Poincaré, Jules Henri

Poincaré, Jules Henri (zhül äNrē` pwăNkärā`), 1854–1912, French mathematician, physicist, and author. He was from 1881 connected with the faculty of sciences at the Univ. of Paris. One of the greatest mathematicians of his age, Poincaré, by research in the theory of functions, especially the automorphic, Fuchsian, and Abelian functions, enlarged the field of mathematical physics. He did notable work also in differential equations and celestial mechanics, particularly the problem of three or more bodies moving under their mutual gravitational attractions. Poincaré not only made important contributions across the full range of mathematics, both pure and applied, but also wrote extensively on the philosophy of science. He was elected to the Academy of Sciences in 1887, became its president in 1906, and was elected to the Academie Française in 1909. His works include Les Méthodes nouvelles de la mécanique céleste (3 vol., 1892–99; tr., 3 vol., 1967) and three works (1902, 1904, 1908) published in English as The Foundations of Science (1913, repr. 1946).