Michel Charles (1793-1881)
1881 Obituary [1]
BY the death of M. Charles, to which we referred in a previous number, modern geometry has lost one of its most ardent and successful cultivators. For more than half a century numerous students, and even distinguished professors of his own and of other countries, eagerly gathered round his chair to listen to his exposition of methods which he himself had invented or considerably developed. Sixty-eight years separate his first mathematical paper from his last communication to the Academy of Sciences, and that long period was one of singular devotion to his favourite pursuits. The influence of his teaching was gr eat and far reaching. Many of his beautiful theorems have found their way into text-books used in higher collegiate classes, whilst his more elaborate researches are carefully read in our universities. He was emphatically an original investigator, and may, without detracting from the merit of his predecessors, be styled the Father of Modern Geometry.
M. Chasles was born at Eperon, near Chartres, in November, 1793, and, from his early youth, showed unusual mathematical talent. His fondness for geometry recalled the passionate devotedness of the brilliant Pascal.....[more]