Famous Mathematicians

∙Charles Babbage ∙Archimedes

∙John Napier ∙Fibonacci

Charles BabbageCharles Babbage

Born-died 1791-1871 He was in Tones, Deronshire, England.

He was very sickly and curious in his child hood. Charles started school at the age of 10. Science and math were his favorite subjects. He made the first speedometer. His invention was like a calculator. His ideas were used to invent the first computer.

Archimedes Archimedes

Born-died 287-212 B.C. He was born in Syracruse, the

biggest establishment in Sicily. He studied in Alexandra, Egypt . He invented the Lever, the pulley, and the screw, he also discovered pi. Nobody knows how he died.

John NapierJohn Napier

Born-died1550-1617 He was born in Edinburgh,

Scotland, and studied in Scotland. He lived mostly in the Merchiston castle, and when he was 13 his mother died. He created the lattice method of multiplication and later died in 1617 at the age of 67.

FibonacciFibonacci

Born-died 1170-1240 He helped introduce the Hindy – Arabic

numerals. He also created the fibonacci sequence, which is the last 2 numbers added to make the next one. For example, 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34… these numbers have occurred in nature and the Arts.

Florence Nightingale

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Born: 12 May 1820 in Florence, ItalyDied: 13 August 1910 in East Wellow, England

Famous AchievementsFamous Achievements

Florence was best remembered for her work as a nurse during the Crimean War and her contribution towards the reform of the sanitary conditions in military field hospitals.

However, what is less well known about this amazing woman is her love of mathematics, especially statistics, and how this love played an important part in her life's work.

Her LifeHer Life

Nightingale was born at the Villa Colombia in Florence, Italy, on 12 May 1820

Parents: William Edward Nightingale and his wife Frances Smith

Siblings: Parthenope- named after a Greek City.

The beginning to her Nursing Career

The beginning to her Nursing Career

While Nightingale was on a tour of Europe and Egypt starting in 1849, with family friends Charles and Selina Bracebridge, she had the chance to study the different hospital systems.

In early 1850 Nightingale began her training as a nurse at the Institute of St Vincent de Paul in Alexandria, Egypt.

March of 1854 brought the start of the Crimean War, with Britain, France and Turkey declaring war on Russia.

Nightingale was asked in a letter from her friend Sidney Herbert, the British Secretary for War, to become a nursing administrator to oversee the introduction of nurses to military hospitals.

Her official title was Superintendent of the Female Nursing Establishment of the English General Hospitals in Turkey.

The Beginning of Mathematics

The Beginning of Mathematics

In 1840, Nightingale begged her parents to let her study mathematics.

One of the people who also influenced Nightingale was the Belgium scientist Quetelet.

Nightingale's knowledge of mathematics became evident when she used her collected data to calculate the mortality rate in the hospital.

These calculations showed that an improvement of the sanitary methods employed would result in a decrease in the number of deaths.

MathematicsMathematics

By February 1855 the mortality rate had dropped from 60% to 42.7%.

Through the establishment of a fresh water supply as well as using her own funds to buy fruit, vegetables and standard hospital equipment, the mortality rate in the spring had dropped further to 2.2%.

Nightingale used this statistical data to create her Polar Area Diagram, or "coxcombs" as she called them. These were used to give a graphical representation of the mortality figures during the Crimean War (1854 - 56).

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What the Coxcomb means

What the Coxcomb means

The area of each coloured wedge, measured from the centre as a common point, is in proportion to the statistic it represents.

The blue outer wedges represent the deaths from:-preventable or mitigable zymotic diseases or in other words contagious diseases such as cholera and typhus.

The central red wedges show the deaths from wounds.

The black wedges in between represent deaths from all other causes.

Using this information, Nightingale computed a mortality rate of 1,174 per 10,000 with 1,023 per 10,000 being from zymotic diseases.

If this rate had continued, and troops had not been replaced frequently, then disease alone would have killed the entire British army in the Crimea.

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Nightingale died on 13 August 1910 aged 90.

She is buried at St Margaret's Church, East Wellow, near Embley Park.

Nightingale never married, although this was not from lack of opportunity. She believed, however, that God had decided she was one whom he:-

... had clearly marked out ... to be a single woman.

The Crimean Monument, erected in 1915 in Waterloo Place, London, was done so in honour of the contribution Florence Nightingale had made to this war and the health of the army.

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How has her work influenced modern day math??

How has her work influenced modern day math??