I agree. Probably just an old grudge. One of my professors put a bonus question on one of his weekly exams: who invented modular math? I answered Gauss, but he would not take my answer. I got a B rather than an A.
Don > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] > On Behalf Of John Gilmore > Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 3:47 PM > To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU > Subject: Re: I do not understand S0C6 on CDSG > > When J. P. Morgan was queried about how much the maintenance of the > steam yacht he used to commute between Manhattan and New Jersey cost > him, his legendary reply was, 'If you have to ask, you can't afford > it". > > Analogously, if you have to look up the history of congruences in a > Wikipedia article, you should advance what you find there very > tentatively. Euler, another great mathematician, did have some > notions of the mathematics of cycles; he would hasve had something > interesting to say about any topic her turned his mind to; but Gauss > is the founder of the modern theory of congruences. > > Examples of this kind abound. Archimedes, certainly the greatest > mathematician of antiquity, had some notions of the calculus; but its > inventor was Newton (if you are anglophone) or Leibniz (if not). > Precursors are of course important. As Newton himself put it, "I was > able to see so far because I stood on the shoulders of giants". > > John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
