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1837 In Science
The year 1837 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Biology * January 10 – John Gould reports to the Zoological Society of London that bird specimens brought by Charles Darwin from the Galápagos Islands which Darwin had thought were blackbirds, "gross-bills" and finches are in fact "a series of ground Finches which are so peculiar" as to form "an entirely new group, containing 12 species", an important step in the inception of Darwin's theory. * March–July – Charles Darwin begins privately to develop his theory of transmutation of species. * November 6 – Establishment of the Public Garden in Boston (Massachusetts), as a botanical garden, the first in the United States to be open to the general public. Mathematics * Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet publishes Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic progressions, using mathematical analysis concepts to tackle an algebraic problem and thus creating the branch of analytic number theory. In prov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Analysis
Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limit (mathematics), limits, and related theories, such as Derivative, differentiation, Integral, integration, measure (mathematics), measure, infinite sequences, series (mathematics), series, and analytic functions. These theories are usually studied in the context of Real number, real and Complex number, complex numbers and Function (mathematics), functions. Analysis evolved from calculus, which involves the elementary concepts and techniques of analysis. Analysis may be distinguished from geometry; however, it can be applied to any Space (mathematics), space of mathematical objects that has a definition of nearness (a topological space) or specific distances between objects (a metric space). History Ancient Mathematical analysis formally developed in the 17th century during the Scientific Revolution, but many of its ideas can be traced back to earlier mathematicians. Early results in analysis were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siméon Denis Poisson
Baron Siméon Denis Poisson (, ; ; 21 June 1781 – 25 April 1840) was a French mathematician and physicist who worked on statistics, complex analysis, partial differential equations, the calculus of variations, analytical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, thermodynamics, elasticity, and fluid mechanics. Moreover, he predicted the Arago spot in his attempt to disprove the wave theory of Augustin-Jean Fresnel. Biography Poisson was born in Pithiviers, now in Loiret, France, the son of Siméon Poisson, an officer in the French Army. In 1798, he entered the École Polytechnique, in Paris, as first in his year, and immediately began to attract the notice of the professors of the school, who left him free to make his own decisions as to what he would study. In his final year of study, less than two years after his entry, he published two memoirs: one on Étienne Bézout's method of elimination, the other on the number of integrals of a finite difference equation. This was so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Real Number
In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measure a continuous one- dimensional quantity such as a duration or temperature. Here, ''continuous'' means that pairs of values can have arbitrarily small differences. Every real number can be almost uniquely represented by an infinite decimal expansion. The real numbers are fundamental in calculus (and in many other branches of mathematics), in particular by their role in the classical definitions of limits, continuity and derivatives. The set of real numbers, sometimes called "the reals", is traditionally denoted by a bold , often using blackboard bold, . The adjective ''real'', used in the 17th century by René Descartes, distinguishes real numbers from imaginary numbers such as the square roots of . The real numbers include the rational numbers, such as the integer and the fraction . The rest of the real numbers are called irrational numbers. Some irrational numbers (as well as all the rationals) a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ordered Pair
In mathematics, an ordered pair, denoted (''a'', ''b''), is a pair of objects in which their order is significant. The ordered pair (''a'', ''b'') is different from the ordered pair (''b'', ''a''), unless ''a'' = ''b''. In contrast, the '' unordered pair'', denoted , always equals the unordered pair . Ordered pairs are also called 2-tuples, or sequences (sometimes, lists in a computer science context) of length 2. Ordered pairs of scalars are sometimes called 2-dimensional vectors. (Technically, this is an abuse of terminology since an ordered pair need not be an element of a vector space.) The entries of an ordered pair can be other ordered pairs, enabling the recursive definition of ordered ''n''-tuples (ordered lists of ''n'' objects). For example, the ordered triple (''a'',''b'',''c'') can be defined as (''a'', (''b'',''c'')), i.e., as one pair nested in another. In the ordered pair (''a'', ''b''), the object ''a'' is called the ''first entry'', and the object ''b'' the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Complex Number
In mathematics, a complex number is an element of a number system that extends the real numbers with a specific element denoted , called the imaginary unit and satisfying the equation i^= -1; every complex number can be expressed in the form a + bi, where and are real numbers. Because no real number satisfies the above equation, was called an imaginary number by René Descartes. For the complex number is called the , and is called the . The set of complex numbers is denoted by either of the symbols \mathbb C or . Despite the historical nomenclature, "imaginary" complex numbers have a mathematical existence as firm as that of the real numbers, and they are fundamental tools in the scientific description of the natural world. Complex numbers allow solutions to all polynomial equations, even those that have no solutions in real numbers. More precisely, the fundamental theorem of algebra asserts that every non-constant polynomial equation with real or complex coefficie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Rowan Hamilton
