NIELS HENRIK ABEL - Oslo, Norway
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 59° 54.819 E 010° 44.471
32V E 597364 N 6643074
Niels Henrik Abel was a notable Norwegian mathematician and he once lived here.
Waymark Code: WMGCWW
Location: Oslo, Norway
Date Posted: 02/15/2013
Views: 17
The blue plaque on this building reads:
"SELSKABET FOR OSLO BYES VEL
MATEMATIKEREN
NIELS HENRIK ABEL
1802-29
BEROMT FOR BANEBRYTENDE
ARBEID INNEN LIGNINGSTEORI
UENDELIGE REKKER OG
ELLIPTISKE FUNKSJONER
BODDE HERE
1815-21"
which Google translates as:
""Society for Oslo Byes WELL
Mathematician
NIELS HENRIK ABEL
1802-29
Famous for pioneering
WORK IN TAX THEORY
ENDLESS ROWS AND
elliptic functions
STAYED HERE
1815-21 "
Wikipedia (
visit link) adds:
"Niels Henrik Abel (5 August 1802 – 6 April 1829) was a Norwegian mathematician who proved the impossibility of solving the quintic equation by radicals. The Abel Prize is named for him...
Abel gave a proof of the binomial theorem valid for all numbers, extending Euler's result which had held only for rationals. At age 19, he showed there is no general algebraic solution for the roots of a quintic equation, or any general polynomial equation of degree greater than four, in terms of explicit algebraic operations. To do this, he invented (independently of Galois) an extremely important branch of mathematics known as group theory, which is invaluable not only in many areas of mathematics, but for much of physics as well. Among his other accomplishments, Abel wrote a monumental work on elliptic functions which, however, was not discovered until after his death. When asked how he developed his mathematical abilities so rapidly, he replied "by studying the masters, not their pupils." Abel said famously of Carl Friedrich Gauss's writing style, “He is like the fox, who effaces his tracks in the sand with his tail.'"