Charles Hermite, (born Dec. 24, 1822, Dieuze, Fr.—died Jan.

14, 1901,
Paris), French mathematician whose work in the theory of functions includes
the application of elliptic functions to provide the first solution to the general
equation of the fifth degree, the quintic equation.

HermiteCourtesy of the Archives de l'Académie des Sciences de Paris; photograph, J.

Colomb-Gerard, Paris

Although Hermite had proved himself a creative mathematician at the age of

20, his difficulty in passing his formal examinations forced him to devote five
of his most productive years to preparing for his examination for the bachelor
of science degree, which he obtained in 1848. He was given a minor teaching
position at the École Polytechnique, Paris, before being appointed to
the Collège de France, Paris, in the same year. It was not until 1869, with his
appointment as professor at the École Normale, Paris, that he attained a
position commensurate with his ability. In 1870 he became professor of
higher algebra at the Sorbonne.
In 1873 Hermite published the first proof that e is a transcendental
number; i.e., it is not the root of any algebraic equation with rational
coefficients.
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Hermite was a major figure in the development of the theory of algebraic
forms, the arithmetical theory of quadratic forms, and the theories of elliptic
and Abelian functions. He first studied the representation of integers in what
are now called Hermitian forms. His famous solution of the general quintic
equation appeared in Sur la résolution de l’équation du cinquième
degré (1858; “On the Solution of the Equation of the Fifth Degree”). Many late
19th-century mathematicians first gained recognition for their work largely
through the encouragement and publicity supplied by Hermite.

Hermite, Charles
(b. Dieuze, Lorraine, France, 24 December 1822; d. Paris, France, 14 January 1901)

mathematics.

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Hermite was the sixth of the seven children of Ferdinand Hermite and the former
Madeleine Lallemand. His father, a man of strong artistic inclinations who had studied
engineering, worked for a while in a salt mine near Dieuze but left to assume the
draper’s trade of his in-laws—a business he subsequently entrusted to his wife in
order to give full rein to his artistic bent. Around 1829 Charles’s parents transferred
their business to Nancy. They were not much interested in the education of their
children, but all of them attended the Collège of Nancy and ived there. Charles
continued his studies in Paris, first it the Collège Henri IV, where he was greatly
influenced by the physics lessons of Despretz, and then, in 1840–1841, at the Collège
Louis-le-Grand: his mathematics professor there was the same Richard who fifteen
years earlier had taught Evariste Galois. Instead of seriously preparing for his
examination Hermite read Euler, Gauss’s Disquisitiones arithmeticae, and
Lagrange’s Traité sur la résolution des équations numériques, thus prompting
Richard to call him un petit Lagrange.

Hermite’s first two papers, published in the Nouvelles annales de mathématiques, date

from this period. Still unfamiliar with the work of Ruffini and Abel, he tried to prove
in one of these papers the impossibility of solving the fifth-degree equation by
radicals. Hermite decided to continue his studies at the École Polytechnique; during
the preparation year he was taught by E. C. Catalan. In the 1842 contest of the Paris
colleges Hermite failed to win first prix de mathématiques spéciales section but
received only first “accessit.” He was admitted to the École Polytechnique in the fall
of 1842 with the poor rank of sixty-eighth. After a year’s study at the École
Polytechnique, he was refused further study, because of a congenital defect of his
right foot, which obliged him to use a cane. Owing to the intervention of influential
people the decision was reversed, but under conditions to which Hermite was
reluctant to submit. At this time, Hermite—a cheerful youth who, according to some,
resembled a Galois resurrected—was introduced into the circle of Alexandre and
Joseph Brtrand. Following the example of others, he declined the paramount honor of
graduating from the École Polytechnique, contenting himself with the career
of professeur. He took his examinations for the baccalauréat and licence in 1847.

At that time Hermite must have become acquainted with the work of Cauchy and
Liouville on general function theory as well as with that of C. G. J. Jacobi on elliptic
and hyperelliptic functions. Hermite was better able than Liouville, who lacked
sufficient familiarity with Jacobi’s work, to combine both fields of thought. In 1832
and 1834 Jacobi had formulated his famous inversion problem for hyperelliptic
integrals, but the essential properties of the new ranscendents were still unknown and
the work of A. Göpel and J. G. Rosenhain had not yet appeared. Through his first
work in this field, Hermite placed himself, as Darboux says, in the ranks of the first
analysts. He generalized Abel’s theorem on the division of the argument of elliptic
functions to the case of hyperelliptic ones. In January 1843, only twenty years old, he
communicated his discovery to Jacobi, who did not conceal his delight. The
correspondence continued for at least six letters; the second letter, written in August
1844, was on the transformation of elliptic functions, and four others of unknown
dates (although before 1850) were on number theory. Extracts from these letters were
inserted by Jacobi in Crelle’s Journal and in his own Opuscula. and are also in the
second volume of Dirichlet’s edition of Jacobi’s work. Throughout his life Hermite
exerted a great scientific influence by his correspondence with other prominent
mathematicians. It is doubtful that his Oeuvres faithfully reflects this enormous
activity.

