Consider the following fictitious conversation between 19th century mathematicians:
Teddy: This new field of calculus seems valid, but in some ways it’s sketchy. It needs to have a sound foundation like geometry does.
George: You’re right. Euclid was the bomb! Let’s get on that.
Johnny: But wait, what’s so special about calculus? I know it’s “The Calculus” and all, but shouldn’t every field have such a strong foundation?
Joe: Yeah, Johnny is right. I’m a number theorist and we’ve been following Euclid, Pythagoras, Diophantus, and Fibonnacci blindly! What if there’s something wrong with number theory?
Johnny: Exactly! And algebra? What if Cardano, Tartaglia, and Bombelli based their work on faulty assumptions?
Teddy: We’re gonna need help.
Apparently each character represents a different relevant 19th century mathematician. The names of the characters are hints to the mathematicians actual names.
I am completely stuck...I thought Gauss was George just because he is the prince of mathematics.
Any help is appreciated.
I am pretty sure that George is Georg Cantor, and I am positive that Joe is Guissepe Peano.
smcc suggest Weierstrass is Teddy, and that is plausible. By the way Calculus was always thought to be on a shaky foundation. Cauchy, Bolzano, Riemann and Weierstrass built the foudations of calculus 100 years after Liebnitz.
I am still scratching my head about who Johnny might be.