Hermite, Charles

Hermite, Charles (shärl ĕrmēt`), 1822–1901, French mathematician. A professor at the École polytechnique, Paris (1869–76), and at the Faculty of Sciences (1869–97), he exerted a strong influence on the French school of mathematics. He made valuable contributions to the theory of numbers, the theory of elliptic functions, and the theory of equations (especially of the fifth degree). In 1873, Hermite proved the transcendence of the irrational number e (see separate article).

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Hermite, Charles 

Born Dec. 24, 1822, in Dieuze; died Jan. 14, 1901, in Paris. French mathematician. Member of the Academie des Sciences (1856).

Hermite obtained a position at the Ecole Polytechnique in 1848 and became a professor at the University of Paris in 1869. He made contributions to various areas of classical analysis, algebra, and number theory. Hermite’s principal works dealt with the theory of elliptic functions and its application. He studied the class of orthogonal polynomials now called Hermite polynomials. A number of his papers were devoted to the theory of algebraic forms and their invariants. Hermite proved in 1873 that e is a transcendental number.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Kursanaliza. Leningrad-Moscow, 1936.

REFERENCE

Klein, F. Lektsii o razvitii matematiki v XIX stoletii, part 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1937. (Translated from German.)