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→"Nearly every great mathematician"
::: PeterS, our list of homeschoolers includes many of the greatest mathematicians. Please read it. Your list does not disprove the statement that nearly every great mathematician was homeschooled. I invited you to spell out the schooling of those in your list (as I have done for those homeschooled), but so far you've declined to do so. So your objection does not persuade.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 10:53, 20 March 2008 (EDT)
::: PeterS, our list of homeschoolers includes many of the greatest mathematicians. Please read it. Your list does not disprove the statement that nearly every great mathematician was homeschooled. I invited you to spell out the schooling of those in your list (as I have done for those homeschooled), but so far you've declined to do so. So your objection does not persuade.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 10:53, 20 March 2008 (EDT)
::: Andrew, I have read the list. But "many of the greatest mathematicians" is a different statement from "nearly every great mathematician". "Many" is completely different from "nearly every". "Many" is fairly uncontroversial, because it doesn't directly imply proportionality - it could mean a majority, or it could mean a sizeable minority, or it could mean some arbitrary proportion that you specify. "Nearly every" implies a sizeable majority, probably somewhere in the region of 90-95% - I'm being arbitrary here, but "nearly every" would, in the English language, be somewhere close to 100%. Now, until you can tell us what a "great mathematician" is, and list all those that you classify as great mathematicians, you cannot say that almost 100% of great mathematicians were homeschooled. If a student came to me with an essay saying something like "nearly every person killed in the Reign of Terror was an aristocrat", I would underline the statement, ask in the page margin for a citation of the number of people killed in the Terror, ask for a citation of the number of aristocrats killed in the Terror, and ask them to justify why that may have been the case (based on a historical interpretation). Your statement does not match any of these rather non-exhaustive criteria, and it'd be interesting if you could address this. On to the second part of your question: citations for my names. It should not be my job to find citations to help to prove or disprove your unproven statement. And I ask that before you try to pick apart my examples and set arbitrary criteria, you address what I've just said in this paragraph and my previous statements. But I'll do this anyway.
* '''Isaac Newton''' - accounts vary, but all acknowledge that he received a formal education in at least one school. According to this source, [http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/01-Courses/current-courses/08sr-newton.htm], he was educated at King's School, Grantham. According to this source, [http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Newton.html] he was educated at Free Grammar School, Grantham. Despite the inconsistency in the name, we can conclude that whichever school(s) he attended, he did attend school for most of his childhood. This source [http://www.skyscript.co.uk/newton.html] tells us that while he spent years out of school, he was not homeschooled during that time: indeed, it was felt that "he did not need an education". Without even requiring criteria, I think we can conclude that the development of Calculus is enough to make him a "great mathematician", not to mention these things called the laws of motion...
* '''Leonhard Euler''' - this source [http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Leonhard%20Euler] tells us that he went to a low quality school, but the fact stands: he attended school during that time, even if he self-taught and received tutoring at the same time. But even if you choose to disagree with my contention, it doesn't change my objections, noted in all my above comments. Anyway, Euler = great mathematician, no contest, even without criteria.
* '''George Pólya''' - [http://www.sci.uidaho.edu/polya/biography.htm] says it all. Again, criteria are a problem, because you have never specified any, but Pólya is one of the world's foremost modern contributors to mathematical logic and combinatorics through elements such as the Pólya enumeration theorem and his four principles of mathematical proofs/problem solving.
* '''Carl Friedrich Gauss''' - this source [http://www.mathsong.com/cfgauss/Dunnington/1927/] tells us that he was educated from the age of seven. Case closed. That page also details his mathematical achievements very well in areas such as number theory in particular.
* '''John Venn''' - [http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Venn.html]: went straight through Cholmley's and Islington. End of story. As for being a great mathematician... ever used a Venn diagram?
* '''Bernoulli family''' - it is much more difficult to find evidence for the Bernoulli family - it is a pattern that people would either be taught at home or sent to a local school before moving onto more prestigious pursuits in secondary school or university. Obviously it's difficult to be consistent in researching across a cross-generational family. I'll gladly ignore this one.
* '''Pierre de Fermat''' - he self-taught mathematics [http://www.surveyor.in-berlin.de/himmel/Bios/Fermat-e.htm], but that came once he had already studied jurisprudence at university and become a councillor. This source [http://www.qerhs.k12.nf.ca/projects/physics/fermat.html] tells us that he did indeed receive a primary and secondary education. This source confirms that he was probably schooled at a Franciscan monastery [http://www.qerhs.k12.nf.ca/projects/physics/fermat.html]. And he was great; no matter what criteria you set.
* '''Johannes Kepler''' - this source [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Kepler.html] tells us that although he helped in his grandfather's inn, he attended a local school and then a seminary. Kepler did of course achieve extraordinary things in astronomy, physics and mathematics including things such as positing the Kepler conjecture (which will probably become a theorem).