Vandermonde

Alexandre Théophile Vandermonde

Born: 28 Feb 1735 in Paris, France
Died: 1 Jan 1796 in Paris, France

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Vandermonde's first love was music and he only turned to mathematics when he was 35 years old. He was so close a friend of Monge that he was known as femme de Monge.

Vandermonde studied the theory of equations and worked on determinants, although the determinant now named after him, by Lebesgue, does not appear in his published work.

He also worked on the mathematical solution of the knight's tour problem. The total of his contributions to mathematics were 4 memoirs written between 1771 and 1772 which contained important results and methods.

References elsewhere in this archive:

Tell me about Vandermonde's work on matrices and determinants

Tell me about his work on the knight's tour problem

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. H Lebesgue, L'oeuvre mathématique de Vandermonde, Thales, recueil des travaux de l'Institut d'histoire des sciences IV (1937-39), 28-42. 
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JOC/EFR February 1996