Why were the French so prevalent in discovery of Math?

[lightbulb27]

Galois

Pascal - probability

Descartes

Laplace

Fourier - signal analysis

The French were flying high and eary in the discovery of flight. The French are leaders in Nuclear even today.

Random genetics? Or Is there something about the French mentality, the food, the drink... the culture... that opened them to the creativity that inspired such discovery?

To come up with even something like complex numbers, imaginary numbers... is quite imaginative, oui? But of course... that was discovered by Italian and Swiss! C'est la vie

[MrOracle]

That was in an era where education was taken seriously, at least by the upper class, and where the greats were the rock stars of their day.

This was the case in the major countries in Europe, and these developments were directly rewarded by the various kings because they unlocked or enhanced military and colonial or capitalistic ambitions. Math breakthroughs led to science breakthroughs and those led to practical technologies that improved weapons, ships, navigation, logistics, and more.

Today, we don't respect or celebrate such breakthroughs, though to be fair, there are a lot more of them and most are a group effort.

[RavVid]

While the Anglo world invests in commonsense, the French seem to consider logic to be a higher calling. That might be a factor.

I agree with you on imaginary numbers - it doesn't seem quite real if you'll pardon the pun.

Descartes struggled with the concept and it took a solid German (Gauss) to show their usefulness. A whole lot of things wouldn't be possible without their use.

[lightbulb27]

Leave it to the Germans... if the answer doesn't make sense, just make one up and it is a key to understanding everything.

[RavVid]

Thanks for a MHO. My fav is Fourier for his transforms which make a lot of stuff easier.

[Julie07]

Today we're terrible at maths. In fact, we're terrible at everything.


But we had a good run, haha.

But I can't reveal the French secret.

[lightbulb27]

But we want the sauce!
Or is it the language itself?
ah, secrets of the universe...

[Julie07]

Ah… la sauce, rien que ça.
Ce n’est ni la langue, ni un grimoire secret caché sous la Tour Eiffel.
C’est surtout une vieille manie bien française :
passer des siècles à théoriser pendant que les autres appliquent,
puis faire semblant d’être surpris quand ça marche.
Fourier, ce n’était pas de la magie,
c’était du temps, de l’obsession, et une tolérance nationale pour les types un peu trop cérébraux.
Le reste, c’est du folklore… et beaucoup d’orgueil assumé 😌

Ah… the sauce, nothing less.
It’s neither the language nor some secret spell hidden under the Eiffel Tower.
It’s mostly an old French habit:
spending centuries theorizing while others focus on applications,
then acting surprised when it actually works.
Fourier wasn’t magic,
it was time, obsession, and a national tolerance for slightly over-intellectual people.
The rest is folklore… and a healthy dose of well-assumed pride 😌

[lightbulb27]

Whatever they did, it worked. enough for a few to make leaps forward. Granted, it took a few thousand years. It would take me 10,000 years on some of that...

[Julie07]

Ah, my friend, I miss the glory of France, haha.

[lightbulb27]

Oui, the good ole' days. I thought you all had it figured out with the free education to any level. That's incredible. The missing part I suspect is the great reward for that time and dedication.
We still have that, but seems, not for long. We shall also, fall into the abyss...

Success breeds failure... and cycle repeats. Turn off the electricity, and we all go back 10,000 years.

[Julie07]

French guy write

" One of the puzzles I have is that the French don't have a reputation for autism, even though we are one of the most autistic nations on Earth: we invented French gardens, the metric system, we administratively divided our nation into little squares that are not related to history or geography because it made us feel better, we're one of the world's top math nations, all French philosophy is basically about how the key to life the universe and everything is abstract spergy logic-chopping "

[NathanDavis]

because that was exactly the plan...

the state both paid for it, and institutionalized scientific studies, for which... Math has always been the basis of

and the key word is not "discovering" but actually studying the foundations that they took from the Indians, the Persians, the Arabs, the Greek, the Italians and few more...

let's not forget where it all truly came from... it was the Arabs who preserved the foundations of knowledge discovered by the many ancient and previous civilizations, and then translated to Latin by Europeans many

difference during a couple of centuries was that the French decided to make a sort of "national sport" lmao

[KostasKouvalis]

I don't know. But they made a lot of innovations in medicine too and invented and discovered many things. They just seem to have a passion for research, discovery and exploration

@julie07 and @alice55 can probably answer your question.

[lightbulb27]

I suspect it is a "secret sauce".

[midnightmoon05]

It’s the wine honey

[lightbulb27]

@midnightmoon05 they do whine a lot especially when don't get their just desserts!

[midnightmoon05]

It’s the whine and desserts 🍮 🧁 🍨 😂

[beefcakebradybatson]

I haven't a clue.