Pierre Joseph Étienne Finck

Pierre Joseph Étienne Finck (1797 to 1870) was a French mathematician and teacher. Orphaned at twelve, he was educated by a merchant of Landau in the Palatinate, entered the École Polytechnique in 1815 and graduated in 1817, then studied at the Artillery School and moved from Paris to Strasbourg before 1821. From 1825 he was professor at the Artillery School of Strasbourg and, at the same time, professor of special mathematics at the Collège de Strasbourg. He became adjunct professor of applied mathematics at the University of Strasbourg in 1842 and full professor in 1847, but ill health from 1862 forced him on sick leave in 1866 and into retirement in 1868. He wrote seven textbooks on algebra, geometry, mechanics and calculus and more than twenty articles for French mathematical journals, including the Journal de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées and the Comptes rendus of the Academy of Sciences.