variste Galois

What follows the sad story of a brilliant mind shut down before its owner had a chance to contribute to mathematics all of which he was capable. It is often difficult to separate the facts from the legend in the account of the life of variste Galois (October 25, ! " #ay $ ,

!$2%. In his short lifetime he gave the necessary and sufficient conditions for the solvability of polynomial e&uations by radicals. 'is wor( was not understood until eleven years after his death when )oseph *iouville e+amined his manuscript and declared that it indeed solved the problem proposed by ,aolo -uffini, .iels /bel, and others. Galois0 mathematical reputation rests on less than 11 pages of mostly posthumously published memoirs.

Galois was born in 2ourg *a -eine, near ,aris and was mortally wounded in a duel with pistols on #ay $1, !$2, dying the ne+t day. 'is father, .icholas3Gabriel Galois, a prominent member of the community, was elected mayor in ! 5. Galois0 mother, /d4la5de #arie 6emante, was his only teacher until he was 2, giving her son an e+cellent education in *atin, Gree( and rhetoric, but apparently no mathematics. 2oth of his parents were staunch -epublicans at the time the monarchy was reestablished after the rule of .apoleon. Galois e+ceeded his parents in -epublican 7eal. 'e enrolled at the *yc4e *ouis3le3Grand in !2$ where he received several pri7es and had a good record but was re&uired to repeat a year in !28 because he wasn0t 9udged mature enough for the ne+t class. /t about this time Galois too( his first mathematics course and from then on became absorbed with the sub9ect. One of his mathematics teachers, *ouis -ichard, gave the young genius his head, allowing him to study the wor(s of the masters on his own, including /drien #arie *egendre0s Gomtrie and the treatises of )oseph3*ouis *agrange. /nother mathematics teacher, #. :ernier, recommended that Galois wor(

more systematically.

It is probably fair to describe Galois as headstrong and willful. Whether this was because of his genius or because his teachers and other mathematicians should have recogni7ed his e+traordinary gifts is debatable. .ot every student who is ;singular, bi7arre, original and withdrawn< is a ma9or mathematical talent. Galois published his first paper on continued fractions in /pril !2= and in #ay and )une submitted articles on the algebraic solution of e&uations to the Acadmie des Sciences. >he esteemed mathematician /ugustin3*ouis ?auchy was appointed to referee the wor(s. In Men of Mathematics, @ric >emple 2ell claims that ?auchy, perhaps unable to recogni7e the significance of the wor(, or uninterested in the ideas of some un(nown youth, mislaid the wor(, perhaps intentionally. One must ta(e into account, that even while ac(nowledging ?auchy0s mathematical genius 2ell vehemently disli(ed the man.

/t age 8, Galois too( the e+amination to enter the prestigious cole ,olytechni&ue, but failed. 2ell and others blame the failure, at least in part, on the arrogance of a young man who did not suffer fools well, and fools were what he considered his e+aminers to be. >hey put &uestions to him about mathematics he considered trivial. 'e wished to demonstrate his abilities by describing the problems he had studied and the mathematics he had invented to solve them. 'is e+aminers were not interested, insisting instead that he answer their &uestions. 'is halfhearted attempts to do so were not impressive. It has been reported that Galois was never very good at communicating his thoughts, perhaps because to him things were too clear to need elaboration. /t !, Galois reapplied to the ,olytechni&ue, and once again the e+amination went badly. 'e was no more tolerant of the new group of e+aminers and their &uestions than he had been with their predecessors. 'e was disgusted that they did not wish to hear about the gems of mathematics he had to share. /ccording to 2ell, in frustration he pic(ed up an eraser

and bounced it off the head of the chief e+aminer. >here would be no further attempts to gain acceptance to the ,olytechni&ue. 2esides his unhappiness with the &uestions put to him, it is li(ely that he was understandably distraught because his father had hanged himself. 2y 2ell0s account, ;the elder Galois was a target for the clerical intrigues of the time.< / young priest composed a set of filthy verses, which he signed with #ayor Galois0 name. >he priest then circulated the verses, directed against the Galois0 relatives, among the citi7ens of 2ourg3la3-eine. Galois0 father developed a persecution conflict, which made it impossible for him to live.

Galois failure to gain admission to the ,olytechni&ue meant he would not be able to commune with the li(es of *agrange, *aplace, Aourier, ?auchy and ,oisson, perhaps dooming his prospects of being recogni7ed as an outstanding mathematician or of securing a prominent position in the mathematical establishment. Instead he was reduced to enrolling at the cole .ormale to prepare to be an ordinary mathematics teacher. >hings, however, did not go much better at the .ormale. In addition to his mathematical researches, the ardent -epublican and hothead became passionately involved in the political upheaval of the time. 'e was arrested twice, once for ma(ing a toast that seemed to suggest he was threatening the (ing with a dagger. 'is lawyer was able to get the youth freed at his trial by asserting Galois had been mis&uoted due to the noise at the gathering. On 2astille 6ay, )uly B, !$ , Galois was arrested for being in the uniform of the outlawed /rtillery of the .ational Guard, carrying a loaded rifle, several pistols and a dagger. While in prison he received the bad news that referee Cimon ,oisson and the /cademy had re9ected his memoir Dthe third version of the memoir that ?auchy may or may not have lost%. ,oisson confessed that he had not comprehended Galois0 ideas, because they were neither sufficiently clear nor developed far enough to 9udge their rigor. Eet he did not dismiss the wor( as valueless, concluding his report with the statementF ;>he author claims that the proposition which is the sub9ect of his memoir is part of a general theory rich in application. Often different parts of a theory are mutually clarifying,

and it is easier to understand them together than in isolation. One should rather wait for the author to publish his wor( in entirety before forming an opinion.<

