Following Euler in Koenigsberg

     The Köenigsberg Bridges have an important link to mathematics -- for mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) took a legendary Köenigsberg puzzle-pastime as the seed for development of a new branch of mathematics, graph theory (which is now generally included under the umbrella of combinatorics).  As the story goes, Köenigsberg residents made a Sunday recreation of trying to tour their city, crossing each of its seven bridges exactly once.  This problem is perhaps particularly fascinating because of its impossibility -- a dilemma cause by the existence of odd (rather than even) numbers of bridges between the parts of this water-separated city.

The Bridges of Konigsberg

From the August 1997 issue of The Mathematical Intelligencer, we have this poem by Judith Saunders about a long-standing puzzle solved solved by the mathematical giant, Leonhard Euler (1707-1783).

Goldbach's conjecture -- easily stated but unsolved

This blog's July 20 posting featured work from poets who have spouses or siblings who are mathematicians.  Today, introducing the work of  Michele Battiste (who considers Goldbach's conjecture), we again honor that theme.  Goldbach's conjecture asserts that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as a sum of two prime integers.   For example, 4 = 2 + 2, 6 = 3 + 3, 8 = 3 + 5, 10 = 7 + 3 or 5 + 5, and so on.  The conjecture was first proposed in 1742 by German mathematican Christian Goldbach in a letter to Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler -- and in 2010--though it has been verified for many, many, many even integers--it still remains unproved.