The famous German scientist Gauss (1777 ~ 1855) was born in a poor family. Gauss learned to calculate by himself before he could speak. When he was three years old, he watched his father calculate his salary one night and corrected his father's calculation mistakes.
When he grew up, he became the most outstanding astronomer and mathematician of our time. He made some contributions to physics electromagnetism, and now a unit of electromagnetism is named after him. Mathematicians call him "the prince of mathematics".
He entered a rural primary school at the age of eight. The teacher who teaches mathematics is from the city. He feels that teaching a few little lynx in remote places is really overqualified. Moreover, he has some prejudices: children from poor families are born fools, and there is no need to teach these stupid children to study hard. If there is an opportunity, they should be punished to add some fun to this boring life.
This day is a depressing day for the math teacher. The students cringed when they saw the teacher's depressed face, knowing that the teacher was going to arrest these students again today and punish them.
"You calculate for me today, from 1 plus 2 plus 3 to 100. Whoever can't figure it out will be punished for not going home for lunch. " The teacher said this, picked up a novel, sat in a chair and read it without saying a word.
The children in the classroom picked up the slate and began to calculate: "1 plus 2 equals 3, 3 plus 3 equals 6, 6 plus 4 equals10 …" Some children added a number to the slate and then erased the result. After adding it, the number is getting bigger and bigger, which is difficult to calculate. Some children's little faces turned red, and some children's palms and foreheads oozed sweat.
Less than half an hour later, little Gauss picked up the slate and stepped forward. "Teacher, is this the answer?"
Without looking up, the teacher waved his thick hand and said, "Go, go back!"! Wrong. " He thought it impossible to have an answer so soon.
But Gauss stood still and put the slate in front of the teacher: "Teacher! I think this answer is correct. "
The math teacher wanted to shout, but when he saw the number written on the slate: 5050, he was surprised because he calculated it himself and got the number of 5050. How did this 8-year-old child get this value so quickly?
Gauss explained a method he discovered, which was used by the ancient Greeks and China people to calculate the sequence1+2+3+…+n. Gauss's discovery made the teacher feel ashamed, and felt that his previous view of being arrogant and belittling poor children was wrong. He also taught seriously in the future, and often bought some math books from the city for his own study and lent them to Gauss. With his encouragement, Gauss later did some important research in mathematics.
Archimedes measures crown volume.
Legend has it that the ancient Greek king wanted to make a pure gold crown exactly like Tyre's crown, so he called a clever jeweler, explained his wishes and asked him to weigh all the gold.
After a while, the jeweler delivered the crown as scheduled, with a magnificent appearance, exactly the same as Thiel's crown, and the same weight as the stolen gold. The king gave the jeweler a large reward according to his initial promise.
But the jeweler acts like a liar. Will the taken gold be stolen and mixed with other metals? Facing this golden crown, the king's heart suddenly turned cold! But how can we judge whether gold is adulterated without melting the crown? How can such a beautiful and brilliant crown be melted again? The king struggled with this difficult mystery day and night, and finally fell ill.
Finally, he summoned Archimedes. Archimedes was the most famous wise man at that time. The king gave him this difficult problem: to test whether the crown is made of pure gold, but it is not allowed to damage the crown at all. Archimedes thought hard and tried everything, but he still failed to uncover the secret of the crown. He forgot to eat and sleep, and took a bath to cure diseases. He is crazy about fans. Even in his dream, he said, "Crown … king … jeweler … silver … gold …" A few weeks later, Archimedes was unkempt and his wife pushed him into the bathroom. When Archimedes was immersed in the water, he suddenly felt that he had lost weight. As long as he exerts a gentle force, his body can float ... At this time, his head is covered with crowns ... kings ... jewelers ... gold ... silver ... His body sinks and floats for a while, and the water level in the bathtub rises and falls for a while. ...
