Mathematicians By: Baylee Maynard

Brahmagupta Born: 598 AD in Bhinmal City in Northwest India. Died: 668 AD His father was Jisnugupta Lived most of his life in Bhillamala (modern day Bhinmal) Was the head of the Astronomical Observatory at Ujjain. During his tenure there, wrote four texts on Mathematics and astronomy.

Brahmagupta Cont. Brahmagupta had many accomplishments, but his major accomplishments was defining zero. He found the formula for the area of a cyclic quadrilateral. Gave a valuable interpolation formula for computing sines. Applied algebraic methods to astronomical problems.

Brahmagupta Cont. Brahmagupta distinguished 20 arithmetical operations. - Extraction of roots and the solution of proportions. - 8 measurements - Four methods of multiplication - Five rules for reducing a rational expression to a single fraction. His mathematics was rooted in the Greek tradition.

Brahmagupta Cont. Brahmagupta unlike most European algebraists of the Middle Ages, he recognized negative and irrational numbers as roots of an equation. His mathematics was a mixture of concrete problems and abstract formulas.

Brahmagupta Cont. His most famous text was “Brahmasphutasiddhanta”. Brahmagupta's first rule of dealing with zero as a number was “ When zero is added to a number or subtracted from a number, the number remins unchanged.” Second Rule is “A number multiplied by zero becomes zero.”

John Brehaut Wallis Born: November 23, 1616 in Ashford England Died: October 28, 1703 in Oxford England. Went to school in Ashford, but his mom wanted him to to move. Moved to Jame's Movat's grammar school; where he first showed sign of becoming a great Scholar.

John Brehaut Wallis Cont. John was able to do mental calculations One day he calculated the square root of a number with 53 digits in his head. Given credit for the proof of the Pythagorean theorem, using similar triangles.

John Brehaut Wallis Cont. Arithmetica Infinitorum was the most important of Wallis's work. It was published in 1656. After a short tract on conic sections, developed the standard notion for powers, extending them from positive integers to rational numbers.

John Brehaut Wallis Cont. Wallis made significant contributions to Trigonometry, Calculus, Geometry. Also the analysis of Infinite Series. In his Opera Mathematica he introduced the term continued fraction.

John Brehaut Wallis Cont. His Institutio logicae was published in 1687 and became very popular. The Grammatica linguae Anglicanae was a work on English Grammar. Published on Theology.

Clara Latimer Bacon Born: August 23, 1866 Died: April 14,1948 Graduated from Hedding College in Abingdon, Illinois in 1886. Received her B.A. Degree from Wellesley College in 1890. Taught secondary school in Kentucky for a year, then in Illinois for five.

Clara Latimer Bacon Cont. She was promoted to associate professor at Goucher in 1905, then full Professor in 1914. Teach at Goucher College until her retirement in 1934.

Clara Latimer Bacon Cont. She was a member of the American Mathematical Society. Also a member of the Mathematical Association of America. Was the first women to receive a Ph.D. In mathematics from John Hopkins University.

Clara Latimer Bacon Cont. After receiving her Masters Degree from the University of Chicago in 1904. she had a thesis. “The determination and investigation of the real chords of two conics with the intersect fewer than four real points.” Her work on “The Cartesian oval and the epileptic functions p and o” was published in the American Journal of Mathematics.

Clara Latimer Bacon Cont. Served as President of the Maryland-Virginia section of the MAA. Served many years on the College Entrance Examination Board. Bacon was involved with serval associations for peace as well as the Foreign Policy Association. & the League of Women Voters.