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Fun fact: Evariste Galois made major contributions to math in his teens, before dying in a duel at age 20. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89variste_Galois h

Fun fact: Evariste Galois made major contributions to math in his teens, before dying in a duel at age 20. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89variste_Galois https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89variste_Galois

schoen 9y ago
Wikipedia reminds me that the version of his death (staying up all night before the duel to frantically write down his mathematical ideas at the last possible moment) that I read in Men of Mathematics may have been overdramatized, apparently like a number of the stories in that book.
- DonbunEf7 9y ago
  What definitely did happen is that Galois was worried that he might not win the duel and that he might never get the chance to redeem himself in front of his mathematical peers. We know this because of the letter he wrote before he died; we actually have it, and WP has a scan of a page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E._Galois_Letter.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E._Galois_Letter.jpg It is hard to overdramatize the events of Galois' life. He lived during a revolution, he went out into the streets to protest and fight, he was arrested multiple times for his outrageous political speech, and he laid down his life for his political beliefs. A friend of mine who survived a chronic and often-fatal disease in his teens used to quip, "Well, if I were Galois, I'd have already made my best contributions and died by now." Galois indeed burned fast and bright.
- bikenaga 9y ago
  Tony Rothman wrote an article in the American Mathematical Monthly which helped to separate a lot of the fact from the fiction in accounts of Galois's life. Highly recommended: https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/upload_library/22/Ford/Rothman84-106.pdf https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/upload_library/2...
tnecniv 9y ago
He was also a political firebrand at the time and did much of his writing in prison as a result.
logingone 9y ago
That's fantastic. Not him dying, but you're not likely to hear a story like that these days.

schoen 9y ago

Wikipedia reminds me that the version of his death (staying up all night before the duel to frantically write down his mathematical ideas at the last possible moment) that I read in Men of Mathematics may have been overdramatized, apparently like a number of the stories in that book.

DonbunEf7 9y ago
What definitely did happen is that Galois was worried that he might not win the duel and that he might never get the chance to redeem himself in front of his mathematical peers. We know this because of the letter he wrote before he died; we actually have it, and WP has a scan of a page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E._Galois_Letter.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E._Galois_Letter.jpg It is hard to overdramatize the events of Galois' life. He lived during a revolution, he went out into the streets to protest and fight, he was arrested multiple times for his outrageous political speech, and he laid down his life for his political beliefs. A friend of mine who survived a chronic and often-fatal disease in his teens used to quip, "Well, if I were Galois, I'd have already made my best contributions and died by now." Galois indeed burned fast and bright.
bikenaga 9y ago
Tony Rothman wrote an article in the American Mathematical Monthly which helped to separate a lot of the fact from the fiction in accounts of Galois's life. Highly recommended: https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/upload_library/22/Ford/Rothman84-106.pdf https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/upload_library/2...

tnecniv 9y ago

He was also a political firebrand at the time and did much of his writing in prison as a result.

logingone 9y ago

That's fantastic. Not him dying, but you're not likely to hear a story like that these days.