Archimedes suddenly turned over and jumped up and shouted, "There is a way, there is a way!" " "Even without clothes, I went straight to the palace naked, leaving wet footprints on the road. ...
Do you know what Archimedes got from the buoyancy of water?
Solution: Archimedes took a container full of water and put the crown into the water according to the principle that the fluctuation of the body in the bathtub caused the water level to rise and fall, and the water in the container would inevitably overflow. He collected the spilled water in another container.
Then he put a piece of pure gold as heavy as a crown into a container full of water and collected the spilled water. If the crown is made of pure gold, the water spilled twice should be equal, but the water discharged from the crown is different from that of pure gold, which means that Wang Guanzhong has mixed substances with different proportions from pure gold, so it is concluded that the golden crown is adulterated. Archimedes finally solved the problem. The cunning goldsmith was punished for this.
Xiaooula zhigai sheepfold
Euler is a famous mathematician in the history of mathematics. He has made outstanding achievements in several branches of mathematics, such as number theory, geometry, astronomical mathematics and calculus. However, this great mathematician was not liked by teachers at all when he was a child. He is a student expelled from school.
Things are caused by stars. At that time, little Euler was studying in a missionary school. Once, he asked the teacher how many stars there were in the sky. The teacher is a believer in theology. He doesn't know how many stars there are in the sky, and the Bible doesn't answer. In fact, there are countless stars in the sky, which are infinite. There are thousands of stars visible to the naked eye. Without pretending to understand, the teacher replied to Euler, "It doesn't matter how many stars there are in the sky, as long as you know that the stars in the sky are inlaid by God."
Euler felt very strange: "The sky is so big and so high, and there is no escalator on the ground. How did God embed the stars on the screen one by one? " God himself put them in the sky one by one. Why did he forget the number of stars? Could God be too careless?
He asked the teacher a question in his heart, and the teacher was confused again, blushed and didn't know how to answer. A sudden anger rose in the teacher's heart, not only because a child who just went to school asked the teacher such a question, so that the teacher could not step down, but more importantly, the teacher regarded God above everything else. Little Euler blames God for not remembering the number of stars. The implication is that he doubts almighty god. In the teacher's view, this is a serious problem.
In Euler's time, there was absolutely no doubt about God. People can only be slaves of ideas, and they are absolutely not allowed to think freely. Little Euler didn't "keep in line" with the church and God, so the teacher told him to leave school and go home. However, in little Euler's mind, the sacred aura of God disappeared. God is a loser, he thought. Why can't he even remember the stars in the sky? He thought, God is a dictator, and even asking questions has become a crime. He thinks that God may be a guy made up by others and does not exist at all.
After returning home, he helped his father herd sheep and became a shepherd boy. He read a book while herding sheep. Among the books he read, there are many math books.
Dad's flock increased gradually, reaching 100. The original sheepfold was a little small, so my father decided to build a new sheepfold. He measured a rectangular piece of land with a ruler, 40 meters long and 15 meters wide. He calculated that the area is exactly 600 square meters, with an average of 6 square meters per sheep. When he was ready to start construction, he found that his materials were only enough for the fence of 100 meters, which was not enough at all. If you want to enclose a sheepfold with a length of 40m and a width of 15m, its circumference is110m (15+15+40+40 =1/kloc-0). If we want to build it according to the original plan, my father feels very embarrassed. If the area is reduced, the area of each sheep is less than 6 square meters.
Little Euler told his father that there was no need to shrink the sheepfold and not to worry that the territory of each sheep would be smaller than originally planned. He has an idea. Father didn't believe that little Euler would have a way, so he ignored him. Little Euler was in a hurry and said loudly, only moving a little stake in the sheepfold.
Father shook his head and thought, "How can there be such a cheap thing in the world?" However, little Euler insisted that he would be able to kill two birds with one stone. The father finally agreed to let his son try.
