Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

294 results found

Aryabhata

(Encyclopedia)Aryabhata ärˌyəbhŭtˈə [key], c.476–550, Hindu mathematician and astronomer. He is one of the first known to have used algebra; his writings include rules of arithmetic and of plane and spheric...

Cartan, Élie Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Cartan, Élie Joseph äNrēˈ [key], 1904–2008, was also a mathematician, and was one of the founding members of the Bourbaki group (see Bourbaki, Nicolas), which sought to establish a rigorous foun...

field, in algebra

(Encyclopedia)field, in algebra, set of elements (usually numbers) that may be combined under the operations of addition and multiplication so that it constitutes an additive group, the nonzero elements form a mult...

Peirce, Benjamin

(Encyclopedia)Peirce, Benjamin, 1809–80, American mathematician and astronomer, b. Salem, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1829. From 1833 he was a professor at Harvard; he helped establish the Harvard Observatory and was a...

Galois, Évariste

(Encyclopedia)Galois, Évariste āvärēstˈ gälwäˈ [key], 1811–32, French mathematician. At the age of 17 he had evolved original concepts on the theory of algebra. He made important contributions to the theo...

Grassmann, Hermann Günther

(Encyclopedia)Grassmann, Hermann Günther hĕrˈmän günˈtər gräsˈmän [key], 1809–77, German mathematician and Sanskrit scholar, educated in Berlin. He invented a new algebra of vectors (somewhat similar to...

Boole, George

(Encyclopedia)Boole, George, 1815–64, English mathematician and logician. He became professor at Queen's College, Cork, in 1849. Boole wrote An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854) and works on calculus an...

scalar

(Encyclopedia)scalar, quantity or number possessing only sign and magnitude, e.g., the real numbers (see number), in contrast to vectors and tensors; scalars obey the rules of elementary algebra. Many physical quan...

Sabin, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Sabin, Joseph săbˈĭn [key], 1821–81, American bibliophile, b. England. Sabin came to the United States in 1848 and established himself as a dealer in rare books in New York City and Philadelphia....

De Morgan, Augustus

(Encyclopedia)De Morgan, Augustus də môrˈgən [key], 1806–71, English mathematician and logician, b. India. A noted teacher, he was professor of mathematics (1828–31, 1836–66) at University College (now pa...
 

Browse by Subject