#GUASSIAN_ELIMINATION
Gaussian elimination were known much earlier, its importance in scientific computation became clear when the great German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss used it to help compute the orbit of the asteroid Ceres from limited data. What happened was this: On January1, 1801 the Sicilian astronomer and Catholic priest Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826) noticed a dim celestial object that he believed might be a “missing planet.” He named the object Ceres and made a limited number of positional observations but then lost the object as it neared the Sun. Gauss, then only 24 years old, undertook the problem of computing the orbit of Ceres from the limited data using a technique called “least squares,” the equations of which he solved by the method that we now call “Gaussian elimination.” The work of Gauss created a sensation when Ceres reappeared a year later in the constellation Virgo at almost the precise position that he predicted! The basic idea of the method was further popularized by the German engineer Wilhelm Jordan in his book on geodesy (the science of measuring Earth shapes) entitled Handbuch der Vermessungskunde and published in 1888.
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#augmented_matrices
The first known use of augmented matrices appeared between 200 B.C. and 100 B.C. in a Chinese manuscript entitled Nine Chapters of Mathematical Art. The coefficients were arranged in columns rather than in rows, as today, but remarkably the system was solved by performing a succession of operations on the columns.The actual use of the term augmented matrix appears to have been introduced by the American mathematician#Maxime_Bôcher in his book Introduction to Higher Algebra,published in 1907. In addition to being an outstanding research mathematician and an expert in Latin,chemistry, philosophy, zoology, geography, meteorology, art, and music, #Bôcher was an outstanding expositor of mathematics whose elementary textbooks were greatly appreciated by students and are still in demand today.
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ALGEBRA HISTORY
Gaussian elimination were known much earlier, its importance in scientific computation became clear when the great German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss used it to help compute the orbit of the asteroid Ceres from limited data. What happened was this: On January1, 1801 the Sicilian astronomer and Catholic priest Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826) noticed a dim celestial object that he believed might be a “missing planet.” He named the object Ceres and made a limited number of positional observations but then lost the object as it neared the Sun. Gauss, then only 24 years old, undertook the problem of computing the orbit of Ceres from the limited data using a technique called “least squares,” the equations of which he solved by the method that we now call “Gaussian elimination.” The work of Gauss created a sensation when Ceres reappeared a year later in the constellation Virgo at almost the precise position that he predicted! The basic idea of the method was further popularized by the German engineer Wilhelm Jordan in his book on geodesy (the science of measuring Earth shapes) entitled Handbuch der Vermessungskunde and published in 1888.
____________________________________________________________________________________
#augmented_matrices
The first known use of augmented matrices appeared between 200 B.C. and 100 B.C. in a Chinese manuscript entitled Nine Chapters of Mathematical Art. The coefficients were arranged in columns rather than in rows, as today, but remarkably the system was solved by performing a succession of operations on the columns.The actual use of the term augmented matrix appears to have been introduced by the American mathematician#Maxime_Bôcher in his book Introduction to Higher Algebra,published in 1907. In addition to being an outstanding research mathematician and an expert in Latin,chemistry, philosophy, zoology, geography, meteorology, art, and music, #Bôcher was an outstanding expositor of mathematics whose elementary textbooks were greatly appreciated by students and are still in demand today.
ALGEBRA HISTORY
