Adrien-Marie Legendre was a French mathematician. He made important contributions to statistics, number theory, abstract algebra and mathematical analysis. Most of his work was brought to perfection by others: his work on roots of polynomials inspired Galois theory; Abel's work on elliptic functions was built on Legendre's; some of Gauss' work in statistics and number theory completed that of Legendre. Wikipedia
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There are few details of Adrien-Marie Legendre 's early life. He certainly came from a wealthy family who lived in Paris, and he was given a top quality education in mathematics and physics at the Collège Mazarin. At the age of 18, Legendre defended hi www.stetson.edu/~efriedma/periodictable/html/Nd.html