Little Euler saw his father agree, stood up and ran to the sheepfold to get ready to start work. He shortened the original side length of 40 meters to 25 meters centered on the stake. The father was anxious and said, "How can that be done? Then how to do it? This sheepfold is too small, too small. " Little Euler didn't answer, so he ran to the other side and extended the original side length of15m, and increased it by10m to 25m. In this way, the original planned sheepfold has become a square with a side length of 25 meters. Then, little Euler confidently said to his father, "Now, the fence is enough and the area is enough."
Father built a fence according to the sheepfold designed by little Euler. 100 meter fence is really enough, no more, no less, all used up. The area is enough, a little bigger. Father felt very happy. Children are smarter than themselves, they really use their brains, and they will definitely have a bright future.
Father thinks it's a pity to let such a clever child herd sheep. Later, he tried to let little Euler know the great mathematician Bernoulli. On the recommendation of mathematicians, little Euler became a college student in university of basel on 1720. This year, little Euler 13 was the youngest student in this university.
Great aspiration of serving the motherland-Hua's story
Hua's father is a small boss who runs a grocery store. Due to the bleak business and deteriorating family circumstances, Hua dropped out of school and became a bookkeeper in a grocery store. In the tedious and monotonous work, he did not give up his greatest hobby-mathematical research. Just as he was trying to teach himself, disaster fell from the sky-he contracted terrible typhoid fever and was sentenced to death by the doctor. However, he miraculously survived, only his left leg was permanently disabled. It is this sentence that he often talks about: "The so-called genius depends on unremitting efforts." With unremitting efforts and hard self-study, this mathematician without a junior college diploma touched the domestic mathematics circle with a paper "The reason why Su Jiaju's algebraic quintic equation can't be solved" in 1930. Later, he was recommended by Professor Xiong Qinglai to be a teaching assistant in the Department of Mathematics of Tsinghua University, and began his mathematics career.
65438-0936, recommended by Professor Xiong Qinglai, Hua went to Cambridge University in England to study. Hardy, a famous mathematician in the 20th century, has long heard that China is brilliant. He said, "You can get a doctorate in two years." But Hua said, "I don't want to get a doctorate." I just want to be a tourist. " "I came to Cambridge to study, not to get a degree." In the past two years, he has devoted himself to studying the theory of heap-based prime numbers, published 18 papers on the problems of Waring, altruism and Chigodbach, obtained the famous Fahrenheit theorem, and showed the outstanding wisdom and ability of China mathematicians to the whole world.
From 65438 to 0946, Hua was invited to give lectures in the United States and was hired as a tenured professor by the University of Illinois. His family also settled in the United States, with a house and a car, and their life was very comfortable. At that time, many people thought that Hua would never come back.
The birth of the new China touched China's love for the motherland. 1950, he resolutely gave up his comfortable life in America.
After returning to the motherland, he also wrote an open letter to China students studying in the United States, urging them to return to China to participate in socialist construction. In his letter, he confessed his love for China: "Friends! Although Liangyuan is good, it is not the hometown of longevity. Go back to Xi ... For the sake of the nation, we should go back ... "Although mathematics has no national boundaries, mathematicians have their own motherland.
Hua returned from overseas and was warmly welcomed by the party and people. He returned to Tsinghua campus, was appointed as the head of the Department of Mathematics, and was soon appointed as the director of the Institute of Mathematics of China Academy of Sciences. From then on, the real golden age of his mathematical research began. He has not only made remarkable achievements that have attracted worldwide attention, but also enthusiastically cared for and trained a large number of mathematical talents. He devoted a lot of efforts to the research, experiment and popularization of applied mathematics.
According to incomplete statistics, Hua * * * has published important mathematical papers 152, 9 mathematical works and1/mathematical popular science works for decades. He was also elected as a foreign academician of the Academy of Sciences and an academician of third world scientists.
From junior high school graduation to people's mathematician, Hua has gone through a tortuous and brilliant life path and won great honor for his motherland.
