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Mittag-Leffler, Magnus Gösta

(Encyclopedia)Mittag-Leffler, Magnus Gösta mängˈno͝os yöˈstä mĭtˈäg-lĕfˈlər [key], 1846–1927, Swedish mathematician. He was (1877–81) professor at Helsingfors (Helsinki) and at the Univ. of Stockho...

Ch'in Chiu-shao

(Encyclopedia)Ch'in Chiu-shao chĭn chyo͞o-shou [key], c.1202–1261, Chinese mathematician. He pioneered in the study of indeterminate analysis in his Mathematical Treatise in Nine Sections of 1247. The text exis...

Babbage, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Babbage, Charles băbˈĭj [key], 1792–1871, English mathematician and inventor. He devoted most of his life and expended much of his private fortune and a government subsidy in an attempt to perfec...

Viète, François

(Encyclopedia)Viète or Vieta, François fräNswäˈ vyĕt, vyātäˈ, vīēˈtə [key], 1540–1603, French mathematician. As a founder of modern algebra, he introduced the use of letters as algebraic symbols and ...

Nash, John Forbes, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Nash, John Forbes, Jr., 1928–2015, American mathematician, b. Bluefield, W.Va., grad. Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon Univ., B.A. and M.A. 1948), Ph.D. Princeton 1950. During a...

chaos theory

(Encyclopedia)chaos theory, in mathematics, physics, and other fields, a set of ideas that attempts to reveal structure in aperiodic, unpredictable dynamic systems such as cloud formation or the fluctuation of biol...

Minkowski, Hermann

(Encyclopedia)Minkowski, Hermann hĕrˈmän mĭnkôfˈskē [key], 1864–1909, Russian mathematician. He was educated in Germany and was professor at the Univ. of Königsberg (1894–96), the Federal Institute of T...

Levi-Civita, Tullio

(Encyclopedia)Levi-Civita, Tullio to͞olˈlyō lāˈvē-chēˈvētä [key], 1873–1942, Italian mathematician. He taught at the universities of Padua (1898–1919) and Rome (1919–38) and was noted for his resear...

Loomis, Elias

(Encyclopedia)Loomis, Elias, 1811–89, American physicist and mathematician, b. Willington, Conn., grad. Yale, 1830. He taught at Western Reserve (1837–44), at New York Univ. (1844–47, 1849–60), and at Yale ...

Hagen, Johannes Georg

(Encyclopedia)Hagen, Johannes Georg yōhäˈnəs gāˈôrk häˈgən [key], 1847–1930, American astronomer and mathematician, b. Austria. A Jesuit, he came in 1880 to the United States to teach. In 1888 he was ma...