Siméon Denis Poisson

French mathematician, mechanician and physicist (1781-1840) · France · Academics · Died at 58

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A French mathematician whose name survives in the Poisson distribution, the Poisson equation, and half a dozen other foundational tools - though he's equally remembered for trying to kill wave theory and accidentally predicting the bright spot that proved it correct.

Scientists Academic Mathematics Astronomy Physics Politics France Europe

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Photos 8

Simeon Poisson (cropped)

E. Marcellot Siméon-Denis Poisson 1804

Eiffelturm Arago

Paris - Eiffelturm - Erste Plattform

Pithiviers - Maison de Siméon Denis Poisson - 1

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In their own words 2

Siméon Denis Poisson

2 statements, newest first

In many different fields, empirical phenomena appear to obey a certain general law, which can be called the Law of Large Numbers.
1837, Statement of Poisson's law also known as the Law of Large Numbers (1837), as quoted by, Own words
That which can affect our senses in any manner whatever, is termed matter.
Introductory sentence of, Own words

Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

Awards

Copley Medal

Lalande Prize

Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

72 names on the Eiffel Tower

Fellow of the Royal Society

Family

Siméon Denis Poisson

Children

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About this person

Siméon Denis Poisson was born on 21 June 1781 and spent his career ranging across statistics, complex analysis, partial differential equations, analytical mechanics, electricity, magnetism, thermodynamics, elasticity, and fluid mechanics. In attempting to disprove Augustin-Jean Fresnel's wave theory of light, he predicted what's now called the Arago spot - a bright point that should appear in the shadow of a disk - expecting the result to be absurd; when the spot was observed, it became one of wave theory's strongest confirmations. His physical interpretations were often overturned by later work, but the mathematics he developed while tackling those problems endured. He died on 25 April 1840, having shown that the right question in physics could yield lasting ideas in pure math, even when the answer turned out wrong.

Country

France