Louis Poinsot

Louis Poinsot ( born January 3, 1777 Paris, † December 5, 1859 ) was a French mathematician. From 1813 he was a member of the Académie des sciences.

Life

Poinsot attended the Lycée Louis -le- Grand, in preparation for his studies in 1794 at the École Polytechnique. He moved in 1797 to the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (School of bridge and road ), where he graduated as engineer. But then he discovered the mathematics as his true passion and was therefore first teacher - 1804-1809 - of mathematics at the Lycée Bonaparte in Paris. In 1809 he was an assistant professor at the École Polytechnique. However, the teaching commitments he gave from 1812 onwards to others ( Reynaud and then Cauchy ) and 1816 he resigned his professorship, but was still a decade examiner for the entrance examinations.

Poinsot busy with Monge the study of geometry in France, they turned to the mechanics (for example, in his geometric theory of force-free top, Poinsot'sche construction) and discovered four new regular polyhedra (two of which Kepler had however already known what he did not know → Kepler - Poinsot body ).

In 1813 he was elected as the successor of Joseph -Louis Lagrange to the Académie des sciences. From 1835 until his death he worked at the Bureau des Longitudes. He was also active in various committees for higher education in France. In 1846 he was admitted as an officer in the Legion of Honor. 1858 Finally, he was also a member of the Royal Society of London.

He supported the building of the Eiffel Tower and is number 45 on the list of 72 names in recognition of his scientific contributions of Alexandre Gustave Eiffel.

Works

His most important works are:

• Éléments De Statique. Calixte Volland, Paris 1803
• Nouvelle Théorie de la rotation des corps. Bachelier, Paris 1834