Augustin-Louis Cauchy Biography

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Augustin-Louis Cauchy was French mathematician born on August 21, 1789 and died on May 23, 1857. Lagrange, another famous mathematician, was no stranger to the Cauchy family. Using Lagrange’s advice, Augustin-Louis Cauchy enrolled at the Ecole Centrale du Pantheon. This school was the best secondary school of Paris at the time. The curriculum of the school was mostly classical languages. Cauchy was a very young and ambitious student and also very brilliant. As he went through school he won many prizes in Latin and Humanities. Despite his many successes, Augustin-Louis decided to proceed his life and pursue an engineering career. He then prepared himself for the entrance examination to the École Polytechnique. Polytechnique was known to be one of the most selective and prestigious French schools. It is also known for its extremely competitive entrance exam. In 1805, when Cauchy took his exam, he placed second out of 293 other people, and was admitted to the prestigious school. The school's main purpose was to give future civil and military engineers a high level of scientific and mathematical education. Cauchy had some problems adapting to the school because it was controlled under military discipline. In 1807, at the age of 18, he finished Polytechnique. He then went on to Ecole des Ponts et Chausses. This school was also a very prestigious school. This school was a university level institution of higher education and research. The school is also known to be the world's oldest civil-engineering school (founded in 1747). When Cauchy finished school in 1810, he graduated civil-engineering with the highest honors.
In 1810 Augustin-Louis Cauchy accepted a job as a junior engineer in Cherbourg. This location was where Napoleon intend...

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...e the first to introduce inequalities to calculus. Cauchy did not only contribute to the math world. He also focused on science. One of the things he worked on was Fresnel’s light theory and also the polarization and dispersion of light. He was also known for his contribution to important research on mechanics.
Ever since the beginning of mankind, mathematics has evolved constantly. It has taken thousands of people to get mathematics to where it is today, and Augustin-Louis Cauchy was just a piece to that puzzle. Just the small parts that he did in his life made a huge contribution to mathematics, some which is still used and taught today, while others has been proven wrong and no longer part of our schooling. Without this man, and the many other mathematicians, the world of math would not be where it is today, making these people a very important part of our lives.

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