Legendre, Adrien-Marie

Born Paris (or possibly Toulouse), France, 18 September 1752

Died Paris, France, 10 January 1833

Adrien-Marie Legendre was primarily a mathematician, publishing an important three-volume work on number theory and an equally important three-volume work on elliptic functions, and was the first to publish the method of least squares. Little is known of his early life though it is likely that he was from a well-to-do family. Legendre studied at the Collège Mazarin, graduating in 1770. He served as professor of mathematics at the École Militaire in Paris from 1775 to 1780. In 1795, Legendre was appointed a professor at the École Normale. He was married by the mid-1790s.

When Pierre de Laplace was promoted to an associate member of the Academy of Sciences in Paris, an adjointposition became opened, and Legendre was appointed to it in 1783. During the revolutionary era, Legendre was also one of the members of the Committee of Weights and Measures that established (1791) the metric system....