In 1848 Hermite was appointed a répétiteur and admissions examiner at the École

Polytechnique. The next ten years were his most active period. On 14 July 1856 he
was elected a member of the Académie des Sciences, receiving forty out of forty-eight
votes.

In 1862, through Pasteur’s influence, a position of maître de conférence was created

for Hermite at the École Polytechnique; in 1863 he became an examinateur de sortie
et de classement there. He occupied that position until 1869, when he took over J. M.
C. Duhamel’s chair as professor of analysis at the École Polytechnique and at the
Faculté des Sciences, first in algebra and later in analysis as well. His textbooks in
analysis became classics, famous even outside France. He resigned his chair at the
École Polytechnique in 1876 and at the Faculté in 1897. He was an honorary member
of a great many academies and learned societies, and he was awarded many
decorations. Hermite’s seventieth birthday gave scientific Europe the opportunity to
pay homage in a way accorded very few mathematicians.
Hermite married a sister of Joseph Bertrand; one of his two daughters married Émile
Picard and the other G. Forestier. He lived in the same building as E. Boumoff at
Place de l’Odéon, and it was perhaps his acquaintance with this famous philologist
that led him to study Sanskrit and ancient Persian. Hermite was seriously ill with
smallpox in 1856, and under Cauchy’s influence became a devout Catholic. His
scientific work was collected and edited by Picard.

From 1851–1859 Europe lost four of its foremost mathematicians, Gauss, Cauchy,
Jacobi, and Dirichlet. Nobody, except Hermite himself, could guess the profoundness
of the work of Weierstrass and Riemann on Abelian functions and of Kronecker and
Smith on the mysterious relations between number theory and elliptic functions.
Uncontested, the scepter of higher arithmetic and analysis passed from Gauss and
Cauchy to Hermite who wielded it until his death, notwithstanding the admirable
discoveries of rivals and disciples whose writings have tarnished the splendor of the
most brilliant performance other than his [unspecified quotation by P. Mansion].

Throughout his lifetime and for years afterward Hermite was an inspiring figure in
mathematics. In today’s mathematics he is remembered chiefly in connection with
Hermitean forms, a complex generalization of quadratic forms, and with Hermitean
polynomials (1873), both minor discoveries. Specialists in number theory may know
that some reduction of quadratic forms is owed to him; his solution of the Lamé
differential equation (1872, 1877) is even less well known. An interpolation procedure
is named after him. His name also occurs in the solution of the fifth-degree equation
by elliptic functions (1858). One of the best-known facts about Hermite is that he first
proved the transcendence of e (1873). In a sense this last is paradiematic of all of
Hermite’s discoveries. By a slight adaptation of Hermite’s proof, Felix Lindemann, in
1882, obtained the much more exciting transcendence of π. Thus, Lindemann, a
mediocre mathematician, became even more famous than Hermite for a discovery for
which Hermite had laid all the groundwork and that he had come within a gnat’s eye
of making. If Hermite’s work were scrutinized more closely, one might find more
instances of Hermitean preludes to important discoveries by others, since it was his
habit to disseminate his knowledge lavishly in correspondence, in his courses, and in
short notes. His correspondence with T. J. Stieltjes, for instance, consisted of at least
432 letters written by both of them between 1882 and 1894. Contrary to Mansion’s
statement above, Hermite’s most important results have been so solidly incorporated
into more general structures and so intensely absorbed by more profound thought that
they are never attributed to him. Hermite’s principle, for example, famous in the
nineteenth century, has been forgotten as a special case of the Riemann-Roch
theorem. Hermite’s work exerted a strong influence in his own time, but in the
twentieth century a few historians, at most, will have cast a glance at it.
In Hermite’s scientific activity, shifts of emphasis rather than periods can be
distinguished; 1843–1847, division and transformation of Abelian and elliptic
functions; 1847–1851, arithmetical theory of quadratic forms and use of continuous
variables; 1854–1864, theory of invariants; 1855, a connection of number theory with
theta functions in the transformation of Abelian functions; 1858–1864. fifth-degree
equations, modular equations, and class number relations: 1873, approximation of
functions and transcendence of e; and 1877–1881, applications of elliptic functions
and Lamé’s equation.

