"The mathematician may be compared to a designer of garments, who is utterly oblivious of the creatures whom his garments may fit. ...The conic sections, invented in an attempt to solve the problem of doubling the alter of an oracle, ended by becoming the orbits followed by the planets... The imaginary magnitudes invented by Cardan and Bombelli describe... the characteristic features of alternating currents. The absolute differential calculus, which originated as a fantasy of Riemann, became the mathematical model for the theory of Relativity. And the matrices which were a complete abstraction in the days of Cayley and Sylvester appear admirably adapted to the... quantum of the atom."
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Academics from the United StatesMathematicians from the United StatesNon-fiction authorsPeople from LatviaHistorians of mathematics
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Tobias Dantzig
Tobias Dantzig (February 19, 1884 – August 9, 1956) was a mathematician of Baltic German and Russian American heritage. His son, George Dantzig, is a key figure in the development of linear programming.
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