Mathematicians with tongue-in-cheek

Have you ever heard of the mathematician Niholas Bourbaki?

"Near the middle of the 20th century, Nicolas Bourbaki published several mathematics texts in areas such as Set Theory, Algebra, Topology, Functions of a Real Variable, etc. These texts had a profound impact on the mathematical landscape of the day and their affect is felt to this day."

So what's so important about Bourbaki?

Well, he never existed! It was just a tongue-in-cheek joke!

It's quite an interesting and funny story indeed... go read it at Natural Blogarithms.

Comments

Unknown said…
Bourbaki was all about formalizing mathematics as far as possible. The exercises contained in their books are very instructive.

JS,
http://www.mymathforum.com
6:15 AM, December 03, 2006
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