Anna Trewin - Amazing Mathematicians - A2-B1

Cover

Title Page

Introduction INTRODUCTION Collins Amazing People Readers are collections of short stories. Each book presents the life story of five or six people whose lives and achievements have made a difference to our world today. The stories are carefully graded to ensure that you, the reader, will both enjoy and benefit from your reading experience. You can choose to enjoy the book from start to finish or to dip into your favourite story straight away. Each story is entirely independent. After every story a short timeline brings together the most important events in each person’s life into one short report. The timeline is a useful tool for revision purposes. Words which are above the required reading level are underlined the first time they appear in each story. All underlined words are defined in the glossary at the back of the book. Levels 1 and 2 take their definitions from the Collins COBUILD Essential English Dictionary and levels 3 and 4 from the Collins COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary . To support both teachers and learners, additional materials are available online at www.collinselt.com/readers . The Amazing People Club ® Collins Amazing People Readers are adaptations of original texts published by The Amazing People Club. The Amazing People Club is an educational publishing house. It was founded in 2006 by educational psychologist and management leader Dr Charles Margerison and publishes books, eBooks, audio books, iBooks and video content, which bring readers ‘face to face’ with many of the world’s most inspiring and influential characters from the fields of art, science, music, politics, medicine and business.

The Grading Scheme

Galileo

René Descartes

Isaac Newton

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Charles Babbage

Ada Lovelace

Keep Reading

Glossary

Copyright

About the Publisher

Collins Amazing People Readers are collections of short stories. Each book presents the life story of five or six people whose lives and achievements have made a difference to our world today. The stories are carefully graded to ensure that you, the reader, will both enjoy and benefit from your reading experience.

You can choose to enjoy the book from start to finish or to dip into your favourite story straight away. Each story is entirely independent.

After every story a short timeline brings together the most important events in each person’s life into one short report. The timeline is a useful tool for revision purposes.

Words which are above the required reading level are underlined the first time they appear in each story. All underlined words are defined in the glossary at the back of the book. Levels 1 and 2 take their definitions from the Collins COBUILD Essential English Dictionary and levels 3 and 4 from the Collins COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary .

To support both teachers and learners, additional materials are available online at www.collinselt.com/readers.

The Amazing People Club ®

Collins Amazing People Readers are adaptations of original texts published by The Amazing People Club. The Amazing People Club is an educational publishing house. It was founded in 2006 by educational psychologist and management leader Dr Charles Margerison and publishes books, eBooks, audio books, iBooks and video content, which bring readers ‘face to face’ with many of the world’s most inspiring and influential characters from the fields of art, science, music, politics, medicine and business.

The Collins COBUILD Grading Scheme has been created using the most up-to-date language usage information available today. Each level is guided by a brand new comprehensive grammar and vocabulary framework, ensuring that the series will perfectly match readers’ abilities.

For more information on the Collins COBUILD Grading Scheme, including a full list of the grammar structures found at each level, go to www.collinselt.com/readers/gradingscheme.

Also available online:Make sure that you are reading at the right level by checking your level on our website ( www.collinselt.com/readers/levelcheck).

1564–1642

the man who believed the Earth went around the Sun

I believed that the Earth orbited the Sun. People were afraid of my theories at the time and called me a heretic. But now they call me ‘The Father of Modern Science’.

I was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1564. I was the oldest of six children, but unfortunately, only three of us survived childhood. My father, Vincenzo Galilei, was a well-known musician and he called me Galileo. When I was 8 years old, my family moved to Florence. But they left me behind in Pisa, in the care of a relative. In 1574, I joined my family. When I was 11 years old, I was sent to the Camaldoese Monastery school in the town of Vallombrosa, just outside Florence.

My father wanted me to be a doctor. So, after I finished school, I went on to study medicine at the University of Pisa. However, I soon decided that medicine was not the right career for me. I was much more interested in mathematics, physics and the arts. So I spoke to my father and he let me change my course to mathematics and natural philosophy.

One day, while I was at the university, I noticed something interesting. I was looking up at the ceiling and watching a lamp swinging – or moving from side to side. The length of the lamp’s swing from side to side changed with the wind coming through the open window. I noticed that the lamp always took the same number of seconds to complete its swing from one side to the other.

When I returned home, I set up two pendulums and carried out some experiments. Soon I realized that I had discovered a truth – that all things swing at the same speed. This was later called ‘the law of the pendulum’ and it was used to make clocks.