Mathematician:Jean le Rond d'Alembert

Mathematician

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.

Devised a technique for solving the linear second order ODE with constant coefficients whose auxiliary equation has repeated roots.

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

• d'Alembertian Operator
• d'Alembert System

• d'Alembert's Paradox
• d'Alembert's Formula
• d'Alembert's Principle
• d'Alembert's Test (also known as the Cauchy Ratio Test, for Augustin Louis Cauchy, or just the Ratio Test)

• An initial version of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra, corrected by Carl Friedrich Gauss (in France it is also known as d'Alembert's Theorem or the d'Alembert-Gauss Theorem)

• 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.

Results named for Jean le Rond d'Alembert can be found here.

Definitions of concepts named for Jean le Rond d'Alembert can be found here.

Publications

• 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 known as

Full name: Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert.

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Jean le Rond d'Alembert": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 1971: Allan Clark: Elements of Abstract Algebra ... (previous) ... (next): Introduction
• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): d'Alembert, Jean le Rond (1717-83)
• 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): d'Alembert, Jean le Rond (1717-83)
• 2021: Richard Earl and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (6th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): D'Alembert, Jean-Baptiste le Rond (1717-83)