In the 1840’s, and even in the early 1850’s, the inversion of integrals of algebraic
functions was still a confusing problem, mainly because of the paradoxical occurrence
of more than two periods. Jacobi reformulated the problem by simultaneously
inverting p integrals—if the irrationality is a square root of a polynomial of the (2p −
1)th or 2 pth degree. In the early 1840’s the young Hermite was one of the very few
mathematicians who viewed Abelian functions clearly, owing to his acquaintance
with Cauchy’s and Liouville’s ideas on complex functions. To come to grips with the
new transcendents, he felt that one had to start from the periodicity properties rather
than from Jacobi’s product decomposition. This new approach proved successful in
the case of elliptic functions, when Hermite introduced the theta functions of n th
order as a means of constructing doubly periodic functions. In the hyperelliptic case
he was less successful, for he did not find the badly needed theta functions of two
variables. This was achieved in the late 1840’s and early 1850’s by A. Göpel and J. G.
Rosenhain for p = 2; the more general case was left to Riemann. In 1855 Hermite took
advantage of Göpel’s and Rosenhain’s work when he created his transformation
theory (see below).

Meanwhile, Hermite turned to number theory. For definite quadratic forms with
integral coefficients, Gauss had introduced the notion of equivalence by means of
unimodular integral linear transformations; by a reduction process he had proved for
two and three variables that, given the determinant, the class number is finite. Hermite
generalized the procedure and proved the same for an arbitrary number of variables.

He applied this result to algebraic numbers to prove that given the discriminant of a
number field, the number of norm forms is finite. By the same method he obtained the
finiteness of a basis of units, not knowing that Dirichlet had already determined the
size of the basis. Finally, he extended the theorem of the finiteness of the class
number to indefinite quadratic forms, and he proved that the subgroup of unimodular
integral transformations leaving such a form invariant is finitely generated.

Hermite did not proceed to greater depths in his work on algebraic numbers. He was
an algebraist rather than an arithmetician. Probably he never assimilated the much
more profound ideas that developed in the German school in the nineteenth century,
and perhaps he did not even realize that the notion of algebraic integer with which he
had started was wrong. Some of his arithmetical ideas were carried on with more
success by Hermann Minkowski in the twentieth century.

In the reduction theory of quadratic and binary forms Hermite had encountered
invariants. Later he made many contributions to the theory of invariants, in
which Arthur Cayley, J. J. Sylvester, and F, Brioschi were active at that time. One of
his most important contributions to the progress of the theory of invariants was the
“reciprocity law,” a one-to-one relation between the covariants of fixed degree of
irder p of an mth-degree binary form and those of order m of a pth-degree binary
form. One of his nvariant theory subjects was the fifth-degree equaion, to which he
later applied elliptic functions.

Armed with the theory of invariants, Hermite returned to Abelian functions.

Meanwhile, the badly needed theta functions of two arguments had been found, and
Hermite could apply what he had learned ibout quadratic forms to understanding the
trans-ormation of the system of the four periods. Later, Hermite’s 1855 results became
basic for the transformation theory of Abelian functions as well as for Camille
Jordan’s theory of “Abelian” groups. They also led to Herrnite’s own theory of the
fifth-degree equation and of the modular equations of elliptic functions. It was
Herrnite’s merit to use ω rather than Jacobi’s q = eπiω as an argument and to prepare the
present form of the theory of modular functions. He again dealt with the number
theory applications of his theory, particularly with class number relations or quadratic
forms. His solution of the fifth-degree equation by elliptic functions (analogous to that
of third-degree equations by trigonometric functions) was the basic problem of this
period.

In the 1870’s Hermite returned to approximation problems, with which he had started
his scientific career. Gauss’s interpolation problem, Legendre functions, series for
elliptic and other integrals, con-nued fractions, Bessel functions, Laplace integrals,
and special differential equations were dealt with in this period, from which the
transcendence proof for e and the Lamé equation emerged as the most remarkable
results.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. Original Works. Herrnite’s main works are Oeuvores de Charles Hermite, E.
Pieard. ed., 4 vols. (Paris, 1905–917); Correspondance d’Hermite et de Stieltjes, B.
Baillaud and H. Bourget, eds., 2 vols. (Paris, 1905); and “Briefe von Ch. Hermite an
P. du Bois-Reymond aus den Jahren 1875–1888,” E. Lampe, ed., in Archiv der
Mathematik und Physik, 3rd. ser., 24 (1916), 193–220, 289–310. Nearly all his printed
articles are in the Oeuvres. It is not known how complete an account the three works
give of Herrnite’s activity as a correspondent. The letters to du Bois-Reymond are a
valuable human document.

