Charles Hermite

Lore & Background

Hermite was born in Dieuze, Moselle, with a deformity in his right foot that impaired his gait. He was the sixth of seven children; his father worked in the drapery business and as an artist. Hermite attended Collège de Nancy, then Collège Henri IV and Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he read works by Lagrange and Gauss. That year he returned to École Polytechnique as répétiteur and examinateur d'admission, and was elected to the French Academy of Sciences.

Reader's Guide

This built on Liouville's prior work and opened the door for Lindemann's later proof of the transcendence of π. Hermite also proved that π² and therefore π are irrational, though he did not prove π transcendental. He proved that eigenvalues of Hermitian matrices are always real, generalizing Cauchy's result. His work on elliptic and Abelian functions, including correspondence with Jacobi, was included in Jacobi's complete works. Later in life, he studied linear differential equations and found solutions to Lamé's equation. His legacy includes the Hermite crater on the Moon and numerous mathematical concepts named after him.

Did You Know?

• Hermite was forced to leave École Polytechnique after one year because of a deformity in his right foot.
• The Hermite crater near the Moon's north pole is named after him.