Jean-Marie Constant Duhamel | |
---|---|
Born |
Saint-Malo, France |
5 February 1797
Died | 29 April 1872 Paris, France |
(aged 75)
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.