Home > Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde

He was a violinist, and became engaged with mathematics only around 1770. In Mémoire sur la résolution des équations (1771) he reported on symmetric functions and solution of cyclotomic polynomials; this paper anticipated later Galois theory. In Remarques sur des problèmes de situation (1771) he studied knight's tours. Mémoire sur des irrationnelles de différens ordres avec une application au cercle (1772) was on combinatoricsCombinatorics Discrete mathematics Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics that studies finite collections of objects that satisfy specified criteria, and is in particular concerned with "counting" the objects in those collections enumerative combinatori, and Mémoire sur l'élimination (1772) on the foundations of determinant theory. These papers were presented to the Académie des Sciences, and constitute all his published mathematical work. The Vandermonde determinant does not make an explicit appearance.

A special class of matricesAbstract algebra Algebra Linear algebra In mathematics, a matrix (plural matrices is a rectangular table of numbers or, more generally, of elements of a fixed ring. In this article, if unspecified, the entries of a matrix are always real or complex number, the Vandermonde matricesIn linear algebra, a Vandermonde matrix is a matrix with a geometric progression in each row, i. e; : or : for all indices i and j''. Some authors use the transpose of the above matrix. Vandermonde matrices are named after Alexandre-Theophile Vandermonde. are named after him, as is an elementary fact of combinatorics, Vandermonde's identityIn combinatorial mathematics, Vandermonde's identity named after Alexandre-Theophile Vandermonde, states that : This may be proved by simple algebra relying on the fact that : (see factorial) but it also admits a more combinatorics-flavored bijective proo.