Gabriel Cramer

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Gabriel Cramer

Gabriel Cramer (July 31, 1704 - January 4, 1752) was a Swiss mathematician, born in Geneva. He showed promise in mathematics from an early age. At 18 he received his doctorate and at 20 he was co-chair of mathematics. In 1728 he proposed a solution to the St. Petersburg Paradox that came very close to the concept of expected utility theory given ten years later by Daniel Bernoulli. The work by which he is best known came in his forties. This work is his treatise on algebraic curves "Introduction à l'analyse des lignes courbes algébraique" published in 1750; it contains the earliest demonstration that a curve of the n-th degree is determined by

n(n + 3)/2 points

on it, in general position. He edited the works of the two elder Bernoullis; and wrote on the physical cause of the spheroidal shape of the planets and the motion of their apses (1730), and on Newton's treatment of cubic curves (1746). He was professor at Geneva, and died at Bagnols.

Adapted from A Short Account of the History of Mathematics by W. W. Rouse Ball (4th Edition, 1908).

He was the son of physician Jean Cramer and Anne Mallet Cramer.