Tag Archives: Carl Friedrich Gauss
The value of ripeness
Think of the long centuries in which attempts were made to change mercury into gold because that seemed like a very useful thing to do. These efforts failed and we found how to change mercury into gold by doing other … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Abraham Flexner, Alexander Grothendieck, Carl Friedrich Gauss, J. Robert Oppenheimer, ripeness, useless knowledge
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Geometry’s near-miss that wasn’t
The extent of Euclidean geometry’s imperfections only really came to light when physicists used Riemann’s geometry to set up the theories of relativity. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Bernhard Riemann, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Euclid, Evelyn Lamb, Geometry, Heegner number, Ramanujan constant
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