Jewry's Role in
Human Affairs
MATHEMATICS: A JEWISH LEGACY
d sin (x-1-0
— cos (x+0
The influence of Jewish mathematicians on scientific progress has been long
standing. As early as about 150 C.E., Rabbi Nehemiah was believed to have
written The Treatise of Measures, an enduring work whose mathematical theories
and systems helped in stimulating scientific speculations and gains until Medieval
times.
But it was the remarkable 12th Century achievement of the almost
legendary Abraham ibn Ezra to whom a singular honor goes. He led several
Spanish Jewish colleagues in bringing Arabic numerals, the decimal system and the
use of the zero (all originating in India) to Christian culture. The event was a
milestone in the history of Western civilization.
More recently, the mantle of mathematical distinction has been passed on
to those like Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky (1792-1856), the Russian-born
founder of non-Euclidean geometry. He was said to be the most outstanding
mathematician his country ever produced. And within a short lifespan, the German
professor Karl Gustav Jacobi (1804-51) proposed a wealth of significant
mathematical theories filling seven volumes published by the Prussian Academy
of Science. In addition, the British professor of mathematics James Joseph
Sylvester (1814-97) did brilliant work on the theory of numbers and created a
powerful and inventive theory of algebraic forms before his appointment to Johns
Hopkins University in the U.S. (1876). While there, he spoke out eloquently for
higher mathematics education in colleges and universities, and founded and edited
the American Journal of Mathematics.
Equally notable was F.G.M. Eisenstein (1823-54) whose work in algebra and in
the theory of numbers was hailed by fellow German Carl Gauss, considered by
many as among the greatest modern mathematicians who ever lived. "He belongs
to those talents who are born but once in a century," Gauss wrote of Eisenstein.
What's more, Albert Einstein owes a debt of gratitude to several pre-eminent
contemporaries: to Russian Hermann Minkowski (1864-1909), his former teacher
and developer of the space-time description Einstein applied to his theory of
relativity, and to Italian Tullio Levi-Civita (1873-1941) whose tensor analysis was
a master key to formulating the theory.
Although it may sound abstruse, the revolutionary theory of sets and
concepts of the infinite advanced by Georg Cantor (1845-1918) brought a new
mode of thinking and reasoning into the discipline. A leading mathematical
philosopher of his day, Bertrand Russell, wrote of the German professor: "In
mathematics, my chief obligations, as is indeed evident, are to Georg Cantor..."
- Saul Stadtmauer
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Death By Dictate
Palestinian executions of "collaborators"
put spotlight on Israeli assassination policy.
LARRY DERFNER
Israel Correspondent
Jerusalem
he condemnations came in
fast, chiefly from Israeli
officials and international
human rights organizations,
after two Palestinian collaborators were
killed over the weekend by Palestinian
firing squads. The instant trials and
executions that followed were "remis-
cent of darker periods in history," said
Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Yet there was another side to the
executions — the collaborators were
killed for aiding Israel in its assassina-
tions of Palestinian guerrillas.
Palestinian Justice Minister Freih
Abu Medein was quoted as saying,
"The one who executed the collabora-
tors is Israel. It forced us to take this
step because of the assassinations
ordered by Barak and [Israeli Army
commander Gen. Shaul] Mofaz."
These were the Palestinian
Authority's first two executions of col-
laborators, although two more were
sentenced to death on Saturday.
Israel has assassinated "at least 15
Palestinians," said Tomer Feffer,
spokesman for the Israeli human rights
organization B'tselem. Of these 15, Feffer
said nine were military targets while six
were innocent bystanders — known in
the war trade as "collateral damage."
Barak, Mofaz and other political and
military leaders have defended the
assassinations as a legitimate tactic in
the face of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which
effectively is a guerrilla war. The assas-
sinations, which began on Nov. 9,
were adopted when the Israeli response
up to then- — shooting at Arab rioters
and gunmen — was proving ineffec-
tive and also getting Israel awful inter-
national media coverage, which
showed Palestinian children being car-
ried dead off the battlefield.