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There is a thread on music notations on stamps over in the "Discuss anything" forum which sparked an idea to see how far we can go with mathematical equations on stamps. Anything mathematics related is fair subject matter for this thread as well.
I'll start off with this stamp featuring Pierre de Fermat and his famous Last Theorem (or conjecture) which claims that no three positive integers x, y and z can satisfy the equation shown on the stamp. It took 358 years and countless attempts until Andrew Wiles published a successful proof of the theorem in 1995.
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Scott 2836. Issued 19 August 2001.
BC
P.S. I did a search and couldn't find an existing thread on this topic. If I missed one, perhaps the mods will be kind enough to merge.
Good judgment is gained from experience. Experience is gained from poor judgment.
do you know who is the guy depicted on the stamp and/or anything about the stamps background?
Cheers,
pbr
Postal history: Aerogrammes. Routing Instructions Dutch East Indies. Air mail to/from Asia up to 1945. Germany pre-WW2 air mails, Germany post-WW2 covers. My blog:https://aerogramme-airletters.blogspot.de/
•He was born on 22naof December 1887 in a small village of Tanjore district, Madras.He failed in English in Intermediate, so his formal studies were stopped but his self-study of mathematics continued.
•He sent a set of 120 theorems to Professor Hardy of Cambridge. As a result he invited Ramanujan to England.
•Ramanujan showed that any big number can be written as sum of not more than four prime numbers.
•He showed that how to divide the number into two or more squares or cubes.
•when Mr Litlewood came to see Ramanujan in taxi number 1729, Ramanujan said that 1729 is the smallest number which can be written in the form of sum of cubes of two numbers in two ways,i.e. 1729 = 93 + 103 = 13 + 123since then the number 1729 is called Ramanujan’s number.
•In the third century B.C, Archimedes noted that the ratio of circumference of a circle to its diameter is constant. The ratio is now called ‘pi ( Π )’ (the 16th letter in the Greek alphabet series)
•The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 1053 with specific names as early as 5000 B.C. during the Vedic period.
Brit-Col - Good idea! Here is my first contribution:
Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) was a Swiss mathematician and physicist who is considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. Here is an image of a semi-postal (charity) stamp featuring a portrait of Euler, designed after a painting (1756) by Swiss artist Jakob Emanuel Handmann (1718-1781), and Euler's formula, which establishes the fundamental relationship between the trigonometric functions and the complex exponential function, engraved by Karl Bickel, and issued by Switzerland on November 30, 1957 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Euler's birth, Scott No. B267, plus a photo of Handmann's portrait. Note the droopy right eyelid; Euler was nearly blind in this eye.
Here is a set of stamps from Greenland featuring a mathematical equation along with physicist Niels Bohr. Jointly issued with Denmark on 21 November 1963 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his atomic theory. Designed by Viggo (I presume) Bang and engraved by Czeslaw Slania. Below is one of the Danish cousins.
Scott 66 & 67
Scott 409
BC
Good judgment is gained from experience. Experience is gained from poor judgment.
Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of English physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and depicting the equation for Newton's law of universal gravitation, designed and engraved by Claude Jumelet, and issued by Monaco on November 16, 1987 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the first publication of the law, Scott No. 1601.
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, FRS (1858-1947) was a German theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. The Planck constant (denoted h) is a physical constant that is the quantum of action in quantum mechanics. The Planck constant was first described as the proportionality constant between the energy (E) of a charged atomic oscillator in the wall of a black body, and the frequency (ν) of its associated electromagnetic wave. This relation between the energy and frequency is called the Planck relation. Here is an image of a stamp depicting experimental apparatus and the mathematical equation for the Planck relation, printed by photogravure, and issued by Germany on May 5, 1994 as a Europa stamp commemorating the "discovery" of quantum theory, Scott No. 1830.
There are two good reference books on stamps on mathematics.
