Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752-1833) was a French mathematician who made foundational contributions to number theory, statistics and elliptic functions. He first communicated the method of least squares in 1806, conjectured the law of quadratic reciprocity later proved by Gauss, proved Fermat's Last Theorem for the exponent five in 1830, and authored Elements de geometrie (1794), the leading elementary geometry textbook for roughly a century. In 1808 he conjectured that a prime always lies between consecutive perfect squares, a claim still unproven and now known as Legendre's Conjecture. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Nationality / Culture Defining ContributionAuthored Elements de geometrie (1794), which stood as the leading elementary geometry textbook for around a century. 1 Defining ContributionConjectured in 1808 that a prime number always lies between two consecutive perfect squares, now called Legendre's Conjecture; it remains unproven. 2 Defining ContributionFirst communicated the method of least squares to his contemporaries before Gauss, publishing it in 1806 as an appendix to his book on the paths of comets; it is now central to regression, signal processing and curve fitting. 1 AwardBerlin Academy prize for research on the trajectories of projectiles (1782). 3 Connections
Associated With
Gauss discovered the method of least squares before Legendre, who was the first to officially publish it in 1805; a documented priority dispute in the history of statistics.
Conjectures Posed
Legendre proposed the conjecture in 1808 in his Essai sur la Theorie des Nombres.
Source Legendre's Conjecture (Wikipedia)
In Branch
Namesake Of
Derived from the object's own name (unambiguous possessive-token match to exactly one live mathematician entity, w-bfill-g5-0924 browse backfill)
Derived from the theorem's own name (unambiguous possessive-token match to exactly one live mathematician entity, w-bfill-g5-0924 browse backfill)
Proofs Credited
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: France, nationality there.
Sources
1. Adrien-Marie Legendre (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Adrien-Marie Legendre (18 September 1752 - 9 January 1833) was a French mathematician who made numerous contributions to mathematics.
Infobox
French mathematician (1752-1833)
Lead section, pronunciation guide
/ləˈʒɑːndər, -ˈʒɑːnd/; French: [adʁiɛ̃ maʁi ləʒɑ̃dʁ]
Mathematical work section
Legendre is best known as the author of Elements de geometrie, which was published in 1794 and was the leading elementary text on the topic for around 100 years.
Lead section, gender reference
Well-known and important concepts such as the Legendre polynomials and Legendre transformation are named after him.
View the Source 2. Legendre's Conjecture (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationStatement, opening paragraph
there is a prime number between n squared and (n+1) squared for every positive integer n; proposed by Adrien-Marie Legendre
Conjectures Posed: Legendre's Conjecture, Opening paragraph
proposed by Adrien-Marie Legendre
View the Source 3. Adrien-Marie Legendre, Biography (MacTutor History of Mathematics)
MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St AndrewsEarly career sectionQuote, Early career section
won the Berlin Academy prize for projectile trajectory research in 1782
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