David Hilbert Born: 23 Jan 1862 in Knigsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) Died: 14 Feb 1943 in Gttingen, Germany

Hilbert's first work was on invariant theory and, in 1888, he proved his famous Basis Theorem. He discovered a completely new approach which proved the finite basis theorem for any number of variables but in an entirely abstract way. Although he proved that a finite basis existed his methods did not construct such a basis. Hilbert submitted a paper proving the finite basis theorem to Mathematische Annalen. In 1893 while still at Knigsberg Hilbert began a work Zahlbericht on algebraic number theory. The German Mathematical Society requested this major report three years after the Society was created in 1890. The Zahlbericht (1897) is a brilliant synthesis of the work of Kummer, Kronecker and Dedekind but contains a wealth of Hilbert's own ideas. The ideas of the present day subject of 'Class field theory' are all contained in this work. Hilbert's work in geometry had the greatest influence in that area after Euclid. A systematic study of the axioms of Euclidean geometry led Hilbert to propose 21 such axioms and he analysed their significance. He published Grundlagen der Geometrie in 1899 putting geometry in a formal axiomatic setting. The book continued to appear in new editions and was a major influence in promoting the axiomatic approach to mathematics which has been one of the major characteristics of the subject throughout the 20 th century. Hilbert's famous 23 Paris problems challenged (and still today challenge) mathematicians to solve fundamental questions. Hilbert's famous speech The Problems of Mathematics was delivered to the Second International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris. It was a speech full of optimism for mathematics in the coming century and he felt that open problems were the sign of vitality in the subject. Hilbert's problems included the continuum hypothesis, the well ordering of the reals, Goldbach's conjecture, the transcendence of powers of algebraic numbers, the Riemann hypothesis, the extension of Dirichlet's principle and many more. Many of the problems were solved during this century, and each time one of the problems was solved it was a major event for mathematics. Hilbert's work in integral equations in about 1909 led directly to 20th-century research in functional analysis (the branch of mathematics in which functions are studied collectively). This work also established the basis for his work on infinite-dimensional space, later called Hilbert space, a concept that is useful in mathematical analysis and quantum mechanics. Making use of his results on integral equations, Hilbert contributed to the development of mathematical physics by his important memoirs on kinetic gas theory and the theory of radiations. In 1934 and 1939 two volumes of Grundlagen der Mathematik were published which were intended to lead to a 'proof theory', a direct check for the consistency of mathematics. Gdel's paper of 1931 showed that this aim is impossible. Hilbert contributed to many branches of mathematics, including invariants, algebraic number fields, functional analysis, integral equations, mathematical physics, and the calculus of variations. Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor Born: 3 March 1845 in St Petersburg, Russia Died: 6 Jan 1918 in Halle, Germany He spent the summer term of 1866 at the University of Gttingen, returning to Berlin to complete his dissertation on number theory De aequationibus secundi gradus indeterminatis in 1867. While at Berlin Cantor became much involved with the Mathematical Society being president of the Society during 1864-65. He was also part of a small group of young mathematicians who met weekly in a wine house. Cantor published a paper on trigonometric series in 1872 in which he defined irrational numbers in terms of convergent sequences of rational numbers. In 1873 Cantor proved the rational numbers countable, i.e. they may be placed in one-one correspondence with the natural numbers. He also showed that the algebraic numbers, i.e. the numbers which are roots of polynomial equations with integer coefficients, were countable. However his attempts to decide whether the real numbers were countable proved harder. He had proved that the real numbers were not countable by December 1873 and published this in a paper in 1874. It is in this paper that the idea of a one-one correspondence appears for the first time, but it is only implicit in this work. Twenty years later, in this 1874 work, Cantor showed that in a certain sense 'almost all' numbers are transcendental by proving that the real numbers were not countable while he had proved that the algebraic numbers were countable. Between 1879 and 1884 Cantor published a series of six papers in Mathematische Annalende signed to provide a basic introduction to set theory. Klein may have had a major influence in having Mathematische Annalen published them. Cantor was publishing in Mittag-Leffler's journal Acta Mathematica but his important series of six papers in Mathematische Annalenalso continued to appear. The fifth paper in this series Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre was also published as a separate monograph and was especially important for a number of reasons. Firstly Cantor realised that his theory of sets was not finding the acceptance that he had hoped and the Grundlagen was designed to reply to the criticisms.

