Question for Nov 3

Identify the mathematician X and his famous theory Y.

X's theory of Y was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive—even shocking—that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker (his doctoral advisor) and Henri Poincaré, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections. Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw X's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God, on one occasion equating the theory of Y with pantheism. The objections to his work were occasionally fierce: Poincaré referred to X's ideas as a "grave disease" infecting the discipline of mathematics, and Kronecker's public opposition and personal attacks included describing X as a "scientific charlatan", a "renegade" and a "corrupter of youth." Writing decades after X's death, Wittgenstein lamented that mathematics is "ridden through and through with the pernicious idioms of Y," which he dismissed as "utter nonsense" that is "laughable" and "wrong". X's recurring bouts of depression from 1884 to the end of his life were once blamed on the hostile attitude of many of his contemporaries, but these episodes can now be seen as probable manifestations of a bipolar disorder.

The harsh criticism has been matched by later accolades. In 1904, the Royal Society awarded X its Sylvester Medal, the highest honor it can confer for work in mathematics. X believed his theory of Y had been communicated to him by God. David Hilbert defended it from its critics by famously declaring: "No one shall expel us from the Paradise that X has created."