Edmond Bour

Who was Edmond Bour?

Jacques Edmond Émile Bour was a French engineer famous for the Bour formula. His parents were Joseph Bour and Gabrielle Jeunet.

He was a student at l'école polytechnique and graduated at the top of his class in 1852. After teaching for a year as a professor at l'école des Mines de Saint-Étienne, he became a professor of engineering at l'école polytechnique. In 1858 he obtained the grand prize in mathematics from l'académie des sciences for his treatise on L'intégration des équations aux dérivées partielles des premier et deuxième degrés.

He died at age 34 from an illness contracted during his travels in Asia Minor and Algeria. Most of his work was on the deformation of surfaces, and in particular he introduced the sine–Gordon equation in 1862.