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Stanislaw Ulam

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Mathematician

The Resume

    (April 13, 1909-May 13, 1984)
    Born in Lviv, Ukraine
    Mathematician and nuclear physicist
    Participated in the Manhattan Project to produce an atomic bomb
    With Edward Teller, created the first workable design for a hydrogen bomb
    Developed the Monte Carlo method of obtaining a result through statistical sampling (1949)
    Developed the Ulam spiral, a graphical depiction of the set of prime numbers (1963)

Why he might be annoying:

    He and Teller had a running feud over who deserved the most credit for developing the H-bomb.
    In one of the more oddball 'peaceful uses for atomic bombs' projects, he proposed using a series of nuclear explosions to launch rockets into space.
    His wife Francoise said, 'The physical act of taking pen to paper has always been painful for him.... Thus, Ulam has always had a very hard time bringing himself to write anything for publication.'
    He said, 'Mathematicians know a great deal about very little, and physicists very little about a great deal.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    In his teens, he taught himself calculus and set theory from books.
    He and his brother Adam left Poland for the US two weeks before the Nazi invasion.
    His father and sister were killed in concentration camps.
    He was one of the first mathematicians to investigate problems using computers.
    His paper 'Quadratic Transformations' was an early investigation of chaos theory and contained the first published use of the phrase 'chaotic behavior.'

Credit: C. Fishel


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Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 17 Votes: 5.88% Annoying