The French mathematician and astronomer, Jacques-Philippe-Marie Binet, was born at Rennes, France on February, 2 1786. He died in Paris on May 12, 1856.

In 1806, following two years of study at the École Polytechnique, Binet received a government appointment as a student engineer in the department of bridges and roads. Finding himself attracted to the idea of teaching, he opted for a professorship of mathematics at the Lycée Napoléon. He later taught descriptive geometry and mechanics at the École Polytechnique.

In 1812, Binet stated his multiplication theorem for determinants, which holds that for nth-order determinants and the summation over the integers k, c_ij = a_ikb_kj, the terms in the i^th row and the j^th column of the product is the sum of the products of the corresponding elements of the i^th row of |a_ij| and the j^th column of |b_ij|. Note: Although Binet is credited with stating this theorem, it was actually his contemporary Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789-1857) who was the first person to prove it, and to give the first systematic and modern treatment of determinants.

Binet was made a member of the Société Philomathique in 1812. Eleven years later, he was awarded the chair of astronomy at the Collège de France.

Binet was a loyal subject of Charles X, and as a result lost his position at the École Polytechnique when the French king was forced to abdicate during the insurrection of 1830. Binet was, however, allowed to retain his professorship at the Collège de France. In 1843, he was elected to the French Académie des Sciences, eventually becoming its president.