Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde

Who was Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde?

Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde was a French musician, mathematician and chemist who worked with Bézout and Lavoisier; his name is now principally associated with determinant theory in mathematics. He was born in Paris, and died there.

Vandermonde was a violinist, and became engaged with mathematics only around 1770. In Mémoire sur la résolution des équations he reported on symmetric functions and solution of cyclotomic polynomials; this paper anticipated later Galois theory. In Remarques sur des problèmes de situation he studied knight's tours, and presaged the development of knot theory by explicitly noting the importance of topological features when discussing the properties of knots:

"Whatever the twists and turns of a system of threads in space, one can always obtain an expression for the calculation of its dimensions, but this expression will be of little use in practice. The craftsman who fashions a braid, a net, or some knots will be concerned, not with questions of measurement, but with those of position: what he sees there is the manner in which the theads are interlaced"