Welcome to another edition of “let’s learn about the person behind the theorem!”

Today’s edition: Joseph Liouville, after whom the Liouville’s Theorem is named. The theorem is associated with complex analysis and states that every bounded entire function must be constant. We unfortunately didn’t have time to get into the proof/applications during today’s class, but for now, let’s just look at Mr. Liouville, shall we?

Liouville was born in Saint-Omer, France, in 1809. Apparently he was very organized in terms of getting stuff done with math and played a key role in both founding some mathematical journals (like the French mathematical journal Journal de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées) as well as recognizing some important works that were, at the time, unpublished.

He himself did quite a lot in various fields of mathematics: number theory, complex analysis, topology, mathematical physics—he was also the first to prove the existence of transcendental numbers in 1844 (though the term “transcendental” was first used by—guess who?—Leibniz, back in 1682 and then refined into today’s definition by Euler).

He also has a crater on the moon named after him!