Camille Jordan published papers in all branches of mathematics. In analysis he discovered the bounded function. In topology he investigated the relationship between a plane and a closed curve. However it is for algebra that Jordan is best known. Jordan was particularly eminent in the field of group theory. He is known as the originator of Jordan curves, Jordan algebra and the Jordan Holder Theory. Jordan also worked on solvable groups and movements in three dimensional space.

Marie Ennemond Camille Jordan, or Camille Jordan as he is more commonly known, was born in Lyon, France in 1838. Jordan carried out his initial mathematical studies (specifically in engineering) at the Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. In 1870 Jordan published Traite des substitutions et des equations algebriques (Treatise on Substitutions and Algebraic Equations) which was an excellent overview of Galois theory. As well as being an overview of Galois theory it also established several important results in group theory. This book was awarded the prestigious Poncelet Prize of the Academy of Sciences. From 1873 Jordan was a lecturer in mathematics at the Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, and in 1876 he was made a professor. He remained as a professor until 1912. During much of his time as professor of mathematics Jordan continued working as an engineer, a position he did not relinquish until his retirement in 1885. The work of Georg Cantor was pushed to the fore in the second edition of Jordan's Cours d'analyse de l'Ecole Polytechnique(A Course of Analysis of the Polytechnic School) published in 1893 (the first edition was published in 1882). It is the third edition (1909 - 1915) of this book which introduces the Jordan curve theorem. In the first edition the point set topology of Cantor was included in the appendix to the third volume, in the second edition it was given prominence by its inclusion in the first chapters.

Jordan died in Milan, Italy in 1922, afer having published over 120 papers, but his work was carried on by many of his students, most famously and Marius Sophus Lie.