The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. — George Bernard Shaw (attributed) Perfect Rigor: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century Masha...

This year (2009) is the 400th anniversary of the publication of Johannes Kepler’s book New Astronomy (Astronomia Nova) announcing the discovery of the elliptical orbit of Mars to the world. The discovery of the elliptical orbit of Mars and the mathematical rule of motion for Mars on its elliptical...

In my last blog entry, I mentioned several math books I’ve been reading lately. Over the weekend I wrapped up reading Mathematicians: An Outer View of the Inner World, and wanted to take the opportunity to review it here. Mathematicians: An Outer View of the Inner World is a hardcover book of photos...

Two beautiful mathematical documentaries are “Fermat’s Last Theorem” and “Dangerous Knowledge”. Both take a popular science style approach to describing compelling and emotional stories about great mathematicians. The first narrates the story of Andrew Wiles, who proved...

This article was written by Gregory Thole, a graduate student in mathematics at Boston College. If you’d like to write for Math-Blog.com as well, please email us at submissions@math-blog.com. And what was he? Forsooth, a great arithmetician. -Shakespeare Othello, I.i Perhaps it should not be...

Pythagoras, Euler, and G.H. Hardy, if you’re interested in math or if you paid attention in school, chances are you’ve heard of these famous names and may be familiar with their work and accomplishments. But how about Agnesi, Cartwright or Goldwasser? These three names are amongst ten that we’ve...