Adolphe Quetelet
| Adolphe Quetelet | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet 22 February 1796 Ghent, French Republic (modern-day Belgium) |
| Died | 17 February 1874 (aged 77) Brussels, Belgium |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Fields |
astronomer mathematician statistician sociologist |
| Institutions | Brussels Observatory |
| Alma mater | University of Ghent |
| Known for | contributions to social physics |
| Influences |
Joseph Fourier Pierre-Simon Laplace |
| Notable awards | ForMemRS (1839) |
Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet (French: [kətlɛ]; 22 February 1796 – 17 February 1874) ForMemRS was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist. He founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences. His name is sometimes spelled with an accent as Quételet. He developed the body mass index scale.
Adolphe was born in Ghent (which, at the time was a part of the new French Republic), the son of François-Augustin-Jacques-Henri Quetelet, a Frenchman and Anne Françoise Vandervelde, a Flemish woman. His father, François, was born at Ham, Picardy, and being of a somewhat adventurous spirit, he crossed the English Channel and became both a British citizen and the secretary of a Scottish nobleman. In that capacity, he traveled with his employer on the Continent, particularly spending time in Italy. At about 31, he settled in Ghent and was employed by the city, where Adolphe was born the fifth of nine children, several of whom died in childhood.
Francois died when Adolphe was only seven years old. Adolphe studied at the Ghent lycée, where he started teaching mathematics in 1815 at the age of 19. In 1819 he moved to the in Brussels and in the same year he completed his dissertation (De quibusdam locis geometricis, necnon de curva focal – Of some new properties of the focal distance and some other curves).
Quetelet received a doctorate in mathematics in 1819 from the University of Ghent. Shortly thereafter, the young man set out to convince government officials and private donors to build an astronomical observatory in Brussels; he succeeded in 1828. He became a member of the Royal Academy in 1820. He lectured at the museum for sciences and letters and at the Belgian Military School. In 1825 he became correspondent of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands, in 1827 he became member. From 1841 to 1851 he was supernumerair' associate in the Institute, and when it became Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences he became foreign member. In 1850, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
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