Galois too( no comfort from ,oisson0s suggestion that a more complete wor( might be viewed with greater favor. On #arch 8, !$2 Galois and other prisoners were transferred to the pension Cieur Aaultrier to prevent them from being e+posed to a cholera epidemic sweeping through ,aris. *ittle is (nown of the events between this time and his release from prison on /pril 2=, e+cept he may have fallen in love with Ctephanie3Aelicie ,oterin du #otel, daughter of a resident physician at the hospital. /pparently the love was unre&uited, as in a #ay 25 letter to a friend Galois alludes to a bro(en heart. In less than a month after being released from prison, Galois was challenged to a duel. >he events of the night before the duel have been the source of much speculation. 'ere0s how 2ell0s delicious prose set the sceneF ;/ll night long he had spent the fleeting hours feverishly dashing off his scientific last will and testament, writing against time to glean a few of the great things in his teeming mind before the death which he saw could overta(e him. >ime after time he bro(e off to scribble in the margin GI have not timeH I have not time,0 and passed on to the ne+t frantically scrawled outline. What he wrote in those desperate last hours before dawn will (eep generations of mathematicians busy for hundreds of years.<

In fact the evening before his duel Galois wrote to -epublican friends. In one he claims to be ;the victim of an infamous co&uette.< 2ell suggests that she might have been some low prostitute. *eopold Infeld, in his fictional biography, Whom the Gods Love: The Story of variste Galois D =B!% she was a female provocateur who set up Galois to be (illed in a duel with a police agent, thus ridding Arance of a perceived dangerous radical. /n account of the duel in a *yon newspaper article published several days after it occurred claimed that love was the cause of the combat, and that Galois was (illed by an old

unidentified friend. It would ma(e marvelous drama, but bad mathematics to believe that it was the night before the duel, in the state he must have been, that he created his marvelous theory of e&uations. Galois had already written memoirs on his use of groups in his wor( in the theory of e&uations. In a long letter to /uguste ?hevalier, written that night, Galois described his theory and the contents of the memoir re9ected by ,oisson.

/s the legend, goes the ne+t morning he appeared at the dueling grounds, was fatally wounded and abandoned by his opponent and even his own seconds. 'e was discovered by a peasant and ta(en to a hospital. When his younger brother /lfred arrived, variste told him, ;6on0t cry, I need all my courage to die at twenty.< 'e died the day after the duel and was buried in an unmar(ed common grave. /lfred and ?hevalier copied his mathematical papers and sent them to Gauss, )acobi and others as variste had re&uested in his last letters. /nd then his legend began. What seems a far more balanced account of the Galois story than provided by either 2ell or Infeld is found in >ony -othman0s =!= boo( Science la Mode. In his essay, entitled ;Genius and 2iographersF >he Aictionali7ation of variste Galois,< -othman reviews the tales told about Galois, &uestioning and analy7ing those that seem romantic inventions or contrived intrigues.

/s so much about Galois0 life and death is in &uestion it is fitting to end this account with something certain, his mathematical legacy. >he solution of &uadratic e&uations goes bac( to ancient people, including the 2abylonians, ?hinese, and 'indus. Girolamo ?ardano published formulas in 5B5 for solutions of the cubic and &uartic e&uations, after .iccolo >artaglia and *udovico Aerrari discovered them a few years earlier. #athematicians were unable to find formulas involving radicals for solving &uintic degree e&uations. In I=8 -uffini attempted to prove this was impossible, but his efforts were not wholly successful. In !2B .iels /bel gave an essentially correct proof. Galois was unaware of /bel0s wor( when he began his own investigation. >his is perhaps 9ust as well, as the solution of the

problem of the &uintic is far less important than the theory Galois invented for its solution. 'e treated the problem of solving the &uintic and higher order e&uations, using only the four basic operations and the e+traction of roots, by studying groups of permutations. 2y abstracting e&uations and loo(ing for their solutions in terms of groups, he was able to determine their solvability. 'e was not concerned with finding particular solutions, but in the more fundamental &uestion of determining Ga priori0 whether or not the solution e+isted. 'e proved that no general method using purely algebraic formulas could be found to solve e&uations of degree five or higher. 'is results became a ma9or factor in the evolution from classical to modern algebra, from the solving of e&uations to the study of systems.

Quotation of the DayF ;In my life I have dared to advance propositions about which I was not
sure. 2ut all have written down here has been clear in my head for over a year, and it would not be in my interest to leave myself open to the suspicion that I announce theorems of which I do not have complete proofs. #a(e a public re&uest of )acobi or Gauss to give their opinions not as to the truth but to the importance of these theorems. /fter that, I hope some men will find it profitable to sort out this mess.< " variste Galois, *etter to /uguste ?hevalier, #ay 2=, !$2.