Zu Chongzhi (429 ~ 500)
China was a mathematician, astronomer and physicist in the Southern Dynasties. Fan was born in (now Laishui, Hebei Province).
Zu Chongzhi (429-500) had a grandfather named Zuchang, who was an official in charge of royal architecture in Song Dynasty. Zu Chongzhi grew up in such a family and learned a lot from childhood. People all praise him as a knowledgeable young man. He especially likes studying mathematics, and he also likes studying astronomical calendars. He often observes the movements of the sun and planets and makes detailed records.
When Emperor Xiaowu of Song heard of his fame, he sent him to work in a government office specializing in academic research in Hualin Province. He is not interested in being an official, but he can concentrate more on mathematics and astronomy there.
There have been officials who studied astronomy in all previous dynasties in our country. They made calendars according to the results of astronomical research. By the Song Dynasty, the calendar had made great progress, but Zu Chongzhi thought it was not accurate enough. Based on his long-term observation, he created a new calendar called "Daming Calendar" ("Daming" is the title of Emperor Xiaowu of Song Dynasty). The number of days in each tropical year measured by this calendar (that is, the time between winter and sun in two years) is only 50 seconds different from that measured by modern science; It takes less than one second to measure the number of days for the moon to make one revolution, which shows its accuracy.
In 462 AD, Zu Chongzhi requested Emperor Xiaowu of Song Dynasty to issue a new calendar, and Emperor Xiaowu called ministers to discuss it. At that time, Dai Faxing, one of the emperor's minions, stood out against it and thought that it was deviant for Zu Chongzhi to change the ancient calendar without authorization. Zu Chongzhi refuted Defarge on the spot with his own research data. Relying on the emperor's favor, Dai Faxing said arrogantly: "The calendar was formulated by the ancients and cannot be changed by future generations." Zu Chongzhi is not afraid at all. He said very seriously, "If you have a solid basis, argue it out. Don't scare people with empty talk. " Emperor Xiaowu of Song wanted to help Dai Faxing, and found some people who knew the calendar to argue with Zu Chongzhi, but Zu Chongzhi refuted them one by one. However, Emperor Xiaowu of Song still refused to issue a new calendar. It was not until ten years after Zu Chongzhi's death that his Da Ming Li was put into practice.
Although the society was very turbulent at that time, Zu Chongzhi studied science tirelessly. His greater achievement is in mathematics. He once annotated the ancient mathematics book Nine Chapters Arithmetic and wrote a book Composition. His most outstanding contribution is to get quite accurate pi. After a long and arduous study, he calculated pi between 3. 14 15926 and 3. 14 15927, becoming the first scientist in the world to calculate pi to more than seven digits.
Zu Chongzhi is a generalist in scientific inventions. He built a kind of compass, and the copper man in the car always pointed south. He also built a "Thousand-Li Ship" and tried it in Xinting River (now southwest of Nanjing). It can sail 100 Li a day. He also used hydraulic power to rotate the stone mill, pounding rice and grinding millet, which was called "water hammer mill".
In Zu Chongzhi's later years, Xiao Daocheng, who mastered the Song Guards, wiped out the Song Dynasty.
Chen Jingrun (1933 ~ 1966)
China mathematician and academician of China Academy of Sciences. Fujian Minhou people.