The major achievement of the Grundlagen was its presentation of the transfinite numbers as an autonomous and systematic extension of the natural numbers. He turned from the mathematical development of set theory towards two new directions, firstly discussing the philosophical aspects of his theory with many philosophers (he published these letters in 1888) and secondly taking over after Clebsch's death his idea of founding the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung which he achieved in 1890. His last major papers on set theory appeared in 1895 and 1897, again in Mathematische Annalen under Klein's editorship, and are fine surveys of transfinite arithmetic. Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann Born: 17 Sept 1826 in Breselenz, Hanover (now Germany) Died: 20 July 1866 in Selasca, Italy Riemann's thesis studied the theory of complex variables and, in particular, what we now call Riemann surfaces. It therefore introduced topological methods into complex function theory. The work builds on Cauchy's foundations of the theory of complex variables built up over many years and also on Puiseux's ideas of branch points. However, Riemann's thesis is a strikingly original piece of work which examined geometric properties of analytic functions, conformal mappings and the connectivity of surfaces. In proving some of the results in his thesis Riemann used a variational principle which he was later to call the Dirichlet Principle since he had learnt it from Dirichlet's lectures in Berlin. The Dirichlet Principle did not originate with Dirichlet, however, as Gauss, Green and Thomson had all made use it. Riemann's thesis, one of the most remarkable pieces of original work to appear in a doctoral thesis, was examined on 16 December 1851. Gauss had to choose one of the three for Riemann to deliver and, against Riemann's expectations, Gauss chose the lecture on geometry. Riemann's lecture ber die Hypothesen welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen (On the hypotheses that lie at the foundations of geometry), delivered on 10 June 1854, became a classic of mathematics. There were two parts to Riemann's lecture. In the first part he posed the problem of how to define an n-dimensional space and ended up giving a definition of what today we call a Riemannian space. 1857, another of his masterpieces was published. The paperTheory of abelian functions was the result of work carried out over several years and contained in a lecture course he gave to three people in 1855-56. A newly elected member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences had to report on their most recent research and Riemann sent a report on On the number of primes less than a given magnitude another of his great masterpieces which were to change the direction of mathematical research in a most significant way. In it Riemann examined the zeta function (s) = (1/ns) = (1 - p-s)-1 which had already been considered by Euler. Here the sum is over all natural numbers n while the product is over all prime numbers. Riemann considered a very different question to the one Euler had considered, for he looked at the zeta function as a complex function rather than a real one. Except for a few trivial exceptions, the roots of (s) all lie between 0 and 1. In the paper he stated that the zeta function had infinitely many nontrivial roots and that it seemed probable that they all have real part 1/2. This is the famous Riemann hypothesis which remains today one of the most important of the unsolved problems of mathematics. Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss Born: 30 April 1777 in Brunswick, Duchy of Brunswick (now Germany) Died: 23 Feb 1855 in Gttingen, Hanover (now Germany) At the age of seven, Gauss summed the integers from 1 to 100 instantly by spotting that the sum was 50 pairs of numbers each pair summing to 101. Gauss left Gttingen in 1798 without a diploma, but by this time he had made one of his most important discoveries - the construction of a regular 17-gon by ruler and compasses This was the most major advance in this field since the time of Greek mathematics and was published as Section VII of Gauss's famous work, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. He published the book Disquisitiones Arithmeticae in the summer of 1801. There were seven sections, all but the last section, referred to above, being devoted to number theory. He published his second book, Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis Solem ambientium, in 1809, a major two volume treatise on the motion of celestial bodies. In the first volume he discussed differential equations, conic sections and elliptic orbits, while in the second volume, the main part of the work, he showed how to estimate and then to refine the estimation of a planet's orbit. Much of Gauss's time was spent on a new observatory, completed in 1816, but he still found the time to work on other subjects. His publications during this time include Disquisitiones generales circa seriem infinitam, a rigorous treatment of series and an introduction of the hypergeometric function, Methodus nova integralium valores per approximationem inveniendi, a practical essay on approximate integration, Bestimmung der Genauigkeit der Beobachtungen, a discussion of statistical estimators, and Theoria

