Poncelet Prize
Encyclopedia
The Poncelet Prize is awarded by the French Academy of Sciences
. The prize was established in 1868 by the widow of General Jean-Victor Poncelet
for the advancement of the sciences. It was in the amount of 2,000 francs
(as of 1868), mostly for the work in applied mathematics
. The precise wording of the announcement by the Academy varied from year to year and required the work be "in mechanics
", or "for work contributing to the progress of pure or applied mathematics", or simply "in applied mathematics", and sometimes included condition that the work must be "done during the ten years preceding the award."
announcement (if available).
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
. The prize was established in 1868 by the widow of General Jean-Victor Poncelet
Jean-Victor Poncelet
Jean-Victor Poncelet was a French engineer and mathematician who served most notably as the commandant general of the École Polytechnique...
for the advancement of the sciences. It was in the amount of 2,000 francs
French franc
The franc was a currency of France. Along with the Spanish peseta, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra . Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money...
(as of 1868), mostly for the work in applied mathematics
Applied mathematics
Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with mathematical methods that are typically used in science, engineering, business, and industry. Thus, "applied mathematics" is a mathematical science with specialized knowledge...
. The precise wording of the announcement by the Academy varied from year to year and required the work be "in mechanics
Mechanics
Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effects of the bodies on their environment....
", or "for work contributing to the progress of pure or applied mathematics", or simply "in applied mathematics", and sometimes included condition that the work must be "done during the ten years preceding the award."
Poncelet Prize recipients
The following is an incomplete list of recipients, with a brief citation as in the NatureNature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
announcement (if available).
19th century
- (1871) Joseph Boussinesq
- (1872) Amédée Mannheim, "for the general excellence of his geometrical disquisitions."
- (1873) William ThomsonWilliam Thomson, 1st Baron KelvinWilliam Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, PRSE, was a mathematical physicist and engineer. At the University of Glasgow he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging...
, "for his magnificent works on the mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism." - (1874) Jacques BresseJacques Antoine Charles BresseJacques Antoine Charles Bresse was a French civil engineer who specialized in the design and use of hydraulic motors....
, "for his work in applied mechanics." - (1875) Gaston DarbouxJean Gaston DarbouxJean-Gaston Darboux was a French mathematician.-Life:Darboux made several important contributions to geometry and mathematical analysis . He was a biographer of Henri Poincaré and he edited the Selected Works of Joseph Fourier.Darboux received his Ph.D...
, "for the ensemble of his mathematical work." - (1878) Edmond LaguerreEdmond LaguerreEdmond Nicolas Laguerre was a French mathematician, a member of the Académie française . His main works were in the areas of geometry and complex analysis. He also investigated orthogonal polynomials...
, "for his mathematical works." - (1882) Charles Auguste BriotCharles Auguste BriotCharles Auguste Briot was a French mathematician who worked on elliptic functions. The Académie des Sciences awarded him the Poncelet Prize in 1882....
- (1883) Rudolf ClausiusRudolf ClausiusRudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius , was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founders of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle known as the Carnot cycle, he put the theory of heat on a truer and sounder basis...
- (1885) Henri PoincaréHenri PoincaréJules Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science...
- (1886) Charles Émile PicardCharles Émile PicardCharles Émile Picard FRS was a French mathematician. He was elected the fifteenth member to occupy seat 1 of the Académie Française in 1924.- Biography :...
- (1888) Édouard Collignon
- (1889) Edouard GoursatEdouard GoursatÉdouard Jean-Baptiste Goursat was a French mathematician, now remembered principally as an expositor for his Cours d'analyse mathématique, which appeared in the first decade of the twentieth century. It set a standard for the high-level teaching of mathematical analysis, especially complex analysis...
- (1891) Marie Georges HumbertMarie Georges HumbertMarie Georges Humbert was a French mathematician who worked on Kummer surfaces and introduced Humbert surfaces. His son was the mathematician Pierre Humbert. He won the Poncelet Prize of the Académie des Sciences in 1891.-References:...
- (1893) Hermann LaurentPaul Matthieu Hermann LaurentPaul Matthieu Hermann Laurent was a French mathematician. Despite his large body of works, Laurent series expansions for complex functions were not named after him, but after Pierre Alphonse Laurent.-External links:...
, "for the whole of his mathematical works." - (1896) Paul PainlevéPaul PainlevéPaul Painlevé was a French mathematician and politician. He served twice as Prime Minister of the Third Republic: 12 September – 13 November 1917 and 17 April – 22 November 1925.-Early life:Painlevé was born in Paris....
, "for all of his mathematical work." - (1898) Jacques HadamardJacques HadamardJacques Salomon Hadamard FRS was a French mathematician who made major contributions in number theory, complex function theory, differential geometry and partial differential equations.-Biography:...
