61 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
61 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
Odd to Obscurity
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by M. Gemignani
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Gauss, Euler, and Hilbert - we often read about the great mathematicians, but
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rarely about the thousands who toil in total obscurity. While it is obviously
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fitting to pay homage to the truly great, once in a while we should pause to
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honor common banality, if for no other reason than that it is so abundant and
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prolific. To pay homage to the mediocre multitude, I have selected a few of its
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most average representatives and here present a short summary of the work that
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made then totally unknown so that they might serve as an inspiration and
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consolation to us all.
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Luigi Testadura (c. 1756 - ?). Even Testadura's mother was not sure when he was
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born, and nobody really missed him when he died, thus the confusion about his
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birth and death dates. For all we know, he might still be alive.
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His most ignored work is his proof of the irrationality of mathematics, which
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still remains to be read in the original Italian. His equally unknown "Table of
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Even Integers from 2 to 200" has yet to be duplicated.
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Since he was a polite male chauvinist, Testadura held many chairs throughout
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Italy; even so, most people considered him a crashing boar* at the dinner table.
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Henri Malchance (1853-1801). Malchance was often ridiculed for constantly
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looking backward and living in the past. Nevertheless, he was the first to
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envision modern computers and invented Malchance's loop, which is still in vogue
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among many students in computer courses today:
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1 GOTO 2;
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2 GOTO 1.
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He consistently used such words as "stop", "go", and "end", words which form an
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important part of the computer literature today. He died of a broken heart after
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he computed pi to 2 million places and then couldn't get anyone to check his
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addition.
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Oskar Kopfwehundleerevongluck (1895-1931). Kopfee (as he was known to his dog)
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was a forerunner of the renowned Murphy; Kopfee would have been the first to
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publish Murphy's Law, which then would have been known as Kopfwehundleerevon-
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gluck's Law, but the secretary typing his manuscript ran off with his wife, the
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original manuscript was destroyed in a fire, a replacement was lost in the mail,
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and the journal in which it was to appear was shut down by the police.
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Undaunted, Kopfee turned his talent to prove Euclid's fifth postulate and
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showing that pi is an integer. He hurled himself into the Rhine after his rope
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broke in an unsuccessful attempt to hang himself upon learning he was not to
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receive tenure at the mail order university where he was an assistant envelope
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stuffer.
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Chambers Cadaver (1847-1901). Cadaver was an obscure English musician who was an
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total unknown as a mathematician. Despite the fact that he attended both Oxford
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and Cambridge, not a single instructor there would admit to having had him in
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his class. Cadaver submitted no less than twenty papers to the Royal Society;
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these went unrefereed until his death, at which time they were thrown away.
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According to on commentator on his life, "No one would have read them anyway and
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who would have paid the page charges?"
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All that remains of Cadaver's works are the titles of three of his lesser works:
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"A proof of Fermat's last theorem", "The four color problem solved", and
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"A discourse on the continuum hypothesis and the axiom of choice and a proof
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that they are indeed independent".
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