Andre-Louis Cholesky ― Mathematician, Topographer and Army Officer

This book traces the life of Cholesky (1875-1918), and gives his family history. After an introduction to topography, an English translation of an unpublished paper by him where he explained his method for linear systems is given, studied and replaced in its historical context. His other works, including two books, are also described as well as his involvement in teaching at a superior school by correspondence. The story of this school and its founder, Leon Eyrolles, are addressed. Then, an important unpublished book of Cholesky on graphical calculation is analyzed in detail and compared to similar contemporary publications. The biography of Ernest Benoit, who wrote the first paper where Cholesky’s method is explained, is provided. Various documents, highlighting the life and the personality of Cholesky, end the book.

Claude Brezinski is emeritus professor of numerical analysis at the University of Sciences and Technologies of Lille (Laboratory Paul Painleve, UMR CNRS 8524), France. His work mainly concerns extrapolation methods, orthogonal polynomials, Pade and rational approximation and numerical linear algebra. He also published several papers and books on the history of sciences.

Dominique Tournes is professor of mathematics and history of mathematics at the University of La Reunion (Laboratory of Mathematics and Computer Science, EA 2525), France and associate researcher at the SPHERE laboratory (UMR 7219, CNRS and University Paris-Diderot, France). His work focuses on the history of calculation methods and instruments since the seventeenth century, particularly regarding differential equations.