While carpenters were working outside the old house I had just bought, I busied myself with indoor cleaning. I had just finished washing the floor when one of the workmen asked to use the bathroom.
With dismay I looked from his muddy boots to my newly scrubbed floors. Just a minute, I said, thinking of a quick solution. Ill put down newspapers.
Thats all right, lady, he responded. Im already trained.
Brook TaylorDied 29 Dec 1731 at age 46 (born 18 Aug 1685).British mathematician, best known for the Taylor's series, a method for expanding functions into infinite series. In 1708, Taylor produced a solution to the problem of the centre of oscillation. His Methodus incrementorum directa et inversa (“Direct and Indirect Methods of Incrementation,” 1715) introduced what is now called the calculus of finite differences. Using this, he was the first to express mathematically the movement of a vibrating string on the basis of mechanical principles. Methodus also contained Taylor's theorem, later recognized (1772) by Joseph Lagrange as the basis of differential calculus. A gifted artist, Taylor also wrote on basic principles of perspective (1715) containing the first general treatment of the principle of vanishing points.« |
