Mathematician:Évariste Galois

French mathematician famous for dying at the age of 20 as the result of a duel.

Despite his total collected works amounting to a mere 60 pages or so, he had a significant influence in the development of the field of group theory. He was in fact the first person to use the word group in a technical sense.

His innovative approach to the problem of the insolubility of the quintic led to the field known now as Galois theory. There has been a lot of old rubbish written about Galois, not least the overly-romanticised account of his life as given by E. T. Bell in his.

For a rather more balanced and sober account, see the Historical Introduction in Ian Stewart's.

Nationality
French.

History

 * Born: 25 Oct 1811, Bourg La Reine (near Paris), France
 * Died: 31 May 1832, Paris, France

Theorems and Definitions

 * Galois Theory
 * Fundamental Theorem of Galois Theory
 * Galois Field
 * Galois Group
 * Galois Connection