Hippasus of Metapontum (/ˈhɪpəsəs/; Greek: Ἵππασος ὁ Μεταποντῖνος, Híppasos; c. 530 – c. 450 BC) was a Greek philosopher and early follower of Pythagoras. Little is known about his life or his beliefs, but he is sometimes credited with the discovery of the existence of irrational numbers. The discovery of irrational numbers is said to have been shocking to the Pythagoreans, and Hippasus is supposed to have drowned at sea, apparently as a punishment from the gods for divulging this. However, the few ancient sources which describe this story either do not mention Hippasus by name (e.g. Pappus) or alternatively tell that Hippasus drowned because he revealed how to construct a dodecahedron inside a sphere.[citation needed] The discovery of irrationality is not specifically ascribed to Hippasus by any ancient writer.
Science and math
Philosophy of mathematics
Leopold Kronecker
Leopold Kronecker (German: [ˈkʁoːnɛkɐ]; 7 December 1823 – 29 December 1891) was a German mathematician who worked on number theory, algebra and logic. He criticized Georg Cantor’s work on set theory, and was quoted by Weber (1893) as having said, “Die ganzen Zahlen hat der liebe Gott gemacht, alles andere ist Menschenwerk” (“God made the integers, all else is the work of man”). Kronecker was a student and lifelong friend of Ernst Kummer.
David Hilbert: The Architect of Modern Mathematics
Hilbert’s program
Alonzo Church
Alonzo Church (June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995) was an American mathematician, computer scientist, logician, and philosopher who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science. He is best known for the lambda calculus, the Church–Turing thesis, proving the unsolvability of the Entscheidungsproblem (“decision problem”), the Frege–Church ontology, and the Church–Rosser theorem. He also worked on philosophy of language (see e.g. Church 1970). Alongside his doctoral student Alan Turing, Church is considered one of the founders of computer science
Goodstein’s theorem
Herman Goldstine
Herman Heine Goldstine (September 13, 1913 – June 16, 2004) was a mathematician and computer scientist, who worked as the director of the IAS machine at Princeton University‘s Institute for Advanced Study and helped to develop ENIAC, the first of the modern electronic digital computers. He subsequently worked for many years at IBM as an IBM Fellow, the company’s most prestigious technical position.
Von Neumann, the Smartest Person of the 20th Century
What is Russell’s paradox?
Russell’s paradox is based on examples like this: Consider a group of barbers who shave only those men who do not shave themselves. Suppose there is a barber in this collection who does not shave himself; then by the definition of the collection, he must shave himself. But no barber in the collection can shave himself. (If so, he would be a man who does shave men who shave themselves.)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-russells-paradox/
George R. Price
Price equation
In the theory of evolution and natural selection, the Price equation (also known as Price’s equation or Price’s theorem) describes how a trait or allele changes in frequency over time. The equation uses a covariance between a trait and fitness, to give a mathematical description of evolution and natural selection. It provides a way to understand the effects that gene transmission and natural selection have on the frequency of alleles within each new generation of a population. The Price equation was derived by George R. Price, working in London to re-derive W.D. Hamilton‘s work on kin selection. Examples of the Price equation have been constructed for various evolutionary cases. The Price equation also has applications in economics.
It is important to note that the Price equation is not a physical or biological law. It is not a concise or general expression of experimentally validated results. It is rather a purely mathematical relationship between various statistical descriptors of population dynamics. It is mathematically valid, and therefore not subject to experimental verification. In simple terms, it is a mathematical restatement of the expression “survival of the fittest” which is actually self-evident, given the mathematical definitions of “survival” and “fittest”.