Issai Schur

1875 - 1941

Issai Schur was a quiet, naive mathematician who had very little time for religion or politics. He could never understand the Nazi preoccupation with his Jewish heritage. In his mind, he was a German – not a Jew. Ousted from his respected academic position in Germany, he ended up in Palestine where he died in poverty on his 66th birthday.

We remember him with the grade two $1,000,000 unsolved problem (see here) which he asked in 1916.  Mathematicians call it Schur’s Sum-Free Partition Problem, but despite the big words, this problem belongs in every grade 2 classroom learning addition. 

Hans Rosling

Hans is our adorably eccentric apologist for statistics.  His web site is brilliant for dynamic plotting of demographic trends - cell phone usage over the last two decades or child mortality over the last two centuries.  Look at him talk about statistics in the video to the left.

Photo by Tobias Andersson Åkerblom

Kris Burm

Kris is the top game designer for pure strategy games. Several are among the top 100 games on Board Game Geek.

Kris’ game, Dvonn deserves a shelf in the elementary math classroom.

Vi Hart

Vi is a musician, artist and comedian whose work is inspired by mathematics.  Her web site is  full of humour and whimsical math videos like the story below.

Photo by Thane Plambeck

Martin Gardner

(1914 - 2010)

The great author and popularizer of mathematics was an inspiration to a generation of mathematicians. I like Ronald Graham’s tribute best: “Martin has turned thousands of children into mathematicians, and thousands of mathematicians into children.”

From 2008 I’ve been trying to open a Magical Mathematics Museum as a tribute to Martin Gardner.

Photo by Konrad Jacobs

Paul Erdős

1913 - 1996

Paul Erdős was one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. He roamed the world, with no fixed address – moving from house to house as the guest of other mathematicians – generating living and travelling expenses by giving lectures. Most mathematicians deteriorate as they grow into middle age, but Paul was contributing mightily till his death at a mathematics conference. He is author or co-author of more mathematical papers than anybody else in history.

Here we remember him with the kindergarten $1,000,000 unsolved problem: How many little squares of the same size can fit into a big square?

Leo Moser

(1921-1970)

Leo Moser seems to have been the first person who advocated unsolved problems being used in K-12 education. He asked many tough problems with child-like zeal: “What’s the area of the smallest house that a unit worm can live comfortably?” meaning what shape can cover a worm no matter how he curls up?

Lothar Collatz

1910 - 1990

In 1937 Lothar posed the great problem which mathematicians now refer to as the Collatz conjecture. It is our grade four $1,000,000 unsolved problem. It is essential in any grade four classroom learning multiplication.

Erich Friedman

Erich is the top resource for math puzzles. He is prolific and reliably brilliant. Visit his Puzzle Palace and assign some of his puzzles as homework, but don’t miss the rest of his extensive web site especially his Packing Center.

Rivest, Shamir and Aldeman

Publicly discovered and published Public Key Cryptography in 1977 a few years after it was discovered by three mathematicians working with British Intelligence.

Cracking their cipher (which protects government secrets and banking transactions worldwide) is our grade six $1,000,000 unsolved problem.

Henry Dudeney

(1857 - 1930)

Henry Dudeney was a puzzle designer of deep ingenuity. He had an intense correspondence with the American puzzle master Sam Lloyd, but the relationship grew embittered when Sam published Henry’s puzzles without giving due credit.

We remember Henry Dudeney with the No-Three-In-A-Line-Problem which he posed in 1917 and will be the grade one $1,000,000 unsolved problem.

Júlio César de Mello e Souza

(1895 - 1974)

A mathematician and educator who argued against classroom instruction and for mathematical laboratories and games. He achieved worldwide fame under the pen name Malba Tahan. His book "The Man who Counted" is still a best seller. His native Brazil never took his ideas on mathematics education seriously.

Ron Graham

Ron Graham is a mathematician, and as you can see he also juggles. There is a lot of mathematics in juggling, so it is a hobby for a lot of young mathematicians. Ron Graham is a past president of the International Juggler’s Association.

The grade seven $1,000,000 unsolved problem on Egyptian fractions was posed by Ron Graham in 1964.

Reiner Knizia

Reiner is one of the most successful board game inventors in history. Many of his games are among the top 100 on Board Game Geek.

He has a PhD in mathematics, so it is no surprise that many of his games belong in the mathematics classroom.

Srinivasa Ramanujan

(1887 - 1920)

For many mathematicians, this man shares the same sky-high pedestal with Archimedes, Newton, Gauss and Euler.

MathPickle introduces his Highly Composite Numbers in grade 6.  In 1915, Ramanujan impressively found the first 102 Highly Composite Numbers with a single ommission: 293,318,625,600.