Désiré André (André Antoine Désiré) (March 29, 1840, Lyon – September 12, 1917, Paris) was a French mathematician, best known for his work on

Catalan number The Catalan numbers are a sequence of natural numbers that occur in various Enumeration, counting problems, often involving recursion, recursively defined objects. They are named after Eugène Charles Catalan, Eugène Catalan, though they were p ...

s and

alternating permutation In combinatorial mathematics, an alternating permutation (or zigzag permutation) of the set is a permutation (arrangement) of those numbers so that each entry is alternately greater or less than the preceding entry. For example, the five alte ...

Biography

He is the son of Auguste Antoine Désiré André, shoemaker in Lyon, and his wife Antoinette Magdalene Jar. He entered the

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

in 1860 and passed the

Agrégation In France, the () is the most competitive and prestigious examination for civil service in the French public education A state school, public school, or government school is a primary school, primary or secondary school that educates all stu ...

in Mathematics in 1863. He defended his doctoral thesis on 25 March 1877. He was a student of

Charles Hermite Charles Hermite () FRS FRSE MIAS (24 December 1822 – 14 January 1901) was a French mathematician who did research concerning number theory, quadratic forms, invariant theory, orthogonal polynomials, elliptic functions, and algebra. Hermite p ...

(1822–1901) and

Joseph Bertrand Joseph Louis François Bertrand (; 11 March 1822 – 5 April 1900) was a French mathematician whose work emphasized number theory, differential geometry, probability theory, economics and thermodynamics. Biography Joseph Bertrand was the son of ...

(1822–1900). Starting as a teacher at the Lycée de Troyes, he went on to

Collège Sainte-Barbe The Collège Sainte-Barbe () is a former college in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. The Collège Sainte-Barbe was founded in 1460 on Montagne Sainte-Geneviève ( Latin Quarter, Paris). It was until its closure in June 1999 the "oldest ...

, then to the

University of Dijon A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

and finally became professor of mathematics at

Collège Stanislas de Paris The Collège Stanislas de Paris (), colloquially known as Stan, is a private Catholic school in Paris, situated on " Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs" in the 6th arrondissement. It has more than 3,000 students, from preschool to '' classes préparatoir ...

from 1885 to 1900. He was a laureate of the Ministère de l'Instruction Publique, member of the

Circolo Matematico di Palermo The Circolo Matematico di Palermo (Mathematical Circle of Palermo) is an Italian mathematical society, founded in Palermo by Sicilian geometer Giovanni B. Guccia in 1884.

and the Commission Internationale Permanente de Bibliographie Mathématique. He was made a Knight of the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

in July 1897. Désiré André played a role in the French mathematical community of his time, including the

Société Mathématique de France Groupe Lactalis S.A. (doing business as Lactalis) is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier S.A. Lactalis is the largest dairy pr ...

. He was the treasurer of the association from its inception in 1873 to 1876. He became chairman of the Société in 1889 or 1890. He was the author of a 1909 book on notation in elementary mathematics, ''Des notations mathématiques, énumération, choix et usage''. He was president of the Société philomathique de Paris. He lived at 28 rue Vauquelin, Paris.

Key publications

*. *. *. * . *
bibliographic entry at UPMC's scientific digital library
).

Bibliography

* *.

References

External links

Author profile
in

zbMATH zbMATH Open, formerly Zentralblatt MATH, is a major reviewing service providing reviews and abstracts for articles in pure and applied mathematics, produced by the Berlin office of FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastru ...

.
Brief biography (p. 41)

Another short biography (p. 22)
1840 births 1917 deaths 19th-century French mathematicians 20th-century French mathematicians École Normale Supérieure alumni {{France-mathematician-stub