Remarkable Mathematicians: From Euler to Von Neumann

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Cambridge University Press, 2002 - Biography & Autobiography - 433 pages
Ioan James introduces and profiles sixty mathematicians from the era when mathematics was freed from its classical origins to develop into its modern form. The subjects, all born between 1700 and 1910, come from a wide range of countries, and all made important contributions to mathematics, through their ideas, their teaching, and their influence. James emphasizes their varied life stories, not the details of their mathematical achievements. The book is organized chronologically into ten chapters, each of which contains biographical sketches of six mathematicians. The men and women James has chosen to portray are representative of the history of mathematics, such that their stories, when read in sequence, convey in human terms something of the way in which mathematics developed. Ioan James is a professor at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford. He is the author of Topological Topics (Cambridge, 1983), Fibrewise Topology (Cambridge, 1989), Introduction to Uniform Spaces (Cambridge, 1990), Topological and Uniform Spaces (Springer-Verlag New York, 1999), and co-author with Michael C. Crabb of Fibrewise Homotopy Theory (Springer-Verlag New York, 1998). James is the former editor of the London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series and volume editor of numerous books. He is the organizer of the Oxford Series of Topology symposia and other conferences, and co-chairman of the Task Force for Mathematical Sciences of Campaign for Oxford.
 

Selected pages

Contents

From Euler to Legendre
1
JEANLEROND DALEMBERT 17171783
8
JOSEPHLOUIS LAGRANGE 17361813
14
GASPARD MONGE 17461818
20
PIERRESIMON LAPLACE 17491827
28
ADRIENMARIE LEGENDRE 17521833
36
From Fourier to Cauchy
42
SOPHIE GERMAIN 17761831
47
SONYA KOVALEVSKAYA 18501891
230
HENRI POINCARÉ 18541912
237
DAVID HILBERT 18621943
246
From EH Moore to Takagi
258
JACQUES HADAMARD 18651963
263
FELIX HAUSDORFF 18681942
271
ELIE CARTAN 18691951
279
EMILE BOREL 18711956
283

CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS 17771855
58
SIMÉONDENIS POISSON 17811840
69
JEAN VICTOR PONCELET 17881867
76
AUGUSTIN CAUCHY 17891857
81
From Abel to Grassmann
91
CARL JACOBI 18041851
97
LEJEUNE DIRICHLET 18051859
103
WILLIAM ROWAN HAMILTON 18051865
109
JOSEPH LIOUVILLE 18091882
116
HERMANN GRASSMANN 18091877
123
From Kummer to Cayley
129
EVARISTE GALOIS 18111832
134
JJ SYLVESTER 18141897
141
KARL WEIERSTRASS 18151897
150
PL CHEBYSHEV 18211894
159
ARTHUR CAYLEY 18211895
165
From Hermite to Sophus Lie
173
LEOPOLD KRONECKER 18231891
177
BERNHARD RIEMANN 18261866
182
HENRY SMITH 18261883
189
RICHARD DEDEKIND 18311916
195
SOPHUS LIE 18421899
200
From Cantor to Hilbert
208
GÖSTA MITTAGLEFFLER 18461927
215
FELIX KLEIN 18491925
219
TEIJI TAKAGI 18751960
292
From Hardy to Lefschetz
299
OSWALD VEBLEN 18801960
306
LEJ BROUWER 18811966
313
EMMY NOETHER 18821935
321
RL MOORE 18821974
326
SOLOMON LEFSCHETZ 18841972
333
From Birkhoff to Alexander
340
HERMANN WEYL 18851955
345
GEORGE PÓLYA 18871985
350
SRINIVASA IYENGAR RAMANUJAN 18871920
357
RICHARD COURANT 18881972
362
JW ALEXANDER 18881971
372
From Banach to von Neumann
380
NORBERT WIENER 18941964
386
PS ALEKSANDROV 18961982
392
OSCAR ZARISKI 18991986
401
AN KOLMOGOROV 19031987
407
JOHN VON NEUMANN 19031957
412
Epilogue
417
Further Reading
423
Collections
426
Acknowledgements
429
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About the author (2002)

Ioan James is the former Savilian Professor of Geometry at the University of Oxford. He won both the Junior Berwick and Whitehead Prizes of the London Mathematical Society.

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