II. Secondary Literature. The biographical data of this article are taken from G.
Darboux’s biography in La revue du mois, 1 (1906), 37–58, the most accurate and
trustworthy source. Other sources are less abundant; the exception is P. Mansion and
C. Jordan, “Charles Hermite (1822–1901),” in Revue des questions scientifiques, 2nd
ser., 19 (1901), 353–396, and 20 (1901), 348–349; unfortunately, Mansion did not
sufficiently account for the sources of his quotations.

An excellent analysis of Hermite’s scientific work is M. Noether, “Charles Hermite,”

in Mathematische Annalen, 55 (1902), 337–385. Others, most of them
superficial éloges, can be retraced from Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der
Mathematik, 32 (1901), 22–28; 33 (1902), 36–37; and 36 (1905), 22.

Hans Freudenthal

Charles Hermite

1822-1901
Charles was born with a defect in his right foot, which meant that he moved around
only with difficulty. However he had a happy disposition and bore his disability with
a cheerful smile. Charles attended the Collège de Nancy, the Coll�ge Henri, and the
Collège Louis-le-Grand. He preferred to read papers by Euler, Gauss and Lagrange
rather than work for his formal examinations, but, he was showed remarkable research
ability publishing 2 papers while at Louis-le-Grand.
Hermite wanted to study at the École Polytechnique and he took a year preparing for
the examinations. He was tutored by Catalan in 1841-42 and passed. After one year at
the École Polytechnique, Hermite was refused the right to continue his studies
because of his disability. The decision was eventually reversed so that he could
continue his studies but strict conditions were imposed. Hermite did not find these
conditions acceptable and decided to leave.

Hermite made friends with important mathematicians at this time and frequently
visited Joseph Bertrand. On a personal note, he would marry Bertrand's sister. From a
mathematical point of view, he began corresponding with Jacobi and he was already
producing research which was ranking as a leading world-class mathematician. The
letters he exchanged with Jacobi show that Hermite had discovered some differential
equations satisfied by theta-functions and he was using Fourier series to study them.

After spending 5 years working towards his degree he took and passed the
examinations for the baccalaurèat and licence which he was awarded in 1847. In the
following year he was appointed to the École Polytechnique as répétiteur and
admissions examiner.

Hermite made important contributions to number theory and algebra, orthogonal

polynomials, and elliptic functions. He discovered his most significant mathematical
results over the 10 years following his appointment to the École Polytechnique. In
1848 he proved that doubly periodic functions can be represented as quotients of
periodic entire functions. In 1849 Hermite submitted a memoir to the Académie des
Sciences which applied Cauchy's residue techniques to doubly periodic functions.

Another topic on which Hermite worked and made important contributions was the
theory of quadratic forms. This led him to study invariant theory and he found a
reciprocity law relating to binary forms. With his understanding of quadratic forms
and invariant theory he created a theory of transformations in 1855. His results on this
topic provided connections between number theory, theta functions, and the
transformations of abelian functions.

In 1856 Hermite was elected to the Académie des Sciences. However he soon after
contracted smallpox. Cauchy helped Hermite through the crisis. This had a profound
effect on Hermite who, under Cauchy's influence, turned to the Roman Catholic
religion.

Although an algebraic equation of the fifth degree cannot be solved in radicals, a

result which was proved by Ruffini and Abel, Hermite showed in 1858 that an
algebraic equation of the fifth degree could be solved using elliptic functions. He
applied these results to number theory, in particular to class number relations of
quadratic forms.

In 1862 Hermite was appointed maître de conférence at the École Polytechnique, a

position which had been specially created for him. In the 1860's he became first an
examiner, then a professor there. Hermite resigned his chair at the École
Polytechnique in 1876 but continued to hold the chair at the Sorbonne until he retired
in 1897. Poincaré is almost certainly the best known of Hermite's students.

The 1870's saw Hermite return to problems which had interested him earlier in his
career such as problems concerning approximation and interpolation. In 1873 Hermite
published the first proof that e is a transcendental number. Using methods similar to
those of Hermite, Lindemann established in 1882 that π was also transcendental.
Hermite is now best known for a number of mathematical entities that bear his name:
Hermite polynomials, Hermite's differential equation, Hermite's formula of
interpolation and Hermitian matrices.

