Mehmet Nadir was a Turkish

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 mathematician and educationist

Early life

He was born in Sakız

Chios

Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...

 island (moden Chios in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

) then a part of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

, to a poor family. He was adopted by a sea captain (who’d be his father in law in the future). He studied in the military high school in Bursa. Then he came to İstanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

 to study in military collage and then the naval academy. After completing his education with honours, he was appointed as the mathematics teacher of the naval academy and then Darüşşafaka High School

Darüssafaka High School

Darüşşafaka High School is one of the most prominent and influential schools of Turkey and is currently located in Maslak, Istanbul. The school was founded by the Darüşşafaka Association with the name "Islamic Education Association" in 1873. This date is controversial, with some sources claiming...

, one of the most prominent schools in İstanbul. In 1879, together with one of his friends he travelled to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 for advanced studies. But the details of this period are not known. Probably, he also spent some time in Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

.

Educationist

After returning to İstanbul, he began teaching in private high schools and in 1884 he established a high school of his own. It was a junior high school ( Rüştiye). But later he added senior high school section to his school (İdadi) . Although there were private junior high schools before 1884, he was the founder of the very first private senior high school in İstanbul. This school is now considered as the core of the modern Istanbul High School for Boys . He also added a section for the girls and a branch school in Edirne

Edirne

Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...

. Another novelty he introduced was the first school newspaper in Istanbul.

Politics and later life

He secretly supported the Young Turks

Young Turks

The Young Turks , from French: Les Jeunes Turcs) were a coalition of various groups favouring reformation of the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The movement was against the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Sultan and favoured a re-installation of the short-lived Kanûn-ı Esâsî constitution...

 movement. But when the sultan Abdülhamit II arrested 350 Young Turk adherents on the charge of planning a coup in 1896, Mehmet Nadir was forced to resign. After working in a public school in İstanbul , in 1903 he was appointed to Aleppo

Aleppo

Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...

 (now in Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

) as the director of education. In 1908 Young Turks came to power and he was exiled to Tripoli

Tripoli

Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...

 (now in Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

) by the Young Turks who suspected of his betrayal back in 1896. After the Italo-Turkish War

Italo-Turkish War

The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War was fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy from September 29, 1911 to October 18, 1912.As a result of this conflict, Italy was awarded the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania, Fezzan, and...

 in which Italians

Italian Army

The Italian Army is the ground defence force of the Italian Armed Forces. It is all-volunteer force of active-duty personnel, numbering 108,355 in 2010. Its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank, and among its aircraft...

 invaded Libya he returned to İstanbul. Although he was also sent to Edirne, he soon returned back to İstanbul during the Balkan Wars

Balkan Wars

The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...

. After he convinced Young Turks of his innocence, he was appointed as the mathematic professor in the newly established Girls' University in İstanbul. In 1919 soon after the World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 he began working in the Darülfünun (present day, İstanbul University

Istanbul University

Istanbul University is a Turkish university located in Istanbul. The main campus is adjacent to Beyazıt Square.- Synopsis :A madrasa, a religious school, was established sometime in the 15th century after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. An institution of higher education named the...

) as a müderris (professor) of mathematic in the newly established branch of Number theory

Number theory

Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...

. He died on 27 December 1927.

As a mathematician

Mehmet Nadir is considered as one of the first mathematians of Turkey. He actively participated in a group of mathematicians of a French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 mathematic periodical named I’Intermediaire des Mathematiciens. According to Professor Erdal İnönü

Erdal Inönü

Erdal İnönü was a Turkish physicist and politician. He was the son of Turkey's second president İsmet İnönü...

, total no. of his messages to the periodical was 62. One example cited by Erdal İnönü is as follows
The whole number solution to the equation


proposed by Mehmet Nadir is


where b is a pozitive integer and a is a positive odd integer.

In 1917 Mehmet Nadir published a book about the Number theory. In this book he proposed an alternative algorithm on divisibility. Felix Klein

Felix Klein

Christian Felix Klein was a German mathematician, known for his work in group theory, function theory, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory...

, well known German mathematics professor congratulated him for the algorithm.