Happy birthday to Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594) renown Flemish cartographer.
What made Mercator a great #cartographer, was in fact his abilities as a #mathematician -and like those of us scientists who feel compelled also to create art he was wasn’t hindered by his immense ability as an engraver. He produced beautiful world maps (a version of which is depicted in this print), globes, 
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For #BlackHistoryMonth: #mathematician & geodesist Gladys West (née Brown 1930)! Shown with satellite tracks & 3 satellites important to her career: Seasat, GEOS-3 & a GPS satellite. Her work, using math to precisely model the shape of Earth, laid the groundwork for GPS! Born to sharecropper parents in Virginia, she graduated with a Math BSc in ‘52 then MSc at VSU in ‘55. 1/n
Happy birthday to Marjorie Rice (née Jeuck, 1923–2017) who discovered 4 new pentagonal tilings of the Euclidian plane!
The San Diego mother of 5 (6th died in infancy) completed half a correspondence art course after high school & had no training as a #mathematician but was always interested in #math & art. She began to follow SciAm writer/amateur mathematician Martin Gardner’s column, rushing to devour the magazine before her
Happy birthday to #mathematician Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (1805 –1859)! My lino block print illustrates the famous mathematical tool known as the pigeonhole principle, which states that if n items are put into m containers, with n > m, then at least one container must contain more than one item. You can imagine a bunch, call it m, pigeonholes and n pigeons, where n > m; to fit the pigeons in the pigeonholes,
It’s #BlackHistoryMonth so it’s a good time to celebrate the extraordinary mathematician and NASA scientist Katherine Johnson (née Coleman; August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020). One of the first Black women employed as a NASA scientist (and its predecessor NACA), she was known for her mastery of complex manual calculations of orbital mechanics and played a pivotal role in the success of
Happy birthday to #mathematician David Hilbert (1862-1943)! This #linocut illustrates the paradox of Hilbert’s Grand Hotel, a thought experiment conceived by Hilbert in 1924 to show the paradox of infinite sets. If you imagine a regular hotel with a finite number of rooms, if they are all filled you can’t add more guests. In an imaginary infinite hotel however, guests are always welcome!
Happy birthday to Russian #mathematician & writer Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevski (1850-1891). Her contributions to analysis, differential equations & mechanics include Cauchy-Kovalevski theorem & the famed Kovalevski top. She was 1st woman appointed to full prof in N Europe or to serve as editor of a major sci journal. She is also remembered for her contributions to Russian literature. All of this despite living when women were still barred from attending
Happy birthday to #mathematician & #astronomer Nicole-Reine Lepaute (1723-1788)! My #linocut celebrates her calculated path of the solar eclipse of 1764. She also worked with Alexis Clairaut & Jérôme Lalande to precisely calculate the date of return of Halley’s Comet solving the notorious 3-body by hand (including the gravitational pull of Jupiter & Saturn on orbit). They worked in parallel, calculating for 6 months straight barely stopping
in particular).
A career civil servant in Nanyang, Heng was also an #astronomer, #mathematician, #seismologist, hydraulic engineer, #inventor, geographer, cartographer, ethnographer, artist, #poet, philosopher, politician & literary scholar. He was a bit of a controversial figure politically, sparing over calendar reform & with rivals amongst the palace eunuchs. But both his poetry & famous inventions are still remembered. He also improved the Chinese approximation for pi & 2/n
She was the daughter of a famous #mathematician, Theon Alexandricus (ca. 335–405), with whom she worked & published edited versions of Classical texts in mathematics. She also pursued her education in Athens & Italy before returning to Alexandria.⠀
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It is difficult to precisely specify her own contributions to math, since many documents have been lost (the Library of Alexandria 2/n
Happy birthday to #mathematician and #astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)! We remember him for his role in the Scientific Revolution, and his three laws of planetary motion in particular. His laws modified Copernicus’ heliocentric model; he replaced the circular orbits with elliptical ones & described velocities of planets. Today we know them as:
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Happy birthday to #mathematician & #polymath, Mary Fairfax Somerville (1780-1872). As a young widow she made a name for herself when she won a silver medal in 1811 from the Military College at Marlow math journal. Wallace suggested she read Laplace & finding she understood it as well as her tutor her confidence increased, & she expanded her studies to #astronomy, chemistry, #geography, microscopy, electricity & magnetism.
