ABRAHAM

See also:

• ABRAHAM DEMOIVRE (1667-1754)

DEMOIVRE (1667-1754)  , English mathematician of French extraction, was born at Vitry, in Champagne, on the 26th of May 1667 . He belonged to a French Protestant family, and was compelled to take refuge in England at the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685 . Having laid the foundation of his mathematical studies in France, he prosecuted them further in London, where he read public lectures on natural philosophy for his support . The Principia mathematica of Sir Isaac Newton, which chance threw in his way, caused him to prosecute his studies with vigour, and he soon became distinguished among first-rate mathematicians . He was among the intimate personal friends of Newton, and his eminence and abilities secured his admission into the Royal Society of London in 1697, and after-wards into the Academies of Berlin and Paris . His merit was so well known and acknowledged by the Royal Society that they judged him a fit person to decide the famous contest between Newton and G . W . Leibnitz (see INFINITESIMAL CALCULUS) . The life of Demoivre was quiet and uneventful . His old age was spent in obscure poverty, his friends and associates having nearly all passed away before him . He died at London, on the 27th of November 1754 . The 1-hilosophical Transactions contain several of his papers .

He also published some excellent

works, such as Miscellanea analytica de seriebus et quadraturis (1930), in 4to . This contained some elegant and valuable improvements on then existing methods, which have themselves, however, long been superseded . But he has been more generally known by his Doctrine of Chances, or Method of Calculating the Probabilities of Events at Play . This work was first printed in 1618, in 4to, and dedicated to Sir Isaac Newton . It was reprinted in 1738, with great alterations and improvements; and a third edition was afterwards published with additions in 1756 . He also published a Treatise on Annuities (1725), which has passed through several revised and corrected editions .. See C . Hutton, Mathematicl and Philosophical Dictionary (1815) . For Demoivre's Theorem see TRIGONOMETRY: Analytical .