Albert Girard

Albert Girard

Born: 1595 in St Mihiel, France
Died: 8 Dec 1632 in Leiden, Netherlands

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Albert Girard worked on algebra, trigonometry and arithmetic. In 1626 he published a treatise on trigonometry containing the first use of the abbreviations sin, cos, tan. He also gave formulas for the area of a spherical triangle.

In algebra he had some early thoughts on the fundamental theorem of algebra and translated the works of Stevin. He is also famed for being the first to formulate the (now well known) inductive definition fn+2 = fn+1 + fn for the Fibonacci sequence. Girard worked in The Netherlands.

References elsewhere in this archive:

Tell me about Girard's contribution to trigonometric notation

Tell me about Girard's result on Prime numbers

Tell me about Girard's form of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra

Other Web sites:

Rice University, USA

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. H Bosmans, Several articles, Mathesis 40, 41 (1926). 
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JOC/EFR February 1996