MATHS PROJECT

GREAT MATHEMATICIANS

SUBMITTED BY NAME CLASS ROLL NO : JACOBS JACOB CHAKOLA : 9 :

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SL.NO
1 2 3 4 5 6 Introduction Euclid Pythagoras

CONTENTS

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2 3-4 5-6 7-8 9 10

Srinivas Ramanujan Conclusion List of References

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Introduction

Often called the language of the universe, mathematics is fundamental to our understanding of the world and, as such, is vitally important in a modern society such as ours. Everywhere we look it is likely mathematics has made an impact, from the faucet in our kitchen to the satellite that beams the television programs to our home. As such, great mathematicians are undoubtedly going to rise above the rest and have their name embedded within history. This list documents some such people. Euclid Pythagoras Srinivasa Ramanujan.

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Euclid
He is considered the Father of Geometry and his magnum opus: Elements, is one the greatest

mathematical works in history, with its being in use in education up until the 20th century Euclid (c. 325-265 B.C.) studied at Plato's Academy in Athens, and then later moved to Egypt where he taught mathematics at the Alexandrian school during the reign of the first of the Macedonian rulers, Ptolemy I Soter. Macedonians ruled in Egypt following Alexander the Great's conquests. Euclid was an elder contemporary of Archimedes and Eratosthenes, according to Greek Geometry from Thales to Euclid, by George Johnston Allman. He says Euclid gathered together material from earlier mathematicians Eudoxus and Theaetetus and added thorough proofs that had been lacking. Euclid is credited with having put together material from such earlier mathematicians, expanded it, and with having written an Elements, a text book containing teachings on algebra, number theory, and especially geometry. It is divided into 13 books, with plane geometry covered in Books I, II, II, IV, and VI; proportion, in Book V; the properties of numbers in VII, VIII, and IX; surd quantities in Book X; solid geometry in Book XII; and miscellaneous proposition in plane and solid geometry in Book XIII.
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The Elements commences with definitions and five postulates. The first three postulates deal with geometrical construction, implicitly assuming points, lines, circles, and thence the other geometrical objects. Postulate four asserts that all right angles are equal -- a concept that assumes a commonality to space, with geometrical constructs existing independent of the specific space or location they occupy. Eukleides is pictured with what is perhaps his most famous postulate -- the fifth postulate, often cited as the "parallel postulate". The parallel postulate states that one, and only one, line can be drawn through a point parallel to a given line -- and it is from this postulate, and on this basis, that what has come to be known as "Euclidean geometry" proceeds. It was not until the 19th century that Euclid's fifth postulate -- the "parallel postulate" was rigorously and successfully challenged. Euclid's Elements was used as the basic text on geometry throughout the Western world for about 2,000 years. It is one of the very earliest mathematical works to be printed after the invention of the printing press and is estimated to be second only to the Bible in the number of editions published.

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Pythagoras
Greek Mathematician Pythagoras is considered by some to be one of the first great mathematicians. Living around 570 to 495 BC, in modern day Greece, he is known to have founded the Pythagorean cult, who were noted by Aristotle to be one of the first groups to actively study and advance mathematics. He is also commonly credited with the Pythagorean Theorem within trigonometry. However, some sources doubt that is was him who constructed the proof (Some attribute it to his students, or Baudhayana, who lived some 300 years earlier in India). Nonetheless, the effect of such, as with large portions of fundamental mathematics, is commonly felt today, with the theorem playing a large part in modern measurements and technological equipment, as well as being the base of a large portion of other areas and theorems in mathematics. But, unlike most ancient theories, it played a bearing on the development of geometry, as well as opening the door to the study of mathematics as a worthwhile endeavor. Thus, he could be called the founding father of modern mathematics.

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Pythagoras is pictured with a visual representation of the proof of the theorem which has come to bear his name. The use of triangles with sides bearing a ratio of 3:4:5 to construct a right angle was known to antiquity. And the Pythagorean Theorem was known and used by the Babylonians. Pythagoras is credited with the first recorded proof of the theorem that bears his name.

The Pythagorean Theorem says that in a right triangle, the sum of the squares of the two right-angle sides will always be the same as the square of the hypotenuse (the long side).

