I only give here a small part of his ideas, but you will make up for it, and perhaps you will find, like me, that they are original enough to deserve attention. He has often been confused with Aime Argand, the physicist and chemist who had invented the Argand lamp, however, they are not related.
In 1806, Argand, his wife...
(read more)
This section contains 419 words (approx.
Another thing which suggests that Argand is not Jean Robert Argand is that Jean Robert Argand is an accountant and bookkeeper while, from his writings, Argand shows he is probably an expert technician in the clock industry. He began his book, Essai sur une manière de représenter les quantités imaginaires dans les constructions géométriques, with a brief discussion of models for generating negative numbers by repeated subtraction; one used weights removed from a pan of a beam balance, the other subtracted francs from a sum of money.
Jean-Robert Argand died of an unknown cause on August 13, 1822 in Paris.
Achievements
Argand’s main achievement spanned his single original contribution to mathematics, which was the invention and elaboration of a geometric representation of complex numbers and the operations upon them. On the other hand, Argand - apparently a shy man - abstained from publishing his paper, due to Legendre's uninterested and sceptical reaction.
Background
Jean-Robert Argand was born on July 18, 1768 in Geneva. One is that Legendre, who appears to have met Argand, describes him as a 'young man'. In it Argand devised the notation (m,n) for the combinations of m things taken n at a time and the notation Z(m,n) for the number of such combinations.
The Argand diagramis a graphic representation of complex numbers as points on a plane and their additions. I hope that the publicity that I give to the results that I have reached can lead to the first author of these ideas being known, and to bring to light the work he has done himself on this subject. The article by Jacques Français appeared in Gergonne's journal Annales de mathématiques and Argand responded to Jacques Français's request by acknowledging that he was the author and submitting a slightly modified version of his original work Essai sur une manière de représenter les quantités imaginaires dans les constructions géométriquesⓉ, with some new applications, to the Annales de mathématiques.
One might have expected that Argand would have made no other contributions to mathematics. Upon leaving, Argand urged Legendre to read his manuscript.
P S Jones, Biography in Dictionary of Scientific Biography(New York 1970-1990). He also used the term “absolute” for distance considered apart from direction.
Argand then suggested that “setting aside the ratio of absolute magnitude we consider the different possible relations of direction” and discussed the proportions +1 : -F 1 : : — 1 : — 1 and + 1 : — 1 : : — 1 : + 1.
Legendre responded with scepticism as to the method and its applications. Apparently, he was a self-taught mathematician, belonging to no mathematical societies or organizations. He is also credited with giving proof, although with a few gaps, of the fundamental theorem of algebra. Biographical data on Argand is limited but it is known that he was the son of Jacques Argand and Èves Canac, and that he was baptized on 22 July (a date given by some for his birth).
However this is not so and, although he will always be remembered for the Argand diagram, his best work is on the fundamental theorem of algebra and for this he has received little credit. Jules Hoüel published a four volume work entitled Théorie Élémentaire des Quantités ComplexesⓉ. For the rest I leave you simply as an object of curiosity and I will not defend myself. After François Français's death in 1810 his brother Jacques Français worked on his papers and he discovered Argand's little memoir among them.