Joseph François Français was a French mathematician. François Français worked extensively on

differential calculus In mathematics, differential calculus is a subfield of calculus that studies the rates at which quantities change. It is one of the two traditional divisions of calculus, the other being integral calculus—the study of the area beneath a curve. ...

. He developed on the previous work of

Jean-Robert Argand Jean-Robert Argand (, , ; July 18, 1768 – August 13, 1822) was a Genevan amateur mathematician. In 1806, while managing a bookstore in Paris, he published the idea of geometrical interpretation of complex numbers known as the Argand diagram and ...

complex numbers In mathematics, a complex number is an element of a number system that extends the real numbers with a specific element denoted , called the imaginary unit and satisfying the equation i^= -1; every complex number can be expressed in the form a ...

Biography

Johanniterkommende Mainz2010 20100615 0009

François Français was a student in a seminary and afterwards he became a teacher at

Colmar Colmar (; ; or ) is a city and commune in the Haut-Rhin department and Alsace region of north-eastern France. The third-largest commune in Alsace (after Strasbourg and Mulhouse), it is the seat of the prefecture of the Haut-Rhin department ...

College in 1791 for one year and then moved to

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

College in 1792. The aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789 interrupted his career. Not everyone supported the government that formed after the revolution. The revolution overthrew the monarchy of King Louis XVI to establish a republic but brought in years of turmoil that finally led to the rise of Napoleon. France faced both internal and external wars. A civil war broke out in 1793 in the coastal region of

Vendée Vendée () is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442.War in the Vendée The War in the Vendée () was a counter-revolutionary insurrection that took place in the Vendée region of French First Republic, France from 1793 to 1796, during the French Revolution. The Vendée is a coastal region, located immediately so ...

. The next month royalists and peasants came together in February 1793 and formed an army to fight the new republic. The

Jacobin The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential political cl ...

government back in Paris considered the rebellion to be

counter-revolutionary A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution has occurred, in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "c ...

, and

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of gove ...

. François Français joined the government's side in May and became a part of the army's response to put down this rebellion of the royalists and peasants who numbered about 80,000 men. Fighting continued until Dec 1793 but by the summer months the rebellion had lost its steam without a clear strategy. Fighting a defensive war against the government in Paris the rebellions lost 180,000 men against the governments’ 30,000 casualties. Français had already left the army in October to continue teaching but he did go back to serve in the army. In October 1797 he went to

to become professor of mathematics at the École Centrale du Haut-Rhin. Than in September 1803, he moved to

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 ...

to be a High School Math teacher, He taught at the artillery school in Mainz. He did not publish his 1795 dissertation on

partial differential equations In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which involves a multivariable function and one or more of its partial derivatives. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" that solves the equation, similar to how ...

, from the Académie des Sciences but his papers were used by

Sylvestre François Lacroix Sylvestre François Lacroix (28 April 176524 May 1843) was a French mathematician. Life He was born in Paris, and was raised in a poor family who still managed to obtain a good education for their son. Lacroix's path to mathematics started wit ...

after François Français’ death. François Français worked and wrote closely with several important mathematicians during his life and kept in contact with

Adrien-Marie Legendre Adrien-Marie Legendre (; ; 18 September 1752 – 9 January 1833) was a French people, French mathematician who made numerous contributions to mathematics. Well-known and important concepts such as the Legendre polynomials and Legendre transforma ...

Joseph-Louis Lagrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi LagrangiaJean-Baptiste Biot Jean-Baptiste Biot (; ; 21 April 1774 – 3 February 1862) was a French people, French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who co-discovered the Biot–Savart law of magnetostatics with Félix Savart, established the reality of meteorites, ma ...

. While nothing of François Français' work was published, after his death his brother,

Jacques Frédéric Français Jacques Frédéric Français (20 June 1775 – 9 March 1833) was a French engineer and mathematician. Biography Born on 20 June 1775, Jacques Frédéric Français was the son of a grocer of Saverne. He attended the Royal College of Strasbourg ...

, published the treatise ''Recherches sur la poussée des terres'' (1817).

References

External links

* Articles dans les ''

Annales de mathématiques pures et appliquées The (, ), commonly known as the (, ''Annals of Gergonne''), was a mathematical journal published in Nîmes, France from 1810 to 1831 by Joseph Diez Gergonne. The annals were largely devoted to geometry, with additional articles on history, p ...

'' (vol. 2, mai 1812, pp. 325–331; vol. 3, 1812, pp. 189–191; vol. 4, 1814, pp. 305–319; vol. 5, 1815, pp. 341–350) * Biot,

Laplace Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French polymath, a scholar whose work has been instrumental in the fields of physics, astronomy, mathematics, engineering, statistics, and philosophy. He summariz ...

et Legendre, �
Rapport sur un mémoire de M. Français
», ''Procès-verbaux des séances de l'Académie des sciences, classe des sciences physiques et mathématiques'', vol. III, 1804, pp. 204–205 {{DEFAULTSORT:Francais, Francois 1768 births 1810 deaths 18th-century French mathematicians French mathematicians