Serve-Dieu Abailard "Armand" Lévy (14 November 1795 – 29 July 1841) 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, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

and

mineralogist Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proce ...

. He is remembered in the Haüy-Lévy notation for describing mineral crystal structures.

Life

Lévy was born in Paris where his Jewish businessman father had married Céline Mailfert, a Catholic. Although his birth and death records have his given names as Serve-Dieu Abailard, he registered with the Geological Society of London under the name Armand. Armand Lévy studied mathematics, passing his agrégation in 1816 from the École Normale Supérieure. His Jewish origin prevented him from obtaining jobs in France and took up an offer Collège Royal on

Reunion Island Reunion may refer to: * Class reunion * Family reunion Reunion, Réunion, Re-union, Reunions or The Reunion may also refer to: Places * Réunion, a French overseas department and island in the Indian Ocean * Reunion, Commerce City, Colorado, ...

. While sailing to the Indian Ocean, his ship was wrecked off Plymouth. He then settled in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

where he made a living by giving mathematics tuitions and in 1820 he met a mineral dealer, Henry Heuland, who asked him to categorise his collection as part of its sale to Charles Hampden Turner. In London he interacted with Wollaston and became a member of the

Geological Society of London The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

in 1826. In 1827, Lévy went to

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

to supervise the printing of the Heuland mineral catalog. He settled in Belgium and became a professor at the

University of Liège The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301 ...

. After the

1830 revolution The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution (french: révolution de Juillet), Second French Revolution, or ("Three Glorious ays), was a second French Revolution after the first in 1789. It led to the overthrow of King ...

, he returned to France and taught mathematics at the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, S ...

in Paris. Lévy worked on a way of defining crystal structures which he based on as being derived from a parallelepiped with truncations of the edges and vertices. He used vowels for vertices and consonants for edges with the bounded planes characterized by their slope. This system was however superseded by the Miller system. Lévy married Harriet Drewet in 1822 in London. Following her death and move to Paris, he married Amélie daughter of mathematician Olinde Rodriquez in 1838. He died of an

aneurysm An aneurysm is an outward bulging, likened to a bubble or balloon, caused by a localized, abnormal, weak spot on a blood vessel wall. Aneurysms may be a result of a hereditary condition or an acquired disease. Aneurysms can also be a nidus ( ...

Legacy

Armand Lévy described many mineral species, such as babingtonite,

beudantite Beudandite is a secondary mineral occurring in the oxidized zones of polymetallic deposits. It is a lead, iron, arsenate, sulfate with endmember formula: PbFe3(OH)6SO4AsO4. Beudantite is in a subgroup of the alunite group. It is the arsenate an ...

brochantite Brochantite is a sulfate mineral, one of a number of cupric sulfates. Its chemical formula is Cu4SO4(OH)6. Formed in arid climates or in rapidly oxidizing copper sulfide deposits, it was named by Armand Lévy for his fellow Frenchman, geologist ...

brookite Brookite is the orthorhombic variant of titanium dioxide (TiO2), which occurs in four known natural polymorphic forms (minerals with the same composition but different structure). The other three of these forms are akaogiite (monoclinic), anatas ...

forsterite Forsterite (Mg2SiO4; commonly abbreviated as Fo; also known as white olivine) is the magnesium-rich end-member of the olivine solid solution series. It is isomorphous with the iron-rich end-member, fayalite. Forsterite crystallizes in the orthorh ...

, phillipsite, roselite and

willemite Willemite is a zinc silicate mineral () and a minor ore of zinc. It is highly fluorescent (green) under shortwave ultraviolet light. It occurs in a variety of colors in daylight, in fibrous masses and apple-green gemmy masses. Troostite is a vari ...

. Lévyne was named after him..

References

French mineralogists 1795 births 1841 deaths 19th-century French mathematicians University of Liège faculty Deaths from aneurysm {{France-scientist-stub