Person: Servois, François Joseph

François-Joseph Servois was a French mathematician who worked on projective geometry.

Servois's first intention was to join the priesthood and he began by following this aim and was ordained at Besançon.
Servois soon changed his mind about following a career in the Church, and left in 1793 to join the army.
There were numerous military campaigns by the French army shortly after this and Servois was in the thick of the action serving as a staff officer.
However, he had a great love of mathematics and while on the military campaigns Servois spent all his free time studying.
Legendre realised that Servois had considerable mathematical talents and he supported a move to have him appointed to the artillery school of Besançon as professor of mathematics.
Appointed to this post in July 1801, Servois went on to hold similar positions over the next few years.
In comparison with his earlier appointments, Servois spent quite a while in Metz at the artillery school, remaining there until 1808.
Servois was appointed as curator in 1816 and he held this post until he retired in 1827.
After he retired Servois returned to his home town of Mont-de-Laval where he lived for nearly twenty further years.
Servois worked in projective geometry, functional equations and complex numbers.
Servois introduced the terms "commutative" and "distributive" in this paper describing properties of operators, and he also gave some examples of noncommutativity.
Servois was critical of Argand's geometric interpretation of the complex numbers.

Born 19 July 1768, Mont-de-Laval (N of Morteau), Doubs, France. Died 17 April 1847, Mont-de-Laval, Doubs, France.

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