Charles Hermite Biography
Charles Hermite was a noted 19th century French mathematician known for his work on number theory, quadratic
forms, and elliptic functions. Check out this biography to know about his childhood, family, life history and
achievements.

Quick Facts

Birthday: December 24, 1822
Nationality: French
Famous: Mathematicians French Men
Died At Age: 78
Sun Sign: Capricorn
Born In: Dieuze
Famous As: Mathematician
Family:
Spouse/Ex-: Louise Bertrand
Father: Ferdinand Hermite
Mother: Madeleine Lallemand
Died On: January 14, 1901
Place Of Death: Paris
More Facts

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Charles Hermite was a noted 19th century French mathematician known for his work on
number theory, quadratic forms, invariant theory, orthogonal polynomials, elliptic functions,
and algebra. From the very beginning, he was more interested in advanced studies than in
his curriculum, publishing two important papers while he was still in his secondary school.
Later, he entered École Polytechnique to study mathematics but because of a deformity in
his right feet, which required him to use a cane, he had to leave the academy the following
year. He studied privately for five years and earned his baccalauréat and licence at the age
of twenty-four. Meanwhile he started corresponding with eminent mathematicians, writing
down his discoveries in the letters. Indeed, in spite of his phenomenal researches, he had
few publications to his credit; circulating most his discoveries through letters, short notes
and course lectures, which formed the basis of further research by other mathematicians.
He was also a grand teacher, being appointed professor of analysis both in École
Polytechnique and Sorbonne. In spite of his deformity, he was always in a happy mood,
dividing his time between his family, teaching and research.

