The skydiving instructor was going through the question and answer period with his new students when one of them asked the usual question always asked: "If our chute doesn't open; and the reserve doesn't open, how long would we have till we hit the ground?"
The jump master looked at him and in perfect deadpan answered: "The rest of your life."
Charles HermiteBorn 24 Dec 1822; died 14 Jan 1901 at age 78. French mathematician whose work in the theory of functions includes the application of elliptic functions to provide the first solution to the general equation of the fifth degree, the quintic equation. In 1873 he published the first proof that e is a transcendental number. Hermite is known also for a number of mathematical entities that bear his name, Hermite polynomials, Hermite's differential equation, Hermite's formula of interpolation and Hermitian matrices. Poincaré is the best known of Hermite's students. |
