De moivre biography

View four larger pictures. The family was certainly not well off financially, but a steady income meant that they could not be described as poor. De Moivre's parents were Protestants but he first attended the Catholic school of the Christian Brothers in Vitry which was a tolerant school, particularly so given the religious tensions in France at this time.

When he was eleven years old his parents sent him to the Protestant Academy at Sedan where he spent four years studying Greek under Du Rondel.

De moivre's formula

The Edict of Nantes had guaranteed freedom of worship in France since but, although it made any extension of Protestant worship in France legally possible, it was much resented by the Roman Catholic clergy and by the local French parliaments. Despite the Edict, the Protestant Academy at Sedan was suppressed in and de Moivre, forced to move, then studied logic at Saumur until Although mathematics was not a part of the course that he was studying, de Moivre read mathematics texts in his own time.

By this time de Moivre's parents had gone to live in Paris so it was natural for him to go there. Religious persecution of Protestants became very serious after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in , leading to the expulsion of the Huguenots. At this time de Moivre was imprisoned for his religious beliefs in the priory of St Martin.

It is unclear how long he was kept there, since Roman Catholic biographers indicate that soon after this he emigrated to England while his Protestant biographers say that he was imprisoned until 27 April after which he travelled to England. After arriving in London he became a private tutor of mathematics, visiting the pupils whom he taught and also teaching in the coffee houses of London.

By the time he arrived in London de Moivre was a competent mathematician with a good knowledge of many of the standard texts.

De moivre--laplace theorem

However after he made a visit to the Earl of Devonshire, carrying with him a letter of introduction, he was shown Newton 's Principia. He realised instantly that this was a work far deeper than those which he had studied and decided that he would have to read and understand this masterpiece. He purchased a copy, cut up the pages so that he could carry a few with him at all times, and as he travelled from one pupil to the next he read them.