Radical Solutions | Damn Interesting
“The story of Évariste Galois—a revolutionary in every sense—has become something of a legend in the last 150 years, not least because of the dual figure he presents as mathematical visionary and political lightning-rod. Early obituaries all focused on him as a republican. As early as 1846, however, Liouville could dismiss Galois’s political activities as nothing more than “a pity”, and for several decades this was the common verdict. Neither of these is the full story.”.
Annus Mythologicus | The Renaissance Mathematicus
“It is justified to ask where then does the myth of the Annus Mirabilis actually come from? The answer is Newton himself. In later life he claimed that he had done all these things in that one-year, the fictional ones rather than the real achievements. So why did he claim this? One reason, a charitable interpretation, is that of an old man just telescoping the memories of his youth. However, there is a less charitable but probably more truthful explanation.”
The Wild Ones | the Atavist Magazine
“They were risking their lives—everyone in the group was clear about that. They just weren’t in agreement on why. Was it for publicity or for plants? News wires picked up the Michigan Daily story, and each retelling was more sensationalized than the last. The “relic flora” and “important cacti” mentioned in the original article became “botanical freaks” in an Associated Press story. Eventually, nothing much was said about science at all. One reporter noted, “The women, besides their scientific work, will do the cooking.” Articles described “Miss” Clover as a 40-year-old college professor, plump and bespectacled, while Jotter was thin, freckle-faced, and nearly six feet tall. Indignant, Jotter corrected that description whenever she could: She was five feet seven and a half inches.”
Early Life | James Clerk Maxwell | 1831-1879
“In still earlier childhood, when he returned from walking with his nurse, she had generally a lapful of curiosities (sticks, pebbles, grasses, etc.) picked up upon the paths through the wood, which must be stored upon the kitchen dresser till his parents had told him all about each one.”
Early Life | William Ramsay | 1852-1916
“From notes supplied by Miss Flora Mac Vicar and Mrs. McNicol, early friends of the family, we know that young Ramsay had a very happy childhood and youth, though in some respects the circumstances surrounding his life were different from those of other boys.”
Early Life | Eleanor Anne Ormerod | 1828 -1901
“I was born at Sedbury Park, in West Gloucestershire, on a sunny Sunday morning (the nth of May, 1828), being the youngest of the ten children of George and Sarah Ormerod, of Sedbury Park, Gloucestershire, and Tyldesley, Lancashire.”
Early Life | Mary Somerville |1780-1872
“When I was between eight and nine years old, my father came home from sea, and was shocked to find me such a savage. I had not yet been taught to write, and although I amused myself reading the "Arabian Nights/' "Robinson Crusoe," and the " Pilgrim's Progress," I read very badly, and with a strong Scotch accent .
Early Life | Jean-Henri Fabre |1823-1915
“The conclusion is positive: there is nothing in heredity to explain my taste for observation. You may say that I do not go far enough back. Well, what should I find beyond the grandparents where my facts come to a stop? I know, partly. I should find even more uncultured ancestors: sons of the soil, plowmen, sowers of rye, neat herds; one and all, by the very force of things, of not the least account in the nice matters of observation. And yet, in me, the observer, the inquirer into things began to take shape almost in infancy. “
Early Life | Carl Friedrich Gauss |1777-1855
“While still very young Gauss showed rare mental gifts. He learned to read by asking one or another in the home the sound of the letters. His marked aptitude for numbers and his ease and accuracy in mental arithmetic soon attracted the attention of his parents and their friends. He used to say jestingly that he learned to count before he could talk.”
Early Life | Joseph Fourier |1768-1830)
Fourier was born at Auxerre on the 21st of March, 1768. His father, like that of the illustrious geometer Lambert, was a tailor. This circumstance would formerly have occupied a large place in the éloge of our learned colleague; thanks to the progress of enlightened ideas, I may mention the circumstance as a fact of no importance: nobody, in effect, thinks in the present day, nobody even pretends to think, that genius is the privilege of rank or fortune.