Émile Léger (1795–1838) was a French
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
.
Life and work
Leger studied at ''Lycée de Mayence'' (now
Mainz
Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...
in Germany, capital of the French department of
Mont-Tonnerre
Mont-Tonnerre () was a department of the First French Republic and later the First French Empire in present-day Germany. It was named after the highest point in the Palatinate, the '' Donnersberg'' ("Thunder Mountain", possibly referring to Do ...
during the
French First Republic
In the history of France, the First Republic (), sometimes referred to in historiography as Revolutionary France, and officially the French Republic (), was founded on 21 September 1792 during the French Revolution. The First Republic lasted un ...
), where his father Claude was professor of rhetoric. In 1813 he entered the
École Polytechnique
(, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris.
The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...
. With other students, he helped defend Paris during the
Hundred Days of Napoleon in March 1815, and was decorated for bravery.
In 1816, he left school to go to
Montmorency where his father founded an institution to prepare young people for the entrance exams to Paris universities. After his father retired, he managed the institution.
[, page 410.]
Léger only published four papers on mathematics,
[, MacTutor History of Mathematics.] but one of them seems to be the first to recognize the worst case in the
euclidean algorithm
In mathematics, the Euclidean algorithm,Some widely used textbooks, such as I. N. Herstein's ''Topics in Algebra'' and Serge Lang's ''Algebra'', use the term "Euclidean algorithm" to refer to Euclidean division or Euclid's algorithm, is a ...
: when the inputs are proportional to consecutive
Fibonacci numbers
In mathematics, the Fibonacci sequence is a sequence in which each element is the sum of the two elements that precede it. Numbers that are part of the Fibonacci sequence are known as Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted . Many writers begin the s ...
.
References
Bibliography
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Leger, Emile
1795 births
1838 deaths
19th-century French mathematicians