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Echegaray, José

(Encyclopedia)Echegaray, José hōsāˈ āchāgärīˈ [key], 1832–1916, Spanish dramatist, mathematician, physicist, economist, and politician. He taught science, practiced engineering, and devoted his later lif...

Al-Battani

(Encyclopedia)Al-Battani ălˌbətēˈnēəs [key], b. before 858, d. 929, Arab astronomer and mathematician. He is best known in astronomy for his improvements and corrections of the Ptolemaic tradition. His Kitab...

Huygens, Christiaan

(Encyclopedia)Huygens, Christiaan krĭsˈtyän hoiˈgəns [key], 1629–95, Dutch mathematician and physicist; son of Constantijn Huygens. He improved telescopic lenses and discovered (1655) a satellite of Saturn a...

Jacobi, Carl Gustav Jacob

(Encyclopedia)Jacobi, Carl Gustav Jacob kärl go͝osˈtäf yäˈkôp yäkôˈbē [key], 1804–51, German mathematician. He was an outstanding teacher and was professor of mathematics at Königsberg (1827–42) and...

Backus, John Warner

(Encyclopedia)Backus, John Warner, 1924–2007, American computer scientist, b. Philadelphia, grad. Columbia (M.A. 1950). Trained as a mathematician, he was hired (1950) by IBM Corp. as a computer programmer. From ...

Broch, Hermann

(Encyclopedia)Broch, Hermann hĕrˈmän brôkh [key], 1886–1951, Austrian novelist. Broch is one of the masters of European modernism. Influenced by Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Kraus, and the Vien...

Bhaskara

(Encyclopedia)Bhaskara əchärˈyə [key] [Skt.,=learned], b. 1114, Indian mathematician and astronomer. According to the custom, he put his learned treatises into verse, adding, however, explanations in prose. His...

Tarski, Alfred

(Encyclopedia)Tarski, Alfred tärˈskē [key], 1901–83, Polish-American mathematician and philosopher, Ph.D. Univ. of Warsaw, 1924, b. Alfred Teitelbaum, changed his named 1923. He lectured at Warsaw until 1939, ...

Bayes, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Bayes, Thomas, 1702–61, English clergyman and mathematician. The son of a Nonconformist minister, he was privately educated and earned his livelihood as a minister to the Nonconformist community at ...

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