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Childhood & Early Life

 Charles Hermite was born on December 22, 1822 in Dieuze, located in the north-
eastern France. His father, Ferdinand Hermite, was an engineer by education, but an
artist by inclination. Before his marriage to Madeleine nee Lalleman, he briefly
worked in a salt pit, later looking after his in-law’s draping business.
 Ferdinand and Madelein had seven children, out of which Charles was born sixth. He
had four brother and two sisters. Charles was born with a defect in his right foot,
which hampered his movement. The deformity greatly worried his parents because
they knew it would get in the way of his career later in life. But having a happy
disposition, Charles bore it quite cheerfully.
 In 1828, when Charles’ family relocated to Nancy. Although his parents did not take
much interest in their children’s education they sent all of them to good schools;
Charles was admitted to Collège de Nancy.
 After graduating from Collège de Nancy, Charles Hermite moved to Paris, where he
initially studied at Lycee Henri IV. Here, he studied physics with César-Mansuète
Despretz and was greatly influenced by him. However, he did not continue here for
long, moving to Lycée Louis-le-Grand in 1840.
 At Lycée Louis-le-Grand, he studied mathematics with Louis Richard, who years ago
had taught Évariste Galois. Although he had entered the institution with the intention
of preparing himself for the entrance examination at École Polytechnique very soon
his attention began to dither.
 Under Richard’s direction, he began to read works of famous mathematicians like
Euler, Gauss and Lagrange. Among the books the eighteen year old read were
‘Disquisitiones arithmeticae’ by Gauss and ‘Traité sur la résolution des équations
numériques’ by Lagrange. However, he did not give up his goal.
 In 1841-1842, in order to prepare himself for the entrance examination at École
Polytechnique, he began to study with Eugène Charles Catalan. Concurrently, he
also began original research in mathematics, writing his first published work, which
appeared in the Nouvelles Annales de Mathématiques, a French mathematical
journal, in 1842.
 In 1842, Hermite appeared for the entrance test for École Polytechnique. But,
because of his extracurricular studies, he barely passed his examination and
attained 68th place in the list. He joined the institution in the same year.
 At École Polytechnique too, he began to pay more attention to extracurricular
studies, concentrating on Abelian functions, which was of great interest to the
European mathematicians of that time. It somehow led to his acquaintance to
Joseph Louisville, a well-known mathematician.
 In 1843, Charles Hermite was asked to leave École Polytechnique because of his
deformity. École was a military academy and since Hermite use a cane, he was
considered physically unfit.
 After some influential academics intervened on his behalf, he was allowed to
continue his studies at École; but was given some very strict stipulations, which was
unacceptable to him. Therefore he left École and for next five years, studied in
private, passing his examination for baccalauréat and licence in 1847.
 The period between 1843 and 1848, was not at all unproductive for Hermite.
Although he was still an undergraduate, lacking in any kind of formal degree, his
began to be much admired by the well-known mathematicians because of his
research works.
 From January 1843, he began to correspond with Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, a
German mathematician with immense contribution to mathematics. During this
period, Hermite wrote not less than six letters to him.
 In the first letter to Jacobi, he wrote about his work on Abel’s theorem. In his second
letter, written in August 1844, he wrote about the transformation of elliptic functions.
The other four letters were on number theory.
 Jacobi was so impressed by these works that he used extracts from these letters,
inserting them not only in his own ‘Opuscula’, but also in Crelle’s Journal. During this
period, Hermite also worked with Joseph Liouville, contributing significantly to
Liouville’s works.
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Career
 In 1848, Charles Hermite began his career as répétiteur and examinateur
d'admission at École Polytechnique, the same institution he was asked to leave six
years ago. In the same year, he proved that doubly periodic functions can be
represented as quotients of periodic entire functions.
 In 1849, he submitted a memoir to the Académie des Sciences, in which he applied
the residue techniques discovered by Augustin-Louis Cauchy to doubly periodic
functions. While both Cauchy and Charles-François Sturm gave good report, it could
not be published because of a priority dispute with Liouville.
 From early 1850s, Hermite started working on the theory of quadratic forms, for
which he had to study invariant theory. While doing so, he discovered a reciprocity
law concerning binary forms, finally creating theory of transformations in 1855. In the
same year, he published 'Sur quelques applications des fonctions elliptiques'.
 In 1858, he showed that one could solve an algebraic equation of the fifth degree by
using elliptic functions. It is one of his most important works, making him rightly
famous.
 In 1862, École Polytechnique created the position of maître de conference especially
for him, appointing him to the post. In 1863, he was appointed an examinateur de
sortie et de classement there. Also from 1862 to 1873 he was lecturer at the École
Normale Supérieure.
  In 1869, Charles Hermite was appointed as the professor of analysis at École
Polytechnique and remained there until 1876.
 In 1869, he also received appointment at Faculty of Sciences of Paris and remained
in this position till his death.
 In 1870s, he once again started working on problems, relating to approximation and
interpolation. In 1873, he proved that ‘e’ is a transcendental number. In the same
year, he also published his second major book, ‘Cours d'Analyse de l'École
Polytechnique Première Partie’.
 Continuing to work, he made many discoveries, which though minor in nature, laid
the foundation of further research by other mathematicians. For example, by
adapting Hermite’s proof that ‘e’ is a transcendental number, Felix Lindemann, a
mathematician, obtained the transcendence of π in 1882.
 It is a fact that Hermite’s contribution to mathematics is more than what meets the
eyes. That is mainly because he had a habit of disseminating his discoveries through
letters, short notes and courses.
 In addition to his research works, he continued to teach, publishing 'Cours professé
à la Faculté des Sciences' in 1891. This is his last work to be published during his
life time, with ‘Correspondance’ being published posthumously in 1905.

Major Works
 Charles Hermite is most famous for his 1858 work on algebraic equation of the fifth
degree. Although such equations cannot be solved in radicals, he showed that it
could solved by using elliptic functions, creating a new branch of algebra. Later he
applied the results to class number relations of quadric forms.

Awards & Achievements

 On 14 July 1856, Hermite was elected to the Académie des Sciences in Paris.
 In 1892, he was promoted grand officer of the Legion of Honour.

Personal Life & Legacy

 In 1848, Hermite married Louise Pauline Arsène Bertrand, sister of fellow
mathematician Joseph Louis François Bertrand. Together, they had two daughters,
Isabelle Caroline Ferdinande Forestier nee Hermite and Marie Picard nee Hermite.
 In 1856, Hermite contracted small pox. During this ailment, Augustin-Louis Cauchy
provided him a strong moral support. Under his influence, Hermite returned to
Roman Catholic fold and became royalist, a belief he held until the very end.
 Hermite officially retired from work in 1897. He died around three years later on 14
January 1901 in Paris, at the age of 78.
 A number of mathematical entities such as Hermite polynomials, Hermite's
differential equation, Hermite's formula of interpolation and Hermitian matrices
continue to carry his legacy. .

Trivia
 Henri Poincaré, one of Hermite’s best known students, wrote about him, “But to call
Hermite a logician! Nothing can appear to me more contrary to the truth. Methods
always seemed to be born in his mind in some mysterious way”.