[b. Bourg-la-Reine, France, October 25, 1811, d. Paris, May 31, 1832]

Galois died young with almost none of his work published or even read during his lifetime. In 1846 his papers and a letter describing his main discovery were edited and published. His main discovery was that equations of degree 5 or higher cannot be solved using the ordinary tools of algebra. But the method he used to reach the conclusion was more influential than the theorem. The method, group theory, has been at the core of mathematical thought for the past century and a half.

History of Science and Technology, edited by Bryan Bunch and Alexander Hellemans. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.