courbes algébriques.He wrote many papers and articles,
including one that discussed the importance of multiple
witnesses in legal cases based on PROBABILITY. He was so
highly regarded by the leading mathematicians of his time that
JOHANN BERNOULLIrequested that after his death only Cramer
should be allowed to publish his and his brother Jakob’s work.Dantzig, George(1914– ) This American mathematician’s early
studies in mathematics ring of a true-life Hollywood movie.
As a student arriving late to class one day, he copied two
problems from the board and later turned in the “homework,”
only to find out that they were famous unsolved problems, for
which he had worked out the SOLUTIONs. He ultimately
became a professor emeritus at Stanford University, and is
renowned as the “father of linear programming” for
developing the simplex method of optimization, which is a
process used for planning the use of resources, scheduling
workers, and production planning.
Dedekind, Richard(1831–1916) German mathematician whose
contributions to the field of mathematics include defining
finite and INFINITE SETs, RATIONAL NUMBERs, and IRRATIONAL
NUMBERs, and compiling editions of some of the most famous
mathematicians of his time, including KARL FRIEDRICH
GAUSS, and JOHANN PETER GUSTAV LEJEUNE DIRICHLETwho
was a close friend. Dedekind is most known for his work in
number theory, specifically for his invention of the concept
known as Dedekind cuts, in which he states that “when there
is a cut (A 1 , A 2 ) which is not produced by any rational
number, then we create a new, irrational number a,which we
regard as completely defined by this cut; we will say that this
number acorresponds to this cut, or that it produces this cut.”
This idea was that every REAL NUMBERcould divide rational
numbers into twoSUBSETs of numbers greater than and less
than the real number, and to define irrational numbers in terms
of rational numbers.
Descartes, René(1596–1650) French philosopher and
mathematician who is known both as the founder of the
modern school of mathematics and the founder of modern
philosophy. Descartes’s first major writing was Le Monde,
which took four years to write, and explained his theory of
Dantzig – Descartes BIOGRAPHIES
Dantzig – Descartes BIOGRAPHIES