Abstract
THE centenary occurs on January 10 of the death of the eminent French mathematician, Adrien Marie Legendre, whose labours over a period of sixty years were contemporary with those of Lagrange and Laplace, with whom he formed part of “that constellation of mathematical talent of which Paris was for more than two generations the main centre” Legendre was eighty years of age when he died, having been born at Toulouse on September 18, 1752. He was educated at the Collège Mazarin and at the age of twenty-five became a professor at the military school in Paris. He published his first important memoir, on attractions, in 1783, and in that year he was elected a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences. Four years later, with Cassini and Mechain, he was appointed to conduct the geodetical operations for connecting the Observatories of Paris and Greenwich. Through this he visited London, and was made a foreign member of the Royal Society. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he passed through the Revolution unscathed and by his writings and his work on commissions continued to add to his reputation.
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Centenary of Legendre, 1752–1833. Nature 131, 18 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131018a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131018a0