* September 18, 1752, Paris, France,
+ January 10, 1833, Paris
French mathematician whose distinguished work on
elliptic integrals provided basic analytic tools for
mathematical physics.
In [Legendre 1794]: "
In his "Eléments"
Legendre greatly rearranged and simplified many of the
propositions from Euclid'
s "Elements" to create a more effective textbook. Legendre's
work replaced Euclid's "Elements" as a textbook in most of
Europe and, in succeeding translations, in the United States
and became the prototype of later geometry texts. In
"Eléments" Legendre gave a simple proof that π is
irrational, as well as the first proof that π^2 is irrational,
and conjectured that π is not the root of any algebraic
equation of finite degree with rational
coefficients."[hom
][Legendre 1794]: Legendre Adrien-Marie:
Eléments de géometrie.
