ProofWiki:Mathematicians/Jean le Rond d'Alembert
From ProofWiki
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, physicist and philosopher best known for his contribution to the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra - he produced a flawed proof which was later patched up by Gauss.
Contents |
Nationality
French
History
- Born: 16 November 1717, Paris
- 1741: Elected into the Académie des Sciences, after several failed attempts
- 1746: Elected to the Berlin Academy
- 1754: Elected a member of the Académie française
- 9 April 1772: Became Permanent Secretary of the Académie française
- Died: 29 October 1783, Paris
Theorems and Definitions
- An initial version of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra, corrected by Gauss (in France it is also known as D'Alembert's Theorem or the D'Alembert-Gauss Theorem)
- D'Alembertian Operator
- D'Alembert's Paradox
- D'Alembert System
- D'Alembert's Formula
- Famously expressed a belief in Croix ou Pile in the Gambler's Fallacy: the more times a coin comes up tails, the more likely it then is to come up heads.
Books and Papers
- July 1739: Pointed out errors in Reynaud's standard 1708 with L'analyse démontrée in a communication to the Académie des Sciences.
- 1740: Mémoire sur la réfraction des corps solides (Memorandum on the refraction of solid bodies), recognised by Clairaut.
- 1743: Traité de dynamique
- 1751 - 1765: Co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie.
- Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot
- Croix ou Pile
Also see
- John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Jean le Rond d'Alembert": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
- Allan Clark: Elements of Abstract Algebra (1971)... (previous)... (next): Introduction
