Adrien-Marie Legendre
died 175 years ago
10th January 1833

Legendre's major work on elliptic integrals provided basic analytical tools for mathematical physics. He gave a simple proof that is irrational as well as the first proof that ² is irrational.

Find out more at:
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Legendre.html