#printmaking #womeninstemm #linocut #sciart #MastoArt
Bonus #ArtAdventCalendar day 17 Happy birthday to Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet (1706-1749), a natural philosopher, #mathematician and #physicist, shown here in my #linocut portrait with #diagrams from her ‘Principes Mathématiques de la Philosophie Naturelle’, a two-volume translation and commentary of Newton’s ‘Principia’, published in 1759 in French in Paris.
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#printmaking #histsci #WomenInSTEM #duChâtelet #physics #physicist #SciArt #mathematics #mastoart
New account, new introduction!
I'm Beth. I'm a queer mathematician who loves musical theater, webcomics, teaching math, and my cat.
Favorite areas of math: Topology, geometry, and combinatorics.
Favorite musicals: Chess, Into the Woods, Next to Normal, Sunday in the Park With George, Sweeney Todd
Favorite webcomics: this is long enough to get its own post:
https://transfem.social/notes/9ius8efgn12cewcz
#Introduction #Queer #Mathematician #Math #Musicals #MusicalTheater #MusicalTheatre #Webcomics #Teaching #TeachingMath #Cat #Cats #SillyGoose #Topology #Geometry #Combinatorics #Chess #ChessTheMusical #IntoTheWoods #NextToNormal #SundayInTheParkWithGeorge #SweeneyTodd #PandorasTaleWiki #RainverseWiki
Bonus #artAdventCalendar: Happy birthday to #mathematician Virginia Ragsdale (1870-1945). The Ragsdale conjecture, made in her 1906 dissertation, is amongst the earliest & most famous on the #topology of real & algebraic curves, which stimulated a lot of 20th century research & was not disproved until ‘79. A correct upper bound has yet to be found. In her dissertation she tackles the 16th of David Hilbert’s famous 23 unsolved problems in mathematics
Bonus #artAdventCalendar: Happy birthday to #mathematician & #computerscientist US Navy rear admiral Grace Hopper (1906-1992) who popularized the revolutionary idea of developing machine-independent programming languages based on English.
She began teaching at Vassar in 31 & got PhD (Yale) in 34. She found marriage & teaching less fulfilling & tried to enlist in the Navy, but was rejected then got a special exemption to volunteer for 1/n
Day 6 #ArtAdventCalendar: #linocut of French #mathematician & #physicist Joseph Fourier (1768-1830) remembered for his work on Fourier series, Fourier transforms, Fourier’s law of conduction, Fourier analysis & harmonic analysis & their use to solve heat transfer problems & credited with proposing the greenhouse effect as early as 1824.
Being a commoner he could not seek a commission in the scientific corps of the army but took a military lectureship in #math.
Today is Fibonacci Day. November 23 if written in MM/DD format recalls the #mathematician Leonardo Bonaccio of Pisa (c. 1170 - c. 1240 or 50) aka Fibonacci’s sequence (1,1,2,3…) where each number is the sum of the previous two. He used it to describe rabbit populations, but the sequence is commonly observed in nature,
For the #Spacetober prompt lift-off: it’s my portrait of #mathematician and NASA scientist Katherine Johnson (née Coleman; 1918-2020). One of the first Black women employed as a NASA scientist (and its predecessor NACA), she was known for her mastery of complex manual calculations of orbital mechanics and played a pivotal role in the success of the US crewed spaceflights from the beginning. 1/n
Happy birthday to #mathematician & geodesist Gladys West (née Brown in 1930)! Shown with satellite tracks & 3 satellites important to her career: Seasat, GEOS-3 & a GPS satellite. Her work, using math to precisely model the shape of Earth, laid the groundwork for GPS! Born to sharecropper parents in Virginia, she graduated with a Math BSc in ‘52 then MSc at VSU in ‘55. 1/n
#linocut #printmaking #womenInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #histsci #Spacetober #EarthScience #Math
