Poincaré, Henri

Poincaré, (Jules-) Henri

Henri Poincaré, 1909.

(credit: H. Roger-Viollet)

(born April 29, 1854, Nancy, France—died July 17, 1912, Paris) French mathematician, theoretical astronomer, and philosopher of science. Born into a distinguished family of civil servants (see Raymond Poincare), he excelled at mental calculation and possessed an unusually retentive memory. He wrote a doctoral dissertation on differential equations (1879), then joined the University of Paris (1881), where he remained the rest of his life. Working in celestial mechanics and mathematical analysis, he independently obtained many of Albert Einstein's results relating to the special theory of relativity and published them in a paper on the dynamics of the electron (1906). He later wrote books for the general public on the meaning and importance of science and mathematics.