Alphonse de Polignac

Alphonse Armand Charles George Marie de Polignac (March 27, 1826 - June 30, 1862 ) was a French mathematician .

He was the son of the diplomat and temporary Prime Minister Jules de Polignac and also known as Prince de Polignac. His mother was Mary Charlotte Boothley-Parkins (1792–1864). Alphonse de Polignac studied from 1849 at the École Polytechnique . He was captain of the artillery.

He is best known for guessing the theory of prime numbers , which he published in 1849. Polignac's conjecture (unproven or disproved to date) states that for every natural number there are infinitely many consecutive prime numbers with the difference . For , that's the conjecture about prime twins . Another conjecture by Polignac was refuted (see Erdős theorem (number theory) ). ${\displaystyle n}$ ${\displaystyle 2n}$ ${\displaystyle n=1}$

In 1860 he married the daughter Jeanne Émilie (1844–1933) of the banker and newspaper publisher Jules Mirés (1809–1871). The association with the wealthy heiress was seen as a mesalliance in aristocratic circles in France . To a corresponding remark, de Polignac is said to have replied that he had “blood for two”, which in turn prompted Mirés' father-in-law to say that he thought he gave him three percent when he married.

He had half-brother, Camille Armand Jules Marie de Polignac , who was Major General of the Confederate Civil War and also dealt with math problems (he died of cerebral edema at his desk while dealing with such a problem).

Web links

• Information on Alphonse de Polignac in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Eric Weisstein, Polignacs Conjecture, Wolfram Mathworld
2. ↑ Pauline Pocknell (eds.), Franz Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth: A Correspondence, 1854–1886, Franz Liszt Studies Series 8, Pendragon Press 2000, p. 197
3. ^ Website on the children of Madame de Polignac , the close confidante of Marie Antoinette