Émile Léger

Émile Léger (1795–1838) was a French mathematician.

Émile Léger
Born(1795-08-15)August 15, 1795
La Grange aux Bois, today Sainte-Menehould, France
DiedDecember 15, 1838(1838-12-15) (aged 43)
Paris, France
Alma materÉcole Polytechnique
Known forEuclidean algorithm
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics

Life and work

Leger studied at Lycée de Mayence (now Mainz in Germany, capital of the French department of Mont-Tonnerre during the French First Republic), where his father Claude was professor of rhetoric. In 1813 he entered the École Polytechnique. With other students, he helped defend Paris during the Hundred Days of Napoleon in March 1815, and was decorated for bravery.[1] In 1816, he left school to go to Montmorency where his father founded an institution to prepare young people for the entrance exams to Paris universities. After his father retired, he managed the institution.[2]

Léger only published four papers on mathematics,[1] but one of them seems to be the first to recognize the worst case in the euclidean algorithm: when the inputs are proportional to consecutive Fibonacci numbers.[2]

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References
  1. O'Connor & Robertson, MacTutor History of Mathematics.
  2. Shallit, page 410.

Bibliography
  • Shallit, Jeffrey (1994). "Origins of the analysis of the Euclidean algorithm". Historia Mathematica. 21 (4): 401–419. doi:10.1006/hmat.1994.1031. ISSN 0315-0860.
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