
Euler's Constancy - nickb
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=231266
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mhartl
I have a conjecture: people don't particularly like the number 4. Archimedes,
Newton, Gauss: that's 3. Euler makes 4. Who makes 5?

There's the rub: there's no clear #5 (Poincaré? Riemann? Fourier? Hilbert?).
The rub-within-a-rub: why should it matter? What's wrong with capping the
"greatest mathematician" list at 4?

It seems that people like 3 (possibly hard-wired); they like 5 (fingers); they
don't like 4. Alas, Euler's reputation suffers for it.

