In what year did Isaac Newton begin his intensely productive period of mathematical work while avoiding a plague outbreak?

Math

Which mathematician developed the foundational concepts of calculus while isolated at his family home during a 1665 plague outbreak?

Isaac Newton invented calculus while hiding from plague in 1665, producing more mathematics in 18 months than most mathematicians in a lifetime.

Math

Which mathematical expression did Gottfried Leibniz once describe as 'almost an amphibian between being and non-being'?

Leibniz believed √−1 was a mystical glimpse of God, declaring it 'a beautiful monument of the human spirit' and 'almost an amphibian between being and non-being.'

Math

What term describes prime numbers of the form 2^p − 1, named after the 17th-century French friar who cataloged them?

Marin Mersenne claimed in 1644 that 2^p-1 was prime for only 8 values under 257, but he was wrong about at least 5 of them—a mistake stood for centuries.

Math

What have scientific studies found when researchers measured the facial proportions of people rated as highly attractive?

The human face doesn't actually obey the golden ratio as consistently as cosmetic surgeons claim—studies show attractive faces vary widely in their proportions.

Math

Which long-unsolved number theory conjecture did Sophie Germain advance a major case of while writing under the pseudonym 'Monsieur LeBlanc'?

Sophie Germain proved a major case of Fermat's Last Theorem using a fake male identity, but Gauss accidentally revealed he knew her real identity.

Math

In what year did Emmy Noether publish the theorem linking symmetries to conservation laws in physics?

Emmy Noether's groundbreaking symmetry theorem in physics was so abstract that even Einstein struggled to explain its importance to colleagues.