of Hilbert in On Computable Numbers and attracted the interest of the mathematicians in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. Turing was a graduate student at Princeton University from 1936 until 1938 when he completed his doctoral dissertation Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals, which extended and refined his earlier results on computability. During World War II, Turing worked for the British Foreign Office at the Government Code and Cypher School in Buckinghamshire, England. Turing played a crucial and leading role in the successful effort to break the German "Enigma" code, which was one important part of the defeat of the Nazis. From 1945 until his death in 1954, Turing continued to develop and refine his ideas about computing and computers. At the National Physical Laboratory in London, England and later at the Computing Laboratory in Manchester, England, Turing helped design and build the first computers in the world which implemented electronically stored programs. Turing made bold and visionary predictions about the applications of computers and the possibilities for artificial intelligence; the "Turing test" remains the standard for testing machine intelligence. He also pursued interests in biology, chemistry, and philosophy. Turing was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1951 and died of potassium cyanide poisoning in Manchester on June 7, 1954. Pictures Bibliography
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