Émile Léger
{{Short description|French mathematician (1795–1838)}}
{{infobox scientist
| name = Émile Léger
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| birth_date = {{birth date|1795|08|15|df=y}}
| birth_place = La Grange aux Bois, today Sainte-Menehould, France
| death_date = {{death date and age|1838|12|15|1795|08|15|df=y}}
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| field = Mathematics
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| alma_mater = École Polytechnique
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| known_for = Euclidean algorithm
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Émile Léger (1795–1838) was a French mathematician.
Life and work
Leger studied at Lycée de Mayence (now Mainz in Germany, capital of the French department of Mont-Tonnerre during the French First Republic), where his father Claude was professor of rhetoric. In 1813 he entered the École Polytechnique. 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.{{smallcaps|Shallit}}, page 410.
Léger only published four papers on mathematics,{{smallcaps|O'Connor & Robertson}}, MacTutor History of Mathematics. but one of them seems to be the first to recognize the worst case in the euclidean algorithm: when the inputs are proportional to consecutive Fibonacci numbers.
References
{{reflist|2}}
Bibliography
- {{cite journal
| last = Shallit
| first = Jeffrey
| title = Origins of the analysis of the Euclidean algorithm
| journal = Historia Mathematica
| language = en
| volume = 21
| issue = 4
| year = 1994
| pages = 401–419
| issn = 0315-0860
| doi= 10.1006/hmat.1994.1031
| doi-access = free
}}
External links
- {{MacTutor|id=Leger}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leger, Emile}}