21st October

Mathematicians who were born or died on 21st October

Mathematicians born on this day:

1687 : Nicolaus(I) Bernoulli
1823 : Betti
1855 : Guccia
1882 : Vandiver
1893 : Ferrar
1914 : Gardner

Mathematicians who died on this day:

1881 : Heine
1969 : Sierpinski
2000 : Struik
2002 : Bernhard Neumann

Posters available (Click on a link below)

Enrico Betti Eduard Heine Waclaw Sierpinski

A quotation for today

Harry S Vandiver (1882 - 1973)

It is not known if there are infinitely many Wilson primes. This question seems to be of such a character that if I should come to life any time after my death and some mathematician were to tell me that it had definitely been settled, I think I would immediately drop dead again.
[Wilson primes satisfy (p - 1)! = -1 mod p².
5, 13, and 563 are the only Wilson primes less than 5 × 10⁸ ]

Quoted in D MacHale, Comic Sections (Dublin 1993)

Another quotation by one of today's mathematicians

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JOC/EFR October 2010 The URL of this page is:	School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Day_files/Day1021.html