attractionis corporum sphaeroidicorum ellipticorum homogeneorum methodus nova tractata. The latter work was inspired by geodesic problems and was principally concerned with potential theory. In 1822 Gauss won the Copenhagen University Prize with Theoria attractionis... together with the idea of mapping one surface onto another so that the two are similar in their smallest parts. This paper was published in 1825 and led to the much later publication ofUntersuchungen ber Gegenstnde der Hheren Geodsie (1843 and 1846). The paperTheoria combinationis observationum erroribus minimis obnoxiae (1823), with its supplement (1828), was devoted to mathematical statistics, in particular to the least squares method. Gauss had a major interest in differential geometry, and published many papers on the subject.Disquisitiones generales circa superficies curva (1828) was his most renowned work in this field. In fact, this paper rose from his geodesic interests, but it contained such geometrical ideas as Gaussian curvature. The paper also includes Gauss's famous theorema egregrium: If an area in E3 can be developed (i.e. mapped isometrically) into another area of E3, the values of the Gaussian curvatures are identical in corresponding points. Julia Hall Bowman Robinson Born: 8 Dec 1919 in St Louis, Missouri, USA Died: 30 July 1985 in USA The biggest influence on Bowman's mathematical development at this time came not through her College courses but through reading Bell's Men of Mathematics. In her thesis Definability and decision problems in arithmetic Robinson proved that the arithmetic of rational numbers is undecidable by giving an arithmetical definition of the integers in the rationals. Returning to the year 1949-50, Robinson spent that year at the RAND Corporation working on game theory. As a result of her work at RAND she published An iterative method of solving a game in the Annals of Mathematics in 1951 in which she proved the convergence of an iterative process for approximating solutions for each player in a finite two-person zero-sum game. This result has been described as the most important theorem in elementary game theory. Julia Robinson received many honours. She was the first woman to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1976, and in the same year was appointed to a professorship at the University of California in Berkeley. She was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1978, became the first woman officer of the American Mathematical Society in the same year and the first woman president of the Society in 1982. Kurt Gdel Born: 28 April 1906 in Brnn, Austria-Hungary (now Brno, Czech Republic) Died: 14 Jan 1978 in Princeton, New Jersey, USA Gdel entered the University of Vienna in 1923. Gdel is best known for his proof of "Gdel's Incompleteness Theorems". In 1931 he published these results in ber formal unentscheidbare Stze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme. He proved fundamental results about axiomatic systems, showing in any axiomatic mathematical system there are propositions that cannot be proved or disproved within the axioms of the system. In particular the consistency of the axioms cannot be proved. In 1934 Gdel gave a series of lectures at Princeton entitled On undecidable propositions of formal mathematical systems. Gdel's research was progressing well and he proved important results on the consistency of the axiom of choice with the other axioms of set theory in 1935. His masterpiece Consistency of the axiom of choice and of the generalized continuum-hypothesis with the axioms of set theory (1940) is a classic of modern mathematics. In this he proved that if an axiomatic system of set theory of the type proposed by Russell and Whitehead in Principia Mathematica is consistent, then it will remain so when the axiom of choice and the generalized continuumhypothesis are added to the system. Leonhard Euler (1707 - 1783)

Leonhard Euler was born at Ble on April 15, 1707, and died at St. Petersburg on September 7, 1783.

Euler wrote an immense number of memoirs on all kinds of mathematical subjects. His chief works, in which many of the results of earlier memoirs are embodied, are as follows.

He wrote in 1748 his Introduction in Analysis Infinitorum, which was intended to serve as an introduction to pure analytical mathematics. This is divided into two parts. The first part of the Analysis Infinitorum contains the bulk of the matter which is to be found in modern text-books on algebra, theory of equations, and trigonometry. In the algebra he paid particular attention to the expansion of various functions in series, and to the summation of given series; and pointed out explicitly that an infinite series cannot be safely employed unless it is convergent. In the trigonometry, much of which is founded on F. C. Mayer's Arithmetic of Sines, which had been published in 1727, Euler developed the idea of John Bernoulli, that the subject was a branch of analysis and not a mere appendage of astronomy or geometry. He also introduced the trigonometrical functions, and shewed that the trigonometrical and exponential functions were connected by the relation . Euler in 1731 denoted it by e. To the best of my knowledge, Newton had been the first to employ the literal exponential notation, and Euler, using the form , had taken a as the base of any system of logarithms. It is probable that the choice of e for a particular base was determined by its being the vowel consecutive to a. The use of a single symbol to denote the number 3.14159... appears to have been introduced about the beginning of the eighteenth century. W. Jones in 1706 represented it by , a symbol which had been used by Oughtred in 1647, and by Barrow a few years later, to denote the periphery of a circle. John Bernoulli represented the number by c; Euler in 1734 denoted by p, and in a letter of 1736 (in which he enunciated the theorem that the sum of the