Abstract
ON April 25, 1840, the distinguished mathematician Simoon Denis Poisson died at Sceaux at the comparatively early age of fifty-eight. Born at Pithiviers on June 21, 1871, he was the son of a soldier who had served in the Seven Years War, but was brought up by an uncle at Fontainebleau. At the local school he attracted attention by his gift for mathematics, and at the age of seventeen gained admittance to the ficole Polytechnique, with which he remained connected for practically all the rest of his life. In 1800 he presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences his first mathematical memoir, gaining thereby the interest of Lacroix and Legendfe. He was appointed to the chair of analytical mechanics in the ficole Polytechnique, held the chair of mechanics in the Faculty of Sciences of Paris, was given a seat on Bureau des Longitudes, and became an examiner to both the Elcole Polytechnique and the ficole d'Artil-lerie at Metz.
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Simeon Denis Poisson, For.Mem.R.S. (1781–1840). Nature 145, 619 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145619b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145619b0