Re: OT: Question about Prime Obsession

[Narcoleptic Insomniac]

On Oct 31, 2006 2:30 AM CT, Schizoid Man wrote:

> In the book Prime Obsession, the author John 
> Derbyshire refers to Adrien Legendre as "almost a 
> first-rate mathematician" but not quite in the 
> league of his fellow countrymen like Fourier,
> Lagrange or Cauchy.
> 
> Is this a fair portrait?

If I were asked to list those mathematicians in 
descending order according to their contributions to 
math/physics my guess would be...

Cauchy, Fourier, Lagrange, and Legendre.

Note the key word "guess" ^_^