October 5

Are You Sure ... (October 5, 2020)

Viking 2 Orbiter image of the Martian satellite Deimos taken from 1400 km. Deimos is about 14 km from top to bottom in this image. Date: 5 October 1977.

• ... that the Viking 2 spacecraft conducted biology experiments in search of life on Mars, and that the results were surprising and interesting?

• ... that statesman and prelate Paolo Sarpi (14 August 1552 – 15 January 1623) was also an experimental scientist, a proponent of the Copernican system, and a friend and patron of Galileo Galilei?

• ... that the House of Malevecchio is responsible for nearly all of the crimes against mathematical constants committed during the Renaissance?

• ... that mathematician and philosopher Maria Gaetana Agnesi (16 May 1718 – 9 January 1799) was the first woman to write a mathematics handbook, and the first woman appointed as a Mathematics Professor at a university?

• ... that mathematician Benjamin Peirce (4 April 1809 – 6 October 1880) made contributions to celestial mechanics, statistics, number theory, algebra, and the philosophy of mathematics; and that Peirce famously stated: "Mathematics is the science that draws necessary conclusions"?

Screenshot: Are You Sure (October 5, 2020)

On This Day in History and Fiction

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  1607: Assassins sent by Pope Paul V attempt to kill Venetian statesman and scientist Paolo Sarpi, who survives fifteen stiletto thrusts.

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  1713: Philosopher, art critic, and writer Denis Diderot born. He will be a prominent figure during the Enlightenment, serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert.

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  1750: Maria Gaetana Agnesi receives a response from Pope Benedict XIV on the publication of her book, Instituzioni Analitiche, a two volume presentation covering algebra, calculus and differential equations. The pope will send her a gold medal and a wreath laid with precious stones, and name her honorary professor at the University of Bologna.

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  1910: Mathematician Nathan Jacobson born. He will conduct research on the structure theory of rings without finiteness conditions--a subject closely related to the theory of algebras--which will transform the approach to classical results and break ground for solutions to problems inaccessible by previous methods.

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  1976: Viking program: The Viking 2 orbiter primary mission ends at the beginning of solar conjunction. The extended mission will commence on 14 December 1976 after solar conjunction.

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  1985: Mathematician Karl Menger dies. He worked on mathematics of algebras, algebra of geometries, curve and dimension theory, game theory, and social sciences.

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  1985: Mathematician and statistician Harald Cramér dies. He helped found probability theory as a branch of mathematics, writing in 1926: "The probability concept should be introduced by a purely mathematical definition, from which its fundamental properties and the classical theorems are deduced by purely mathematical operations."

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  2017: Dennis Paulson of Mars celebrates the forty-first anniversary of the end of the Viking 2 orbiter's primary mission, at the beginning of the solar conjunction.