Mathematician of the week.

Augustin Louis Cauchy

1798 – 1857

Cauchy was born in Paris. However due to a certain historical event (the French revolution) his father decided to move to a more quiet place called Arcueil.

They swiftly returned to Paris (obviously Arcueil was to quiet). His father then began to tutor him and two gentlemen named Mr Laplace and Mr Lagrange visited from time to time, which was nice of them!

When the young Cauchy grew up he worked for Napoleon on engineering projects. This did not stop him from entering into mathematical research of polygons. This research was probably a reflection of his current situation. He returned to Paris due to an illness. People are of the opinion that this was a mental illness. On returning to Paris he rested and he then produced work on functions.

Cauchy was Catholic (not that being Catholic is a bad thing) and it seems that his views on Catholicism and his manner with his colleagues might have annoyed them.  One example of this is when a colleague approached Cauchy to ask him a question. In response to this Cauchy just pointed him in the direction of his new book and then walked off! I don’t know about you but sometimes I would love to do that. He also worked for Charles X (In Prague) tutoring his grandson. Apparently in his frustration with the prince he would scream at him. It does seem however that his manner did cause him to be passed over for many academic positions. 

Moving back to the mathematics Cauchy produced a vast amount of work during his life well over 700 papers. His major works were into analysis, divergence of infinite series and differential equations (apologise if I have missed anything).

He also researched the theory of light in which he developed new mathematical techniques. (I think it was Fourier transforms?)

Some terms in mathematics that bear his name are:

·         Cauchy integral theorem

·         Cauchy - Riemann equations

·         Cauchy sequences

This is just a very short account of Cauchy so apologies for any mistakes, inaccuracies or omissions. He was a genius and a bit of a character which can only be a good thing and for some reason I do like him even though he probably wouldn’t have liked me.