Born into a well-to-do family, Adrien-Marie Legendre decided early in life to dedicate himself to the study of mathematics. He enrolled at the College Mazarin in Paris, France, concentrating on science and mathematics. Although independently wealthy, he accepted a position as lecturer in mathematics at the Ecole Militaire in Paris in 1775. He left the post in 1780 to pursue his own research.

In 1782 he won a prize awarded by the Berlin Academy for an essay he wrote concerning ballistics, velocity and missile projections. Based upon that success, his reputation grew, and he attracted the attention of his fellow mathematicians. One year later he was elected to a position in the French Academy of Sciences, replacing French mathematician Pierre Laplace.

In the years following this appointment, he published many papers on a variety of subjects, but focused primarily on three: celestial mechanics, number theory and the theory of elliptic functions...