Notes

Abstract

THE French Ambassador took the chair on May 3 at the first of the series of four lectures being delivered by M. Henri Poincareé on mathematical subjects at the University of London: the two remaining lectures will be given on May 10 and n. M. Poincare who was born in 1854, was educated at the lycfe at Nancy, entered the ´Ecole Polytechnique, being placed first on the list, and on leaving it became a Government mining engineer (ingénieur des mines), this employment being reserved for those who occupy very high places at the examen de sortie of the school. He exercised this profession only for a short time; in 1881 he was appointed to a lectureship in pure mathematics at the Sorbonne, and when M. Lippmann exchanged the chair of mathematical physics for a chair of experimental physics, M. Poincare´ succeeded him. Later, on the death of M. Tisserand, M. Poincare´' succeeded to the chair of mathematical astronomy. He has made contributions of the greatest importance to pure and applied mathematics, astronomy, and mathematical physics, and also to scientific-method, with which he has dealt in his books, “Science et Hypothe´se” and “La Valeur de la Science.” There is no mathematician living of greater eminence, and probably none whose writings cover so wide a field. It is the historic custom of the French Academy to number amongst its members one or two of the members of the Academy of Sciences whose reputation is best known to the world at large, and after the death of M. Berthelot (though not, we believe, as his successor) M. Poincare´ was appointed to that body. M. Poincaré is a cousin of M. Raymond Poincare´”, the French Premier.