Mathematics and Science An Adventure in Postage Stamps; William Leonard Schaaf; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Reston, USA 1978
Stamping through Mathematics An Illustrated History of Mathematics through Stamps; Robin J Wilson; Springer-Verlag, Incorporated, New York City, USA 2001
Farkas Bolyai (also known as Wolfgang Bolyai in Germany, 1775-1856) was a Hungarian mathematician whose main work, the Tentamen, was an attempt at a rigorous and systematic foundation of geometry, arithmetic, algebra and analysis. Here is an image of a stamp featuring a likeness of Bolyai, designed by Hungarian graphic artist Károly Vagyóczky (1941- ), printed by lithography, and issued by Hungary on February 7, 1975 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the mathematician's birth, plus an image of a contemporary sketch of Farkas Bolyai which was probably the model for this stamp's design.
Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (1811-1877) was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his accurate prediction in 1846 of the existence and location of the then unknown planet Neptune, using only mathematics and astronomical observations of the known planet Uranus. Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of Le Verrier, designed and engraved by Albert Decaris, and issued by France on February 15, 1958, Scott No. 870, Y&T No. 1147, plus a photo of the mathematician's distinctive "zodiacal" grave in Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris.
Happy Birthday to Emanuel Lasker, PhD (1868-1941), a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years (from 1894 to 1921). Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of Lasker, designed by German artist Gerhard Stauf (1925-1996), engraved by Margot (Sachs-) Bitzer, and issued by East Germany (DDR) on July 17, 1968 to commemorate the grandmaster's birth centenary, Scott No. 1026, Michel No. 1387, plus a photograph of Emanuel Lasker taken in 1929.
Happy Birthday to Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813), an Italian Enlightenment Era mathematician, astronomer and a member of the French Academy who made significant contributions to all fields of analysis, number theory, and both classical and celestial mechanics. Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of Lagrange, designed and engraved by Albert Decaris, and issued by France on February 15, 1958, Scott No. 869, Y&T No. 1146, plus an image of another portrait of Joseph-Louis Lagrange.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher. Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of Pascal surrounded by symbols of his life's work, designed by French artist Roger Schardner (1898-1980), engraved by Charles Mazelin, and issued by France on May 26, 1962 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Blaise Pascal's death, Scott No. 1038, Y&T No. 1344, plus an image of a sketched portrait of him.
Happy Birthday to Polish mathematician and astronomer Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543)! Here is an image of an engraved stamp featuring a portrait of Copernicus, and issued by China (People's Republic) on December 30, 1953 to commemorate the 410th anniversary of his death, Scott No. 205.
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) was a German mathematician and philosopher who developed the infinitesimal calculus independently of Isaac Newton. Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of Leibniz, designed by Vlasto (Vladimir Stoyanov), printed by photogravure, and issued by Romania on June 28, 1966, Scott No. 1855, plus an image of a portrait of Leibniz by German painter Christoph Bernhard Francke (c. 1670-1729).
Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727), his equation for the equivalence of linear momentum and impulse, and various mathematical and scientific symbols, combined engraved and lithography, and issued by Germany on January 14, 1993 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of Newton's birth, Scott No. 1771.
Polish mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), airmail stamp designed and engraved by Pierre Béquet, and issued for use in Afars and Issas on May 9, 1973 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Copernicus's birth, Scott No. C83.
Satyendra Nath Bose FRS (1894-1974) was a Bengali Indian physicist specializing in mathematical physics. Best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, the class of particles that obey Bose–Einstein statistics, bosons, was named after him by Paul Dirac. Here is an image of a stamp issued by India on January 1, 1994 to commemorate the Dr. Bose's birth centenary, Scott No. 1475, plus a photographic portrait of Satyendra Nath Bose in 1925.
