Abraham de Moivre (May 26, 1667 - November 27, 1754), was a French mathematician famous for de Moivre's formula, which links complex numbers and trigonometry, and for his work on the normal distribution and probability theory. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1697, and was a friend of Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley.

De Moivre was born in Vitry-le-François, Champagne. The social status of his family is unclear, but De Moivre's father, a surgeon, was able to send him to the Protestant academy at Sedan (1678-82). De Moivre studied logic at Saumur (1682-84), attended the Collège de Harcourt in Paris (1684), and studied privately with Jacque Ozanam (1684-85). It does not appear that De Moivre received a college degree.

De Moivre was a Calvinist, and he left France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), and spent the remainder of his life in England.

Throughout his life he remained poor. It is reported that he was a regular customer of Slaughter's Coffee House, St. Martin's Lane at Cranbourn Street, where he earned a little money from playing chess. He died in London and was buried at St Martin's-in-the-Fields, although his body was later moved.

De Moivre wrote a book on probability theory, titled The Doctrine of Chances.

See also

• Stirling's approximation

References

• H. J. R. Murray. History of Chess. Oxford University Press, 1913, p 846.

External links

• Abraham de Moivre (http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/De_Moivre.html) (at the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive (http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/index.html))

• de Moivre, Abraham (http://euler.ciens.ucv.ve/English/mathematics/demoivre.html)

• Moivre [De Moivre, Demoivre], Abraham De (http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/moivre.html)

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