1752-1833

French mathematician who proved that there are an infinity of prime numbers in any arithmetic progression whose first term and increment are relatively prime and who obtained many results in elliptic function theory and celestial mechanics. In 1805 Legendre published the method of least squares in a study on the orbit of comets. What we know as Euclidean geometry owes much of its form to the textbook Legendre wrote for the children of the French Revolution.