Born in Macon, France, on Nov. 25, 1783, Claude-Louis Mathieu showed an aptitude for mathematics from a young age. Despite his family’s poverty and his father’s wish for him to be a carpenter, Mathieu moved to Paris in 1801 to study for admission into the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique. He became a student at Ecole Polytechnique two years later and graduated from the school in 1805.
A varied career in astronomy followed, during which Mathieu served as secretary, assistant to the director, and later astronomer at the Paris Observatory, conducting research focused on calculating stars’ parallaxes and determining stellar distances. He also became a professor of astronomy at the College de France, a writer and editor, and a driving force behind the adoption of the metric system in France. Mathieu was elected president of the International Metre Commission in 1870 although he was in his late 80s, and continued to work in that position into his 90s.
