Pierre Boutroux


Pierre Léon Boutroux was a French mathematician and historian of science. Boutroux is chiefly known for his work in the history and philosophy of mathematics.

Biography

He was born in Paris on 6 December 1880 into a well connected family of the French intelligentsia. His father was the philosopher Émile Boutroux. His mother was Aline Catherine Eugénie Poincaré, sister of the scientist and mathematician Henri Poincaré. A cousin of Aline, Raymond Poincaré was to be President of France.
He occupied the mathematics chair at Princeton University from 1913 until 1914. He occupied the History of sciences chair from 1920 to 1922.
Boutroux published his major work Les principes de l'analyse mathématique in two volumes; Volume 1 in 1914 and Volume 2 in 1919. This is a comprehensive view of the whole field of mathematics at the time.
He was an Invited Speaker of the ICM in 1904 at Heidelberg, in 1908 at Rome, and in 1920 at Strasbourg.
He died on 15 August 1922, aged 41 years.

Works