Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Damn. Apparently it's /ˈɡaʊs/. I always thought it was /ɡʊərs/.

Oh well - apparently I've been saying it wrong all these years...

Is there any specific reason why all great mathematicians were foreign? 
(Not to mention great scientists. And come to think of it, why are all 
the best programmers Finnish or German??)

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> Is there any specific reason why all great mathematicians were foreign?

Because 99% of the people in the world are foreign for you?

I can think of Newton, Babbage, Turing and Darwin off the top of my head as 
very famous British scientists/mathematicians, I am sure there are many many 
more.

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:49101a91$1@news.povray.org...
> Is there any specific reason why all great mathematicians were foreign? 
> (Not to mention great scientists. And come to think of it, why are all the 
> best programmers Finnish or German??)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_scientists

no reason

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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scott wrote:
>> Is there any specific reason why all great mathematicians were foreign?
> 
> Because 99% of the people in the world are foreign for you?

Mmm. Yes, that must be it...

> I can think of Newton, Babbage, Turing and Darwin off the top of my head 
> as very famous British scientists/mathematicians, I am sure there are 
> many many more.

Heh. Imagine going to school and learning about "Dave's forces" or 
"Bob's law". Wouldn't be quite the same as van der Waals forces and 
Hooke's law, would it?

At least at college we had somebody to tell us that "Euler" is 
pronounced /ˈɔɪlɚ/. When you read a book and you come across something 
like "Gödel", it's not trivial to figure out how the hell you actually 
proncounce that...

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> Heh. Imagine going to school and learning about "Dave's forces" or "Bob's 
> law". Wouldn't be quite the same as van der Waals forces and Hooke's law, 
> would it?

Hooke was English.

> At least at college we had somebody to tell us that "Euler" is pronounced 
> /ˈɔɪlɚ/. When you read a book and you come across something like "Gödel", 
> it's not trivial to figure out how the hell you actually proncounce 
> that...

It is if you learnt German at school :-)  Knowing the basics of a few common 
languages is quite helpful in life...

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scott wrote:
>> Heh. Imagine going to school and learning about "Dave's forces" or 
>> "Bob's law". Wouldn't be quite the same as van der Waals forces and 
>> Hooke's law, would it?
> 
> Hooke was English.

...really?

Heh. You learn something every day.

Did you see the episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? where 3% of 
the audience thought that "Ludwig van Beethoven" was English? :-D (I 
have no idea what his nationallity actually was, but I'm fairly sure 
it's not a typical English name...)

>> At least at college we had somebody to tell us that "Euler" is 
>> pronounced /ˈɔɪlɚ/. When you read a book and you come across something 
>> like "Gödel", it's not trivial to figure out how the hell you actually 
>> proncounce that...
> 
> It is if you learnt German at school :-)  Knowing the basics of a few 
> common languages is quite helpful in life...

...[insert COBOL joke here]...

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> scott wrote:
> >> Heh. Imagine going to school and learning about "Dave's forces" or
> >> "Bob's law". Wouldn't be quite the same as van der Waals forces and
> >> Hooke's law, would it?
> >
> > Hooke was English.
>
> ...really?

As was Lord Kelvin, Napier, Stephen Hawkins (Well British)


>
> Heh. You learn something every day.
>
> Did you see the episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? where 3% of
> the audience thought that "Ludwig van Beethoven" was English? :-D (I
> have no idea what his nationallity actually was, but I'm fairly sure
> it's not a typical English name...)
>

German! O_O

They (3%) must have been confusing him with Handel who lived in England and
composed Messiah, Zadok the Priest and Music for the Royal Fireworks there.

Stephen

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49101ed2$1@news.povray.org...
>> Is there any specific reason why all great mathematicians were foreign?
>
> Because 99% of the people in the world are foreign for you?
true for Andrew, false for an Indian or a Chinese ;-)


Marc

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Invisible wrote:

> At least at college we had somebody to tell us that "Euler" is 
> pronounced /ˈɔɪlɚ/. When you read a book and you come across something 

Much how Reuters is pronounced. Hmm. I only learned the correct way on 
that one recently.
-- 
~Mike

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Tim Cook escreveu:
> "Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
> news:49101a91$1@news.povray.org...
>> Is there any specific reason why all great mathematicians were 
>> foreign? (Not to mention great scientists. And come to think of it, 
>> why are all the best programmers Finnish or German??)
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_scientists
> 
> no reason

I believe he's from the UK. :)

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