Chen Jingrun was born in a small clerical family, ranking third with his brothers and sisters. Because there are many children at home, my father's income is meager, and family life is very tight. So Chen Jingrun seems to be a burden to his parents from birth, a person who thinks he is unwelcome. After school, I was often bullied because I was thin and weak. This special life situation has shaped him into an extremely introverted and inarticulate person, and his fascination with mathematics has made him develop the habit of thinking alone and building a car behind closed doors, so he is considered a "freak" by others. Chen Jingrun chose to study mathematics all his life, which was related to Professor Shen Yuan. There, Chen Jingrun first learned about Goldbach's conjecture, that is, from there, from the first moment of Chen Jingrun, he was determined to take off the jewel in the crown of mathematics. 1953, he graduated from Xiamen University and stayed in the library to work, but he never forgot Goldbach's conjecture. He sent his math paper to Professor Hua, who appreciated his talent and transferred him to the Institute of Mathematics of China Academy of Sciences as an intern researcher. From then on, under the guidance of Hua, he was lucky enough to enter Goldbach's conjecture. 1966 In May, a dazzling new star flashed over the global mathematics world-Chen Jingrun announced that he had proved "1+2" in Goldbach's conjecture; 1972 February, completed the modification of "1+2" certificate. Incredibly, foreign mathematicians use large high-speed computers to prove "1+3", while Chen Jingrun relies entirely on paper, pens and skulls. If this is puzzling, then the six sacks of manuscript paper he used to simplify the proof of "1+2" is enough to explain the problem. 1973, he published the famous "Chen Theorem", which is considered as the glorious culmination of the screening method.
A famous mathematician abroad once praised Chen Jingrun's achievement: he moved mountains and toppled seas.
Euler (1707 ~ 1783)
Euler, Swiss mathematician, member of the Royal Society.
Euler was fascinated by mathematics since he was a child, and he was an out-and-out mathematical genius. /kloc-became a student of a prestigious Basel school at the age of 0/3,/kloc-obtained a master's degree at the age of 0/6, and was promoted to a professor at the age of 23. 1727 was invited to work in the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, Russia. Overwork blinded him. However, this did not affect his work. Euler has an amazing memory. Hydrogen theory 177 1 a fire in St. Petersburg reduced his large collection of books and manuscripts to ashes. With his amazing memory, he dictated and published more than 400 papers and many works. Euler, a mathematical superstar in18th century, has made great contributions in the fields of calculus, differential equations, geometry, number theory, variational science and so on, thus establishing the position of the founder of variational method and the pioneer of complex variable function. At the same time, he is also an excellent popular science writer, and his popular science books have been reprinted for 90 years. Euler is the most prolific mathematician ever. It is said that his precious cultural heritage was enough for all the printing presses in St. Petersburg to be busy for several years at the same time.
As one of the four mathematicians who have made the greatest contribution to mathematics in history (the other three are Archimedes, Newton and Gauss), Euler is known as "Shakespeare in mathematics".
Mathematician Yang Hui
Yang Hui was an outstanding mathematician and mathematical educator in the Southern Song Dynasty. /kloc-in the middle of the 0/3rd century, he was active in Suzhou and Hangzhou with many works. His famous math books have five kinds and 21 volumes. There are twelve volumes (126 1 year), two volumes (1262 year), three volumes (1274 year) and two volumes (field ratio multiplication and division algorithm). Yang Hui's mathematical research and education work focuses on computing technology. He summed up and developed agile algorithms for calculating multiplication and division, and some even made up songs, such as Nine Centralized Decisions. In his Algorithm for Extracting Odds from Ancient Times, he introduced various forms of "vertical and horizontal graphs" and related construction methods. "Overlap" was Yang Hui's research on higher-order arithmetic progression after Shen Kuo's "Gap Product". In Classification, Yang Hui reclassified 246 problems in Nine Chapters of Arithmetic into nine categories according to the order of solving problems from shallow to deep, such as multiplication and division, division rate, coincidence rate, exchange, quadratic decline, overlapping product, surplus and deficiency, equation, Pythagorean and so on.
He attaches great importance to the popularization and development of mathematics education. Under the background of algorithm reform, Yang Hui's Learning Plan for Beginners is an important document in the history of Chinese mathematics education.
But need to be rewritten; The second draft with detailed derivation was missing because the reviewer died of illness; The third paper 183 1 submitted in June was rejected because the reviewers could not fully understand it.