squares of the reciprocals of the natural numbers is /6) he used the letter c; Chr. Goldbach in 1742 used ; and after the publication of Euler's Analysis the symbol was generally employed. The second part of the Analysis Infinitorum is on analytical geometry. Euler commenced this part by dividing curves into algebraical and transcendental, and established a variety of propositions which are true for all algebraical curves. He then applied these to the general equation of the second degree in two dimensions, shewed that it represents the various conic sections, and deduced most of their properties from the general equation. he also considered the classification of cubic, quartic and other algebraical curves. He next discussed the question as to what surfaces are represented by the general equation of the second degree in three dimensions, and how they may be discriminated one from the other: some of these surfaces had not been previously investigated. in the course of this analysis he laid down the rules for the transformation of co-ordinates in space. Here also we find the earliest attempt to bring the curvature of surfaces within the domain of mathematics, and the first complete discussion of tortuous curves. The Analysis Infinitorum was followed in 1755 by the Institutiones Calculi Differentialis,. This is the first text-book on the differential calculus. This series of works was completed by the publication in three volumes in 1768 to 1770 of the Institutiones Calculi Integralis, in which the results of several of Euler's earlier memoirs on the same subject and on differential equations are included. The Beta and Gamma functions were invented by Euler and are discussed here, but only as illustrations of methods of reduction and integration. His treatment of elliptic integrals is superficial; it was suggested by a theorem, given by John Landen in the Philosophical Transactions for 1775, connecting the arcs of a hyperbola and an ellipse. Euler's works that form this trilogy have gone through numerous subsequent editions. The classic problems on isoperimetrical curves, the brachistochrone in a resisting medium, and the theory of geodesics (all of which had been suggested by his master, John Bernoulli) had engaged Euler's attention at an early date; and in solving them he was led to the calculus of variations. The general idea of this was laid down in his Curvarum Maximi Minimive Proprietate Gaudentium Inventio Nova ac Facilis, published in 1744, but the complete development of the new calculus was first effected by Lagrange in 1759. In 1770 Euler published his Anleitung zur Algebra in two volumes. The first volume treats of determinate algebra. This contains one of the earliest attempts to place the fundamental processes on a scientific basis. The second volume of the algebra treats of indeterminate or Diophantine algebra.

Yuri Vladimirovich Matiyasevich Born: 2 March 1947 in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), Russia From the Leningrad Lyceum 239 he went to Moscow where he spent a year at the A N Kolmogorov Physico-mathematical boarding school No 18 which was attached to Moscow State University. Matiyasevich had shown his outstanding mathematical abilities while in Leningrad for he had been highly successful in the Leningrad Mathematical Olympiad Competitions between 1960 and 1963 and in the All-Union Mathematical Olympiads between 1961 and 1963. After going to the boarding school in Moscow he was equally successful in the Moscow Mathematical Olympiad of 1964 as well as the All-Union Mathematical Olympiad of that year. He competed in the International Mathematical Olympiad held in Moscow in 1964 and was awarded a gold medal. Not only did his excellent performance in the 1964 International Mathematical Olympiad bring him wide recognition but it also had the practical effect of allowing him to enter directly into the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of Leningrad State University without taking any examinations and also to enter a year early, missing out the final year of his school education. ... at the beginning of his second year, autumn 1965, Matiyasevich was introduced to Post's canonical systems and his career as a mathematician properly began. He immediately achieved an elegant result on a difficult problem the professor proposed. This led him to meet Maslov, the local expert on Post canonical systems. ... Maslov made a number of suggestions for research, which Matiyasevich quickly resolved. In late 1965 Maslov suggested a more difficult question about details of the unsolvability of Thue systems. Matiyasevich solved this problem too. He graduated in 1969 and continued to study for his Candidate's degree (equivalent to a Ph.D.) at the Leningrad Department of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences with Sergei Maslov as his advisor. While an undergraduate he had already published some important papers (all in Russian): Simple examples of unsolvable canonical calculi (1967), Simple examples of unsolvable associative calculi (1967),Arithmetic representations of powers (1968), A connection between systems of word and length equations and Hilbert's tenth problem (1968), and Two reductions of Hilbert's tenth problem (1968). The original problem is: Devise a process according to which it can be determined by a finite number of operations whether a given polynomial equation with integer coefficients in any number of unknowns is solvable in rational integers. The more modern statement would be: Does there exist an algorithm to determine whether a Diophantine equation has a solution in natural numbers?

