Mathematicians

Sir Isaac Newton PRS (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727 [NS: 4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727]) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer,natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived." His monograph Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, lays the foundations for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws, by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the Scientific Revolution.

David Hilbert, FRS (German pronunciation: [ˈdaːvɪt ˈhɪlbɐt]; January 23, 1862 – February 14, 1943) was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry. He also formulated the theory of Hilbert spaces, one of the foundations of functional analysis.

Hilbert adopted and warmly defended Georg Cantor's set theory and transfinite numbers. A famous example of his leadership in mathematics is his 1900 presentation of a collection of problems that set the course for much of the mathematical research of the 20th century.

Hilbert and his students contributed significantly to establishing rigor and developed important tools used in modern mathematical physics. Hilbert is known as one of the founders of proof theory and mathematical logic, as well as for being among the first to distinguish between mathematics andmetamathematics.

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Carl Friedrich Gauss is know as the "Prince Of Mathematics".After graduating in 1798 at the age of 22,he bgan to make several important contributions in major areas of mathematics,most notably number theory,especially on Prime Numbers.He went on to prove the fundamental theoram of algebra,and introduced the Gaussian gravitational before he was 24! Needless,to say he continued his work untill hiss death at the age of 77,and had made up major advances in the field which have echoed down through time.

Clara Latimer Bacon

Clara Latimer Bacon was born in Hillsgrove, McDonough County, Illinois of a pioneer New England family. She was graduated from Hedding College, Abingdon, Illinois in 1886. After a year of teaching she entered Wellesley College. In 1890 she received her B.A. degree from Wellesley College, then taught secondary school in Kentucky for one year and in Illinois for five years. In 1897, at the invitation of Dr. Goucher, she began teaching at the Women's College of Baltimore (now Goucher College) as an instructor of mathematics. She arrived in Baltimore with her sister Agnes, their mother, and servant, Ida Lindsay, who took care of Clara for the rest of her life. During her time at Goucher she continued her graduate studies at the University of Chicago during the summer quarters from 1901-1904, earning a master's degree from the University of Chicago in 1904 with a thesis on " The determination and investigation of the real chords of two conics which intersect fewer than four real points." In October 1907 she began graduate work at Johns Hopkins University in mathematics, education and philosophy. A fellowship from the Baltimore Association for Promotion of University Education of Women allowed her to spend the 1910-1911 academic year at the university. In 1911 she became the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University. Her dissertation was on "The Cartesian oval and the elliptic functions p and σ," later published in the AmerBacon was promoted to associate professor at Goucher in 1905 and to full professor in 1914. She continued to teach at Goucher College until her retirement in 1934 as Professor Emeritus of Mathematics. She was by all accounts an outstanding teacher. One student wrote of her [4]:

She believed in us so simply and so deeply that we could not disappoint her. When she felt that circumstances prevented us from doing all she hoped, she tried to change the circumstances. It was her support that made graduate study possible for me. Her patience and understanding as a teacher opened up the beauty of mathematics. For many years her faith in all of us made life seem good.

At least eight of her students went on to earn the Ph.D. degree in mathematics, including Marguerite Lehr. Lehr writes in the Goucher Alumnae Quarterly [3]:

The four college years for this particular math major at now a curious mixture of memories of Dr. Bacon—of "Freshman Analyt" (in Katy Hooper, of course), boards full of figures for "projective," deep despair over Invariants, and after-class consultations on Dr. Scott's book (those sessions known as the after-math); but also of picnics at Herring Run, tea at 231 6 with Ida reassuringly at the door, and of 1919's Donnybrook with its page "There are smiles" headed by Dr. Bacon herself. The fifteen years since have added new details, but they have given color to the old ones, showing them as only part of what Dr. Bacon has brought to year after year of students. Going back to college means seeing Dr. Bacon if only for a second, to say how work is going; to have the spur of her satisfaction if it is going well, and the support of her understanding if the road is hard.

Bacon was a member of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America, serving for a time as president of the Maryland-Virginia section of the MAA. She served for many years on the College Entrance Examination Board. In addition, Bacon was involved with several associations for peace as well as the Foreign Policy Association and the League of Women Voters.ican Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 35, No. 3. (July, 1913), pp. 261-280. 

Susan Jane Cunningham

                                               March 23, 1842 - January 24, 1921

Susan Cunningham was born in Virginia. She studied astronomy and mathematics at Vassar College as a special student during 1866-67, working with Maria Mitchell, who encouraged so many Vassar students to continue in astronomy. She also took special courses in astronomy and mathematics during several summers at Harvard University, Princeton University, Newnham College at Cambridge, the Greenwich Observatory in England, and Williams College. In 1869 she helped to begin the astronomy and mathematics departments for the opening of Swarthmore College. She headed those two departments until her retirement from Swarthmore in 1906, rising through the ranks from instructor to full professor. In 1888 Swarthmore presented her with the honorary degree of Doctor of Science, the first degree of this kind given by that institution.

Practically the whole life of Susan Cunningham was involved with the founding and development of Swarthmore. In 1906, President Swain said:

Susan J. Cunningham has the distinction of being the only one in the faculty who has been connected with the College since its beginning in 1869. She is energetic, forceful and learned in her profession, and a thorough believer in the gospel of work. She has loved Swarthmore more than her own life, of which she has unsparingly given. She has in season and out of season been ready not only to serve the College but to help individual students by giving them her advice, her time and in numerous cases her money.

Cunningham planned and equipped the first observatory at Swarthmore. She lived in the building until her retirement in 1906. Swarthmore paid $100 rent per year to her for the rest of her life, and upon her death in 1921 Cunningham Observatory became college property. The original President's House was converted into a second observatory to house research quality astronomical equipment donated by William Sproul, a former student of Cunningham. At the time of her retirement, the then Senator Sproul gave the following tribute to Susan Cunningham:

No figure stands out more prominently than that of Doctor Cunningham. She has been a believer in honest work for herself and for her students as well. In her make-up, sham and superficiality have no place. Her straightforwardness in speech and in method in her classroom and in her daily life has left an influence for good on hundreds who have been here. Swarthmore has been and is the object of her devotion; to the college has been given the efforts of her best years of a remarkable life. In every success of the institution since the first student entered its door she has shared; in all its vicissitudes she has been ready with a helping hand. I fervently hope that our college may always stand for the principles of cleanliness, morality and intellectual honesty for which she has stood, and now as another of these strong leaders who have piloted the college out of the narrow channel of obscurity into the broad, deep sea of success steps down from the post where she has stood through nearly forty years, may the course that she has laid out be followed and Swarthmore go on to a splendid realization of the plans of the devoted founders.

In 1891 Cunningham was elected a member of the New York Mathematical Society (later to become the American Mathematical Society), one of the first six women to join this organization. She remained a member until her death in 1921.