Sir William Rowan Hamilton (4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) was an Irish astronomer, mathematician, and physicist who made numerous major contributions to abstract algebra, classical mechanics, and optics. His theoretical works and mathematical equations are considered fundamental to modern theoretical physics, particularly Hamiltonian mechanics, his reformulation of Lagrangian mechanics. His career included the analysis of geometrical optics, Fourier analysis, and quaternions, the last of which made him one of the founders of modern linear algebra. Hamilton was Andrews Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College Dublin. He was also the third director of Dunsink Observatory from 1827 to 1865. The Hamilton Institute at Maynooth University is named after him. Early life Hamilton was the fourth of nine children born to Sarah Hutton (1780–1817) and Archibald Hamilton (1778–1819), who lived in Dublin at 29 Dominick Street, Dublin, Dominick Street, later renumbered to 36. Ham ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernard Bolzano
Bernard Bolzano (, ; ; ; born Bernardus Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano; 5 October 1781 – 18 December 1848) was a Bohemian mathematician, logician, philosopher, theologian and Catholic priest of Italian extraction, also known for his liberal views. Bolzano wrote in German, his native language. For the most part, his work came to prominence posthumously. Family Bolzano was the son of two pious Catholics. His father, Bernard Pompeius Bolzano, was an Italian who had moved to Prague, where he married Maria Cecilia Maurer who came from Prague's German-speaking family Maurer. Only two of their twelve children lived to adulthood. Career When he was ten years old, Bolzano entered the Gymnasium of the Piarists in Prague, which he attended from 1791 to 1796. Bolzano entered the University of Prague in 1796 and studied mathematics, philosophy and physics. Starting in 1800, he also began studying theology, becoming a Catholic priest in 1804. He was appointed to the new chair of p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riemann Series Theorem
In mathematics, the Riemann series theorem, also called the Riemann rearrangement theorem, named after 19th-century German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, says that if an infinite series of real numbers is conditionally convergent, then its terms can be arranged in a permutation so that the new series converges to an arbitrary real number, and rearranged such that the new series diverges. This implies that a series of real numbers is absolutely convergent if and only if it is unconditionally convergent. As an example, the series : 1-1+\frac-\frac+\frac-\frac+\frac-\frac+\dots converges to 0 (for a sufficiently large number of terms, the partial sum gets arbitrarily near to 0); but replacing all terms with their absolute values gives : 1 + 1 + \frac + \frac + \frac + \frac + \dots which sums to infinity. Thus, the original series is conditionally convergent, and can be rearranged (by taking the first two positive terms followed by the first negative term, followed by the n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Series (mathematics)
In mathematics, a series is, roughly speaking, an addition of Infinity, infinitely many Addition#Terms, terms, one after the other. The study of series is a major part of calculus and its generalization, mathematical analysis. Series are used in most areas of mathematics, even for studying finite structures in combinatorics through generating functions. The mathematical properties of infinite series make them widely applicable in other quantitative disciplines such as physics, computer science, statistics and finance. Among the Ancient Greece, Ancient Greeks, the idea that a potential infinity, potentially infinite summation could produce a finite result was considered paradoxical, most famously in Zeno's paradoxes. Nonetheless, infinite series were applied practically by Ancient Greek mathematicians including Archimedes, for instance in the Quadrature of the Parabola, quadrature of the parabola. The mathematical side of Zeno's paradoxes was resolved using the concept of a limit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conditional Convergence
In mathematics, a series or integral is said to be conditionally convergent if it converges, but it does not converge absolutely. Definition More precisely, a series of real numbers \sum_^\infty a_n is said to converge conditionally if \lim_\,\sum_^m a_n exists (as a finite real number, i.e. not \infty or -\infty), but \sum_^\infty \left, a_n\ = \infty. A classic example is the alternating harmonic series given by 1 - + - + - \cdots =\sum\limits_^\infty , which converges to \ln (2), but is not absolutely convergent (see Harmonic series). Bernhard Riemann Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (; ; 17September 182620July 1866) was a German mathematician who made profound contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry. In the field of real analysis, he is mostly known for the f ... proved that a conditionally convergent series may be rearranged to converge to any value at all, including ∞ or −∞; see Riemann series theorem. Agnew' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Absolute Convergence
In mathematics, an infinite series of numbers is said to converge absolutely (or to be absolutely convergent) if the sum of the absolute values of the summands is finite. More precisely, a real or complex series \textstyle\sum_^\infty a_n is said to converge absolutely if \textstyle\sum_^\infty \left, a_n\ = L for some real number \textstyle L. Similarly, an improper integral of a function, \textstyle\int_0^\infty f(x)\,dx, is said to converge absolutely if the integral of the absolute value of the integrand is finite—that is, if \textstyle\int_0^\infty , f(x), dx = L. A convergent series that is not absolutely convergent is called conditionally convergent. Absolute convergence is important for the study of infinite series, because its definition guarantees that a series will have some "nice" behaviors of finite sums that not all convergent series possess. For instance, rearrangements do not change the value of the sum, which is not necessarily true for conditionally converge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
