Charles Paul Narcisse Moreau

Colonel Charles Paul Narcisse Moreau (14 September 1837, Paris – 6 July 1916) was a French soldier and mathematician. He served in the artillery and an officier of the French Legion of Honor. He introduced Moreau's necklace-counting function into mathematics, and achieved the worst result ever recorded in an international chess tournament.

Military service

Colonel Moreau's military career is given by documents on the Legion of Honor website as follows. He was promoted to lieutenant on 1861 October 1. He served in Mexico from 1863 May 23 to 1867 March 22 during the French intervention in Mexico and was named Chevalier de l'Ordre Impérial de la Guadeloupe on 1866 September 16 and was awarded the Commemorative medal of the Mexico Expedition. On 1868 August 10 he was promoted to captain. He served in Africa from 1869 January 27 to 1870 August 3, when he returned to take part in the Franco-Prussian war. He participated in the battle of Sedan on 1870 September 1, after which he was taken prisoner until 1871 June 4. He served again in Africa (Algeria) from 1871 August 5 until 1873 November 20, during which time he was made a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor on 1872 November 20. On 1886 July 8 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and on 1890 April 15 was promoted to colonel. He was made an officier of the French Legion of Honor on 1893 July 5.

Mathematics and chess

Spinrad (2008a, 2008b) identified Moreau as the chess player "Colonel Moreau" who set a record for the worst ever performance in an international tournament by losing all his 26 games in the 1903 Monte Carlo chess tournament. It is unclear why someone that weak was playing in an international tournament. He is sometimes said to have been a last-minute substitute for Mikhail Chigorin, who was apparently dropped after a dispute with the organizer Prince André Dadian, but Spinrad pointed out that this is unlikely because Moreau and Chigorin were both listed among the 14 competitors in a newspaper story in "The New York Sun" and "Salt Lake Herald" from 1902 December 21, several weeks before the tournament started on 1903 February 10. Moreau was on the tournament organizing committee for the 1902 Monte Carlo tournament.

Spinrad also pointed out that Moreau published several mathematical papers. In particular Moreau (1872) introduced Moreau's necklace-counting function, and Lucas (1891b, pp. 501–503) described a variation of this that he credited to Moreau. Moreau (1873) pointed out a counterexample to a lemma used by Adrien-Marie Legendre in his attempt to prove Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic progressions. Lucas (1891, p.181–195) describes Moreau's analysis of the mathematical game "red and black" invented by Arnous de Rivière. Laisant (1891, p.106) mentions Moreau's unpublished solution to a combinatorial problem involving rooks on a chessboard.

Publications

Moreau also published several notes titled "Solution de la question ...." in volumes XI to XVI of the journal Nouvelles annales de mathématiques giving solutions to questions asked in it.

References

External links

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