Joseph-Louis Lagrange
Mathematician and astronomer (1736–1813)
AI overview
Joseph-Louis Lagrange was an 18th-century mathematician and astronomer who made fundamental contributions to calculus, algebra, and mechanics that became cornerstones of modern mathematics and physics. His work, particularly in developing new mathematical methods and solving complex problems in celestial mechanics, helped establish the mathematical foundations that scientists still use today.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Quotes
- “As long as algebra and geometry proceeded along separate paths, their advance was slow and their applications limited. But when these sciences joined company, they drew from each other fresh vitality and thenceforward marched on at a rapid pace toward perfection.”
- “Newton was the greatest genius that ever existed, and the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish.”
- “It took them only an instant to cut off that head, but France may not produce another like it in a century.”
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Article
Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi Lagrangia or Giuseppe Ludovico De la Grange Tournier; 25 January 1736 – 10 April 1813), also reported as Giuseppe Luigi Lagrange or Lagrangia, was an Italian and naturalized French mathematician, physicist and astronomer. He made significant contributions to the fields of analysis, number theory, and both classical and celestial mechanics.
In 1766, on the recommendation of Leonhard Euler and d'Alembert, Lagrange succeeded Euler as the director of mathematics at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, Prussia, where he stayed for over twenty years, producing many volumes of work and winning several prizes of the French Academy of Sciences. Lagrange's treatise on analytical mechanics (Mécanique analytique, 4. ed., 2 vols. Paris: Gauthier-Villars et fils, 1788–89), which was written in Berlin and first published in 1788, offered the most comprehensive treatment of classical mechanics since Isaac Newton and formed a basis for the development of mathematical physics in the nineteenth century.
Gallery (9)
Connections
Categories
1736 births1813 deaths18th-century French astronomers18th-century French mathematicians18th-century Italian astronomers18th-century Italian mathematicians19th-century French mathematicians19th-century Italian mathematiciansBurials at the Panthéon, ParisCounts of the First French EmpireFrench agnosticsFrench fellows of the Royal Society