Person: Finck, Pierre-Joseph-Étienne

Pierre-Joseph-Étienne Finck wrote books on algebra, mechanics, geometry and analysis.

Finck was then adopted and brought up in the town of Landau in der Pfalz.
Finck entered the École Polytechnique in 1815, in sixth place in the ranking of students admitted that year.
The work of the Artillery School did not interest Finck and, in March 1818, he requested that he be allowed to enter the cavalry regiment of the Royal Guard.
Finck tried again with his request in July of the same year, this time saying that if he was not allowed the move he would resign.
His request was turned down and Finck resigned.
However, by March 1819 Finck seems to have decided that his actions had been mistaken since he wrote asking to be readmitted to the Artillery School.
This request was also turned down: Finck was clearly not very highly regarded at the Artillery School.
Returning to university, Finck entered the University of Strasbourg in 1821 studying mathematics in the Faculty of Science.
Before completing his doctoral work, Finck began teaching mathematics at the Artillery School of Strasbourg in 1825, which does have a certain irony after his own experiences as a student at Artillery School.
In 1842 Finck was appointed to the chair of mathematics at the University of Strasbourg.
Finck wrote over 20 papers and seven textbooks on mathematics.

Born 15 October 1797, Lauterbourg, France. Died 27 July 1870, Strasbourg, France.

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Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0!

O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive