Sex, Guns, and Theorems; The Legacy of Evariste Galois

Abstract

Only ignorance of history can allow one to see mathematicians as those who lead boring, uneventful lives, and a brief look at the career of the French mathematician Evariste Galois (1811 - 1832) will put any skeptic to shame. Galois' life was -- even without the mythological romanticization which usually surrounds it -- unquestionably one of great passion and intrigue. He was haughty, brilliant, a rebel with a cause, and he died gallantly at a young age in a duel over the honor of a certain young woman. Or so the story goes. Actually, it is not entirely clear what happened to Galois or what the circumstances surrounding the duel were. The highly romanticized version offered by E.T. Bell in which Galois frantically wrote down most of his discoveries the night before the duel is verifiably untrue; yet, Tony Rothman's efforts to render the circumstances of his death commonplace and to underrate tremendously the importance of the letter to Galois' friend August Chevalier written the night before the duel also provide a flawed perspective. At this point I shall try to give what is to my knowledge the most accurate account of the events surrounding his life and death, based largely on remarks by Ian Stewart. [From introductory section]