Re: Sociological/Psychological Phenomenon

From: Robert Israel (israel_at_math.ubc.ca)
Date: 06/01/05 

Date: 31 May 2005 23:35:37 GMT

In article <20050601002724.66523a99@localhost.localdomain>,
Mailman <mailman@anonymous.org> wrote:

>Even worse for your case: quite a few major theorems were discovered by
>completely unknown or obscure people, some of which were not even
>professionals (Fermat was a lawyer, Newton was a priest and alchemist)

Fermat was indeed a lawyer, but Newton was never a priest. According to
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Early_life>:
************
He was elected Lucasian professor of mathematics in 1669. Any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be
ordained at the time. However the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be
active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should
exempt him from the normal ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted
this argument. This prevented the conflict that would have occurred between his nontrinitarian views and
the orthodoxy of the church.
***********

Religion and alchemy were among Newton's major interests, especially later in life, but in the
period of his main mathematical activity he was first a student of philosophy (which included a
lot of things in those days) and then a professor of mathematics.

>and some of which were extremely young (Galois was 19 when he died,
>Lebesgue revolutionized the field with his doctor's thesis). Sometimes
>even formal education of any kind is not necessary (Ramanujan),

Ramanujan did have a formal education, just not a good one.

Robert Israel israel@math.ubc.ca
Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel
University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada

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