-He wrote The Diophantineness of enumerable sets (Russian) was published in 1970. J W S Cassels writes:This paper shows that every recursively enumerable relation is Diophantine and so completes the solution of Hilbert's tenth problem in the negative sense. ... The proof is elementary but ingenious and is said to use ideas of Julia Robinson ... Matiyasevich also published Solution of the tenth problem of Hilbert in Hungarian in 1970. Matiyasevich published the book Hilbert's tenth problem in Russian in 1993 and, in the same year, an English translation was published. A French translation was published in 1995. Cristian Calude writes in a review of the English translation:The book is divided into ten chapters. The first five lead to the negative solution of Hilbert's Tenth Problem; the remaining chapters are devoted to various applications of the method used by the author, which is, in a sense, more important than the solution itself: it has applications to Hilbert's eighth problem, decision problems in number theory, Diophantine complexity, decision problems in calculus, and Diophantine games. ... In 2004 he publishedElimination of quantifiers from arithmetical formulas defining recursively enumerable sets which he summarises as follows:This is a short survey of known results about elimination of quantifiers over natural numbers, and some implications of these results on the power of computer algebra systems. Also in 2004 he published Some probabilistic restatements of the four color conjecture in which he showed that the four colour conjecture can be restated as a small number of assertions about correlations of some random events. These random events are defined in a probabilistic space associated to a triangulation of a sphere. His paper Existential arithmetization of Diophantine equations (2009) continues work related to Hilbert's Tenth problem and, as Alexandra Shlapentokh writes:... continues his investigation of coding methods by introducing a coding scheme which, among other things, leads to the elimination of bounded quantifiers, arithmetization of Turing machines, and a much simplified construction of a universal Diophantine equation. In 2010 he published One more probabilistic reformulation of the four colour conjecture continuing the investigation described in the above 2004 paper. MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Matiyasevich.html] Jules Henri Poincar Born: 29 April 1854 in Nancy, Lorraine, France Died: 17 July 1912 in Paris, France Poincar's Analysis situs , published in 1895, is an early systematic treatment of topology. He can be said to have been the originator of algebraic topology and, in 1901, he claimed that his researches in many different areas such as differential equations and multiple integrals had all led him to topology. For 40 years after Poincar published the first of his six papers on algebraic topology in 1894, essentially all of the ideas and techniques in the subject were based on his work. Even today the Poincar conjecture remains as one of the most baffling and challenging unsolved problems in algebraic topology. Homotopy theory reduces topological questions to algebra by associating with topological spaces various groups which are algebraic invariants. Poincar introduced the fundamental group (or first homotopy group) in his paper of 1894 to distinguish different categories of 2-dimensional surfaces. He was able to show that any 2-dimensional surface having the same fundamental group as the 2-dimensional surface of a sphere is topologically equivalent to a sphere. He conjectured that this result held for 3-dimensional manifolds and this was later extended to higher dimensions. Surprisingly proofs are known for the equivalent of Poincar's conjecture for all dimensions strictly greater than three. No complete classification scheme for 3-manifolds is known so there is no list of possible manifolds that can be checked to verify that they all have different homotopy groups. Poincar is also considered the originator of the theory of analytic functions of several complex variables. He began his contributions to this topic in 1883 with a paper in which he used the Dirichlet principle to prove that a meromorphic function of two complex variables is a quotient of two entire functions. He also worked in algebraic geometry making fundamental contributions in papers written in 1910-11. He examined algebraic curves on an algebraic surface F(x, y, z) = 0 and developed methods which enabled him to give easy proofs of deep results due to mile Picard and Severi. He gave the first correct proof of a result stated by Castelnuovo, Enriques and Severi, these authors having suggested a false method of proof. His first major contribution to number theory was made in 1901 with work on ... the Diophantine problem of finding the points with rational coordinates on a curve f (x, y) = 0, where the coefficients of f are rational numbers. He wrote in Mathematical definitions in education (1904). It is by logic we prove, it is by intuition that we invent. Poincar believed that one could choose either euclidean or non-euclidean geometry as the geometry of physical space. He believed that because the two geometries were topologically equivalent then one could translate properties of one to the other, so neither is correct or false. For this reason he argued that euclidean geometry would always be preferred by physicists. This, however, has not proved to be correct and experimental evidence now shows clearly that physical space is not euclidean. Poincar achieved the highest honours for his contributions of true genius. He was elected to the Acadmie des Sciences in 1887 and in 1906 was elected President of the Academy. The breadth of his research led to him being the only member elected to every one of the five sections of the Academy, namely the geometry, mechanics, physics, geography and navigation sections. In 1908 he was elected to the Acadmie Francaise and was elected director in the year of his death. He was also made chevalier of the Lgion d'Honneur and was honoured by a large number of learned societies around the world. He won numerous prizes, medals and awards.