It is called "Pythagoras' Theorem" and can be written in one short equation: a2 + b2 = c2

Note:

c is the longest side of the triangle a and b are the other two sides

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Srinivas Ramanujan

Srinivasa Ramanujan (22 Dec 1887 26 Apr 1920) was a mathematical genius not only of the twentieth century but for all time. Ramanujan with almost no formal training in pure mathematics made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series and continued fractions. Ramanujan was said to be a natural genius by the English mathematician G.H. Hardy, in the same league as mathematicians like Euler and Gauss. He was an enigma to his teachers even at school because of his prodigious memory and unusual mathematical talent which began to show even before he was ten years old. That was the age when he topped the whole district at the Primary examination and this procured him a half-fee concession at school namely, Town High School, Kumbakonam. At the age of 12, he borrowed Loney's Trigonometry, Part II, from a student of the B.A. Class, who was his neighbour. That student was amazed to find that this young boy, about 7 years his junior, had not only finished mastering the book at one reading but he had taught himself to do every problem in it. Ramanujan became so absorbed in mathematics that when he entered the local government college in 1904 with a merit scholarship, he neglected his other subjects and lost the scholarship. Despite two later attempts, he never qualified for the first degree in arts. Ramanujan married in 1909, and while working as a clerk he continued his mathematical investigations; in 1911 he started to publish some of his results.

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In January 1913 Ramanujan sent some of his work to G. H. Hardy, Cayley lecturer in mathematics at Cambridge. Hardy noticed that whereas Ramanujan had rediscovered, and gone far beyond, some of the latest conclusions of Western mathematicians, he was completely ignorant of some of the most fundamental areas. In May the University of Madras gave Ramanujan a scholarship. In 1914 Ramanujan went to Cambridge. The university experience gave him considerable sophistication, but his mind, by this time somewhat hardened, generally continued to work according to the old pattern, in which intuition played a more important role than argument. In Hardy's opinion, if Ramanujan's gift had been recognized early, he could have become one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.In 1918 Ramanujan was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

He made substantial contributions to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series. He continued his mathematical work, however, and worked on hyper geometric series and investigated relations between integrals and series. He developed relations between elliptic modular equations in 1910. On 16 March 1916 Ramanujan graduated from Cambridge with a Bachelor of Science by Research. In 1918 Ramanujan was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He worked out the Riemann series, the elliptic integrals, hyper geometric series and functional equations of the zeta function. Ramanujans own work on partial sums and products of hyper geometric series have led to major development in the topic. Perhaps his most famous work was on the number p(n) of partitions of an integer n into summands..

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Conclusion
Mathematics pervades our daily lives. The findings these great mathematicians was great help to the modern science. The tribute to one of great mathematician shows our importance of mathematics to our nation. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared year 2012 as National Mathematical Year as a tribute to maths wizard Srinivasa Ramanujan. PM said that the number of competent mathematicians in the country is badly inadequate. He also called for changing the perception that pursuit of mathematics does not lead to attractive career possibilities. He announced that his birthday - Dec. 22 - would henceforth be a National Mathematics Day and 2012 would be the National Mathematical Year. He was talking in a function to here mark the 125th birth anniversary of Ramanujan in Chennai. Euclids Elements has proven instrumental in the development of logic and modern science. Firemen, construction workers, and other workers often rely on the use of ladders in their line of work. They make use of the Pythagorean Theorem in various situations. It can be used by everyone from surveyors who want to find out how tall a mountain is, to astronomers who want to calculate the distance to the sun or the circumferences of the moon. Carpenters can use it to keep their work square. The Pythagorean Theorem is also frequently used in more advanced math. The most significant contributions are Ramanujan Prime, Ramanujan Theta function, Ramanujan-Soldner constant, Ramanujan`s sum. The mathematical contributions of S. Ramanujan have also been widely used in solving various problems in higher scientific fields of specialization. The diverse specialized higher scientific fields include the likes of particle physics, statistical mechanics, computer science, space science, cryptology, polymer chemistry and medical science. Apart from the above fields, his mathematical methods are being used in designing better furnaces for smelting metals and splicing telephone cables for communications, as well.

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Refernces
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid http://www.mathematicianspictures.com/ http://listverse.com/2010/12/07/top-10-greatest-mathematicians/ http://mykhmsmathclass.blogspot.com http://www.mathsisfun.com/pythagoras.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Ramanujan.html http://www.krishnamurthys.com/profvk/VK2/Srinivasa_Ramanujan.html

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