Editing Alexis Thérèse Petit (section)

=== Early life and studies ===
Petit was born in [[Vesoul]], [[Haute-Saône]]. At the age of 10, he proved that he was already capable of taking the difficult entrance exam to France's most prestigious scientific school of the time, the [[École Polytechnique|École polytechnique]] of [[Paris]]. He was then placed in a preparatory school where he actually served as a "''répétiteur"'' to help his own classmates digest the course material. He duly entered the Polytechnique at the lowest permissible age, in 1807, and graduated "''hors-rang"'' in 1809 (which is to say that he clearly outranked all of his classmates).

After graduation, Petit stayed at Polytechnique as a faculty member, first as ''répétiteur'' in analysis and mechanics (1809) then in physics (1810).