Evariste Galois (1811 - 1832)

Galois is one of the most tragic and romantic figures of mathematics. The son of the mayor of a small town outside Paris, he undoubtedly had the potential to become one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. Galois proved that no polynomial of degree greater than five could be solved analyticaly, a great outsanding problem of the day. In the course of doing this he singlehandedly laid the foundations of a whole new area of mathematics called Group Theory, he is remembered in the title of the subject Galois Theory. He did all of this before the age of 21.

Galois' early schooling was at the infamous lycee of Louis Grande in Paris. This school was notorious for beatings and severe punishments of the students. The treatment of pupils was so bad that the students staged a rebellion, demanding better conditions. The rebellion was put down and Galois returned to the torture of lycee Louis Grande. At the age of 16 he recognised his mathematical genius and applied to the prestigous Ecole Polytechnique. However so sure was he of acceptance that he did not bother to study for the entrance exams, his lack of formal qualifications and a less than scintillating acedemic record in areas outside mathematics also counted against him, he was turned down.

In the Ecole Normal he disregarded his regular schooling and investigated the further reaches of higher mathematics. He was fascinated by Legendre's (1752 - 1830) work on solutions to polynomial equations. In 1828 Galois came under the wing of Louis Paul Emile Richard, who was noted for fostering young mathematical talent, at last it seemed that things were going Galois' way. Galois secured a promise from Cauchy (1789 - 1857) to review his first paper for submission to a Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences. Unfortunately Cauchy lost the paper and forgot about the promise; the paper lay forgotten burried in his office.

Disolusioned by this unintentional rejection Galois tried again, submiting a paper summarising his results to the Academy of Science, in the hopes of winning the much coveted Grand Prize in Mathematics. Once again Galois' bad luck won out, Fourier (1768 - 1830) received his paper for review, but died before he could read it. A final effort to get the paper accepted by the Academy was returned with a request by Poisson (1781 - 1840) for further proofs and exlanations. This was too much for Galois and he abandoned mathematics, joining the French National Guard where he became involved in the aborted rebellion of 1830.

Tragically Galois died at the age of 21 in a duel with a cavalry officer over a woman. Galois was no marksman and expected to die. It is said that he spent the night before the duel furiously writing down his theories to send to his friend Chevalier for publication. His theories finally came to light in 1846 when Joseph Liouville (1809 - 1882) published this letter together with the two forgotten publications, and provided proofs and explanations of the new concepts.