Jacques Charles François Sturm
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| Jacques Charles François Sturm | |
 Jacques Charles François Sturm
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| Born | September 29, 1803 Geneva |
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| Died | December 15, 1855 Paris |
| Nationality | French |
| Fields | mathematics |
| Institutions | École Polytechnique |
| Known for | Sturm-Liouville theory Sturm's theorem speed of sound |
| Notable awards | Légion d'Honneur (1837) |
Jacques Charles François Sturm (September 29, 1803 - December 15, 1855), French mathematician, of German extraction, was born in Geneva.
Sturm's family originated from Strasbourg and had emigrated around 1760. In 1818, he started to follow the lectures of the academy of Geneva. In 1819, the death of his father forced him to give lessons to children of rich families to support his family. In 1823, he became tutor to the son of Madame de Staël. At the end of 1823, he stayed in Paris for a short time following the family of his student. He resolved, with his school-fellow Colladon, to try his fortune in Paris, and obtained employment on the Bulletin universel. In 1829 he discovered the theorem, regarding the determination of the number of real roots of a numerical equation included between given limits, which bears his name.
He benefitted from the 1830 revolution, as his Protestant faith ceased to be an obstacle to employment in public high schools. At the end of 1830, he was thus appointed as a professor of Mathématiques Spéciales at the collège Rollin. He was chosen a member of the Académie des Sciences in 1836, filling the seat of André-Marie Ampère. He became répétiteur in 1838, and in 1840 professor in the École Polytechnique. The same year, after the death of SD Poisson, he was appointed as mechanics professor of the Faculté des Sciences of Paris. His works, Cours d'analyse de l'école polytechnique (1857-1863) and Cours de mécanique de l'école polytechnique (1861), were published after his death in Paris. They were regularly republished.
He was the co-eponym of the Sturm-Liouville theory with Joseph Liouville. Sturm's theorem is a basic result for proving the existence of real zeroes of functions.
In 1826, with his colleague Jean-Daniel Colladon he helped make the first experimental determination of the speed of sound in water.[1]
His name is part of the list of the 72 names engraved at the Eiffel Tower.
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[edit] Distinctions
- Grand prix de Mathématiques (4 December 1834)
- Copley medal of the Royal Society of London
- Officier de la Légion d'Honneur (1837)
- member of the academy of Berlin (1835)
- member of the academy of Saint-Petersburg (1836)
- member of the royal society of london (1840)
[edit] Books by Charles Sturm
- Cours d'analyse de l'Ecole polytechnique. Tome premier (Gauthier-Villars, 1877)
- Cours d'analyse de l'Ecole polytechnique. Tome second
(Gauthier-Villars, 1877)
- Cours de mécanique de l'Ecole polytechnique (Gauthier-Villars, 1883)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- O'Connor, John J. & Robertson, Edmund F., “Jacques Charles François Sturm”, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
- Notice sur la vie et les travaux de M. Sturm Nouvelles annales de mathématiques journal des candidats aux écoles polytechnique et normale 15 p. 72 (1856)
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by Robert Brown |
Copley Medal 1840 jointly with Justus von Liebig |
Succeeded by Georg Ohm |
