Abraham de Moivre

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"Moivre" redirects here; for the French commune see Moivre, Marne.

Abraham de Moivre (May 26, 1667 in Vitry-le-François, Champagne, France – November 27, 1754 in London, England) 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, Edmund Halley, and James Stirling.

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 Jacques Ozanam (1684-85). It does not appear that De Moivre received a college degree.

de Moivre was a Calvinist. 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-in-the-Fields, although his body was later moved.

De Moivre wrote a book on probability theory, entitled The Doctrine of Chances. It is said in all seriousness that De Moivre correctly predicted the day of his own death. Noting that he was sleeping 15 minutes longer each day, De Moivre surmised that he would die on the day he would sleep for 24 hours. A simple mathematical calculation quickly yielded the date, November 27,1754. He did indeed pass away on that day.

He is also known for de Movire's theorem which transfers a problem from complex numbers to trigonometry. You can derive many trigonometric identities by applying de Moivre's theorem.