- (1899) Eugène Cosserat, "for the whole of his contributions to geometry and mechanics."
- (1900) Léon Lecornu
20th century
- (1901) Émile BorelÉmile BorelFélix Édouard Justin Émile Borel was a French mathematician and politician.Borel was born in Saint-Affrique, Aveyron. Along with René-Louis Baire and Henri Lebesgue, he was among the pioneers of measure theory and its application to probability theory. The concept of a Borel set is named in his...
- (1902) Maurice d'Ocagne
- (1903) David HilbertDavid HilbertDavid Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...
- (1904) D. André
- (1907) Erik Ivar FredholmErik Ivar FredholmErik Ivar Fredholm was a Swedish mathematician who established the modern theory of integral equations. His 1903 paper in Acta Mathematica is considered to be one of the major landmarks in the establishment of operator theory.The lunar crater Fredholm is named after him.-List of publications:* E.I...
, "for his researches on integral equations." - (1908) Comte de Sparre, "for his studies relating to gunnery and his works on mechanics."
- (1911) Maurice LeblancMaurice Leblanc (engineer)Maurice Leblanc was a French engineer and industrialist.Born in Paris, Leblanc worked primarily in improving induction motors and alternators...
, "for the totality of his researches in mechanics." - (1912) Edmond Maillet
- (1913) Gabriel Xavier Paul KoenigsGabriel Xavier Paul KoenigsGabriel Xavier Paul Koenigs was a French mathematician who worked on analysis and geometry...
- (1914) Henri LebesgueHenri LebesgueHenri Léon Lebesgue was a French mathematician most famous for his theory of integration, which was a generalization of the seventeenth century concept of integration—summing the area between an axis and the curve of a function defined for that axis...
- (1915) Charles de la Vallée-PoussinCharles Jean de la Vallée-PoussinCharles-Jean Étienne Gustave Nicolas de la Vallée Poussin was a Belgian mathematician. He is most well known for proving the Prime number theorem.The king of Belgium ennobled him with the title of baron.-Biography:...
- (1917) Jules Andrade, "for his work in applied mechanics, especially that dealing with chronometry."
- (1919) Joseph LarmorJoseph LarmorSir Joseph Larmor , a physicist and mathematician who made innovations in the understanding of electricity, dynamics, thermodynamics, and the electron theory of matter...
- (1920) Élie CartanÉlie CartanÉlie Joseph Cartan was an influential French mathematician, who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups and their geometric applications...
, "for the whole of his work." - (1921) Jacques Charles Emile Jouguet
- (1922) Jules Drach, "for the whole of his work in mathematics."
- (1923) Auguste Boulanger (posthumously), "for the whole of his scientific work."
- (1924) Ernest VessiotErnest VessiotErnest Vessiot was a French mathematician. He was born in Marseille, France and died in La Bauche, Savoie, France...
, "for the whole of his work in mathematics." - (1925) Denis Eydoux, "for the whole of his work in hydraulics."
- (1926) Paul MontelPaul Antoine Aristide MontelPaul Antoine Aristide Montel was a French mathematician. He was born in Nice, France and died in Paris, France. He researched mostly on holomorphic functions in complex analysis....
, "for his mathematical work as a whole." - (1929) Alfred-Marie LiénardAlfred-Marie LiénardAlfred-Marie Liénard , was a French physicist and engineer. He is most well known for his invention of the Liénard–Wiechert potentials....
- (1932) Raoul BricardRaoul BricardRaoul Bricard is a French engineer and a mathematician. He is best known for his work in work in geometry, especially descriptive geometry and scissors congruence, and kinematics, especially mechanical linkages.- Biography :...
, "for his work in geometry." - (1936) Paul LévyPaul Pierre LévyPaul Pierre Lévy was a Jewish French mathematician who was active especially in probability theory, introducing martingales and Lévy flights...
, "for the whole of his mathematical works." - (1981) Philippe G. CiarletPhilippe G. CiarletPhilippe G. Ciarlet is a French mathematician, known particularly for his work on mathematical analysis of the finite element method especially applied to elasticity...
- (1987) Pierre Ladeveze
- (1993) Marie Farge
Additional recipients (date not confirmed)
- Benjamin Baker
- Camille JordanCamille JordanMarie Ennemond Camille Jordan was a French mathematician, known both for his foundational work in group theory and for his influential Cours d'analyse. He was born in Lyon and educated at the École polytechnique...
- Julius Robert von MayerJulius Robert von MayerJulius Robert von Mayer was a German physician and physicist and one of the founders of thermodynamics...
- Georges Henri HalphenGeorges Henri HalphenGeorge Henri Halphen was a French mathematician. He did his studies at École Polytechnique . He was known for his work in geometry, particularly in enumerative geometry and the singularity theory of algebraic curves, in algebraic geometry...