Happy Birthday to Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784-1846), a German astronomer who was the first scientist to determine the distance from the sun to another star by the method of parallax, and a mathematician who systematized the Bessel functions (discovered by Daniel Bernoulli). Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of Bessel and a depiction of the plot of a Bessel function, designed by German artist Hermann Schwahn (1927-2003), combined engraved by Hans-Joachim Fuchs and lithography, and issued by Germany on June 19, 1984 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Bessel's birth, Scott No. 1422, Michel No. 1219, plus an image of a painted portrait (1839) of Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel by Danish artist Christian Albrecht Jensen (1792-1870).
Sofia ("Sonya") Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (1850-1891) was a Russian mathematician who made important contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics. Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of Kovalevskaya, designed by Russian artist Vladimir Zavialov, printed by photogravure, and issued by Russia (USSR) on August 15, 1951, Scott No. 1570, Zagorski No. 1548, plus an image of a photograph of Sonya Kovalevskaya which may have been the model for this stamp's design.
Adam Riese (1492-1559), aka Adam Ries, was a German mathematician who is generally considered to be the "father of modern calculating." Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of Riese, designed by Michel + Kieser (German graphic artists Hans Michel and Günther Kieser), printed by lithography, and issued by (West) Germany on March 28, 1959 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the mathematician's death, Scott No. 799, Michel No. 308, plus an image of a portrait of Adam Riese at age 58 which was used as a model for this stamp's design.
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (1749-1827) was a French mathematician who made major contributions to the sciences of statistics, physics, and astronomy. Here is an image of a semi-postal (charity) stamp featuring a portrait of Laplace, designed by Paul-Pierre Lemagny (1905-1997), engraved by René Cottet, and issued by France on June 11, 1955, Scott No. B298, Y&T No. 1031, plus an image of the original painting of Laplace which was the model for this stamp's design.
Numerals and mathematical symbols, designed by Park Eun-kyung, printed by photogravure, and issued by (South) Korea on July 13, 2000 to publicize the 41st International Mathematical Olympiad, held in Taejon, Korea, Scott No. 2026.
Happy Birthday to Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), a Renaissance Polish mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at its center. Here is an image of an airmail stamp featuring a portrait of Copernicus, his signature, a diagram of his heliocentric model, and a USA Ranger spacecraft, designed and engraved by Claude Haley, and issued by Malagasy on January 22, 1974, Scott No. C121. Note: The Ranger program was a series of unmanned space missions by the United States in the 1960s whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon.
Hipparchus of Nicaea (c. 190 – c. 120 BC) was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician who is considered the founder of trigonometry, and is also famous for his discovery of precession of the equinoxes. Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of Hipparchus and depicting an astrolabe, printed by lithography, and issued by Greece on October 21, 1965 to publicize the opening of the Evghenides Planetarium in Athens, Scott No. 835, plus an image of Hipparchus from the title page of William Cunningham's Cosmographicall Glasse (1559).
Happy Birthday to Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, comte Carnot (1753-1823), a French mathematician, engineer, military officer and politician known as "The Organizer of Victory" in the French Revolutionary Wars. Carnot's contributions in projective geometry helped to set a new foundation for mathematics. Here is an image of a semi-postal (charity) stamp featuring a portrait of Lazare Carnot, designed and engraved by Henry Cheffer (1880-1957), and issued by France on July 10, 1950, Scott No. B251, Y&T No. 869, plus an image of a Lithograph by Ducarme portrait of Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, comte Carnot in uniform.
Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli (ca. 1447 – 1517) was an Italian mathematician, Franciscan friar, and the seminal contributor to the field now known as accounting. He is referred to as "The Father of Accounting and Bookkeeping" and he was the first person to publish a work on double-entry system of book-keeping.
