It's not news, but it's notable... November 27 marks the 253rd anniversary of the death of French mathematician Abraham de Moivre. Sure, you may remember him for his eponymous formula, or his contributions to statistics, but the legend of his death gets top billing today.
As the story goes, de Moivre began to increase his sleeping time by 15 minutes per night. (Some sources say 20.) As a mathematician, Abraham recognized an arithmetic progression when he saw it; as a human being, he knew that this was no infinite series. He predicted that the same day that he attained 24 full hours of sleep, he would cast off his mortal coils and never wake up. (The day was November 27...) His official cause of death was "somnolence."
(As a new parent, I’d give my right leg for 15 minutes more sleep.)
De Moivre was not the only mathematician rumored to have predicted his own death in this way: the man who brought algebra to Italy, Girolamo Cardan, is also reported to have correctly foretold the date of his death. (Though some believe Cardan committed suicide, just to prove himself right…)
As for the math...
Why do we remember Abraham de Moivre? Every math aficionado remembers the first time they saw this integral (from de Moivre):
Of course, there's also his formula, which you can explore here.
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