Charles Hermite

Charles Hermite (24 December 1822 to 14 January 1901) was a French mathematician who studied analysis, number theory and algebra. One of his most remarkable achievements was the proof of the transcendence of the number e. He was born in Dieuze, Moselle, with a deformity in his right foot that impaired his gait throughout his life, the sixth of seven children of Ferdinand Hermite and Madeleine Lallemand. The family moved to Nancy in 1828, and he obtained his secondary education at the Collège de Nancy and then in Paris at the Collège Henri IV and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He read writings of Joseph-Louis Lagrange on the solution of numerical equations and publications of Carl Friedrich Gauss on number theory.