Vito Volterra
Vito Volterra (May 3, 1860 - October 11, 1940) was an Italian mathematician and physicist renowned for his pioneering contributions to functional analysis and mathematical biology. He is especially known for the Lotka-Volterra model, developed with Alfred J. Lotka, which uses differential equations to describe predator-prey interactions between species. Volterra also made significant advances in integral equations and the theory of functions of a real variable, providing foundational tools for mathematical physics and mechanics. His interdisciplinary approach connected mathematics with real-world problems in ecology, physics, and biology.
Quotes
- Empires die, but Euclid's theorems retain their eternal youth.
- I did not hesitate at the Congress of Mathematicians at Paris to call the nineteenth century the century of the theory of functions, as the eighteenth century might have been called that of infinitesimal calculus.
- If you ask any mathematician if in his mind he makes a distinction between the theories of elasticity and those of electrodynamics, he will tell you that he does not, because the types of differential equations he encounters, and the methods which he must employ to solve the problems which arise, are all the same in the two cases.
- Unfortunately, professional mathematicians are separated from the rest of the world by a barrier of symbols, which lends a certain air of mystery to their speculations and works, so much so that those uninitiated in the secrets of calculus and algebra are sometimes deluded into believing that their means are of a different nature than those available to ordinary reasoning.