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Biography

Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (21 August 1789 – 23 May 1857) was a French mathematician who was an early pioneer of analysis. He started the project of formulating and proving the theorems of infinitesimal calculus in a rigorous manner, rejecting the heuristic principle of the generality of algebra exploited by earlier authors. He defined continuity in terms of infinitesimals and gave several important theorems in complex analysis and initiated the study of permutation groups in abstract algebra. A profound mathematician, Cauchy exercised a great influence over his contemporaries and successors. His writings cover the entire range of mathematics and mathematical physics.

Cauchy was a prolific writer; he wrote approximately eight hundred research articles and five complete textbooks. He was a devout Roman Catholic, strict Bourbon royalist, and a close associate of the Jesuit order.