On the one hand, young Galois pursues the true knowledge of mathematics, on the other hand, he devotes himself to the cause of social justice. 183 1 In the "July Revolution" in France, Galois, as a freshman in a normal university, led the masses to protest against the autocratic rule of the king and was unfortunately arrested. In prison, he contracted cholera. Even under such harsh conditions, Galois continued his mathematical research after he was released from prison and wrote a paper for publication. Shortly after he was released from prison, he died in a duel because he was involved in a boring "love" entanglement. After Galois died in 16, his 60-page manuscript was published and his name spread all over the scientific community.
The Father of Mathematics-Cyrus
Born in 624 BC, Ju Lushi was the first famous mathematician in ancient Greece. He used to be a shrewd businessman. After he accumulated considerable wealth by selling olive oil, Cyrus devoted himself to scientific research and travel. He is diligent and studious, at the same time, he is not superstitious about the ancients, and he is brave in exploration, creation and positive thinking. His hometown is not too far from Egypt, so he often travels to Egypt. There, Ju Lushi learned about the rich mathematical knowledge accumulated by ancient Egyptians for thousands of years. When he traveled in Egypt, he calculated the height of the pyramids in a clever way, which made the ancient Egyptian king Amerasis admire him very much. Cyrus's method is ingenious and simple: choose a sunny day, erect a small stick at the edge of the pyramid, and then observe the change of the shadow length of the stick. When the length of the shadow is exactly equal to the length of the stick, quickly measure the length of the pyramid shadow, because at this time, the height of the pyramid is exactly equal to the length of the tower shadow. It is also said that Ju Lushi calculated the height of the pyramid with the ratio of the length of the stick shadow to the tower shadow equal to the ratio of the stick height to the tower height. If this is the case, it is necessary to use the mathematical theorem that the corresponding sides of a triangle are proportional. Ju Lushi boasted that he taught this method to the ancient Egyptians, but the fact may be just the opposite. It should be that the Egyptians knew a similar method a long time ago, but they were only satisfied with knowing how to calculate, without thinking about why they could get the correct answer. Before Ju Lushi, when people knew nature, they were only satisfied with how to explain all kinds of things. Ju Lushi's greatness lies in that he can not only explain it, but also add a scientific question mark to why. The mathematical knowledge accumulated by ancient orientals is mainly some calculation formulas summarized from experience. Cyrus believes that the formula thus obtained may be correct in one problem, but it may not be correct in another. Only when they are proved to be universally correct in theory can they be widely used to solve practical problems. In the early stage of the development of human culture, it is commendable that Ju Lushi consciously put forward such a view. It endows mathematics with special scientific significance and is a great leap in the history of mathematics development. This is why Cyrus is called the father of mathematics. Cyrus first proved the following theorem:
1. The circle is divided into two by any diameter.
2. The two base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal.
3. Two straight lines intersect and the vertex angles are equal.
4. The inscribed triangle of a semicircle must be a right triangle.
5. If two triangles have one side and the two angles on this side are equal, then the two triangles are congruent. This theorem was first discovered and proved by Cyrus, and later generations usually call it Cyrus theorem. According to legend, Ju Lushi was very happy when he proved this theorem. He slaughtered a bull to worship the gods. Later, he also used this theorem to calculate the distance between the ship at sea and the land.
Ju Lushi also made pioneering contributions to ancient Greek philosophy and astronomy. Historians affirm that Cyrus should be considered as the first astronomer. He often lies on his back to observe the constellations in the sky and explore the mysteries of the universe. His maid often joked that Cyrus wanted to know the distant sky, but ignored the beautiful scenery in front of him. According to the research of Herodotus, a historian of mathematics, it is known that the day suddenly turned into night (actually a solar eclipse) after hals War, and Ju Lushi had predicted this before the war. There is an inscription on Ju Lushi's tombstone: The tomb of the king of astronomers is a little small, but his glory in the field of stars is quite great.