Here is a stamp issued by Italy on April 13, 1994 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the publication of Pacioli's first book "Summa de arithmetica, geometria. Proportioni et proportionalita" in 1494 in Venice:
Leonhard Euler - Graph theory
In 1735, Euler presented a solution to the problem known as the Seven Bridges of Königsberg. The city of Königsberg, Prussia was set on the Pregel River, and included two large islands that were connected to each other and the mainland by seven bridges. The problem is to decide whether it is possible to follow a path that crosses each bridge exactly once and returns to the starting point. It is not possible: there is no Eulerian circuit. This solution is considered to be the first theorem of graph theory, specifically of planar graph theory. (Wikipedia)
José Paulo
I Collect: Bridges theme / Hotel Advertising Covers and Envelopes
Juraj (Jur) Hronec (1881-1959) was a Slovakian mathematician and educator whose research was focused on primarily on differential equations used in science and technology. Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of Hronec, designed by Jozef Baláž (1923-2006), combined engraved by Josef Herčík (1922-1999) and photogravure, and issued by Czechoslovakia on March 10, 1981 to commemorate the mathematician's birth centenary, Scott No. 2349, plus an image of a photograph of Juraj Hronec.
Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon (1707-1788) was a French naturalist and mathematician who first made his mark in the field of mathematics with his study Sur le jeu de franc-carreau ("On the game of the coin-and-chessboard"), in which he introduced differential and integral calculus into probability theory. Here is an image of a semi-postal (charity) stamp featuring a portrait of Buffon, designed and engraved by Gabriel-Antoine Barlangue (1874-1955), and issued by France on November 14, 1949, Scott No. B241, Y&T No. 856, plus an image of a painted portrait (1753) of the comte de Buffon by French artist François-Hubert Drouais (1727-1775).
Here are images of a stamp featuring a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) and depicting an optics diagram, and a se-tenant label depicting a diagram from Principia Mathematica and the launch of a Soviet rocket, designed by Hungarian artist János Kass (1927-2010), printed by lithography, and issued by Hungary on March 31, 1977 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Newton's death, Scott No. 2485.
I've been enjoying this thread. It's nice to know there are other collectors interested in mathematics thematic stamps on Stampboards.
Here is a pictorial postmark marking "Pi" day this year:
Pi Day is an annual celebration of the mathematical constant pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. 2015 Pi Day was significant in that on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m. and also at p.m., the date and time represented the first 10 digits of Pi.
Visit my pictorial cancellation website: http://pcancels.wordpress.com I Collect Permanent/Scenic pictorial cancellations, China, Taiwan, Japan, Art, Buddhism, Flowers, Fruits, Food/Gastronomy, Mathematics, Scenic Landscape/Landmark, UNESCO World Heritage.
Here is an image of a stamp featuring a portrait of French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), designed by French artist Pierrette Lambert (1928- ), engraved by Cécile Guillame (1933-2004), and issued by Monaco on April 30, 1973 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the mathematician's birth, Scott No. 875, plus an image of a painted portrait of Blaise Pascal which was surely a model for this stamp's design, along with the cover of his most famous theological book, the Pensées ("Thoughts"), published posthumously.
Arakan wrote:I've been enjoying this thread. It's nice to know there are other collectors interested in mathematics thematic stamps on Stampboards.
Here is a pictorial postmark marking "Pi" day this year:
Pi Day is an annual celebration of the mathematical constant pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. 2015 Pi Day was significant in that on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m. and also at p.m., the date and time represented the first 10 digits of Pi.
Pity they didn't use Savannah, Georgia. Zip Code 31415.
BC
Good judgment is gained from experience. Experience is gained from poor judgment.
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) was a German mathematician who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, mechanics, electrostatics, astronomy, matrix theory, and optics. In 1831 Gauss published his treatise on complex numbers as points in the plane, largely establishing modern notation and terminology. Here is an image of a stamp depicting an illustration of the plane of complex numbers, designed by German artist Bruno K. Wiese (1922-2011), printed by photogravure, and issued by West Germany on April 14, 1977 to commemorate the bicentenary of Gauss's birth, Scott No. 1246, Michel No. 928.
Mathematical symbols, an airmail stamp printed by lithography (Thomas de la Rue de Colombia, S.A.), and issued by Colombia on October 29, 1968 to commemorate the centenary of the National University and the 1st Congreso Colombiano de cálculo electrónico, held in 1967 at the University, Scott No. C510.
