| Jean-Marie Constant Duhamel | |
|---|---|
| Born |
5 February 1797 Saint-Malo, France |
| Died | 29 April 1872 (aged 75) Paris, France |
| Residence | France |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields |
Mathematics Physics |
Jean-Marie Constant Duhamel (Saint-Malo, 5 February 1797 – Paris, 29 April 1872) was a French mathematician and physicist. His studies were affected by the troubles of the Napoleonic era. He went on to form his own school École Sainte-Barbe. Duhamel's principle, a method of obtaining solutions to inhomogeneous linear evolution equations, is named after him. He was primarily a mathematician but did studies on the mathematics of heat, mechanics, and acoustics. He also did work in calculus using infinitesimals. Duhamel's theorem for infinitesimals says that the sum of a series of infinitesimals is unchanged by replacing the infinitesimal with its principal part.