Editing Alphonse de Polignac

{{Short description|French mathematician}}
{{more footnotes|date=March 2013}}
'''Alphonse de Polignac''' (1826&ndash;1863) was a French [[mathematician]] and [[Aristocracy (class)|aristocrat]]. He is known for [[Polignac's conjecture|Polignac's Conjecture.]]

== Biography ==
His father, [[Jules de Polignac]] (1780-1847) was prime minister of [[Charles X of France|Charles X]] until the Bourbon dynasty was overthrown in the [[July Revolution|July Revolution of 1830]]. Alphonse was born in [[London]] during his father's time as ambassador to the [[United Kingdom]]. In 1849 he was admitted to [[École polytechnique|Polytechnique]] and went onto serve in the [[Crimean War]] as an artillery officer, achieving the rank of [[Captain]].

He was also a historian, a poet, a musician, and authored a translation of the play [[Goethe's Faust|Faust]] by Goethe.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Goethe |first=Johann Wolfgang von |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SPonAAAAYAAJ |title=Le Faust |date=1859 |publisher=A. Bourdilliat |language=fr}}</ref>

His work in mathematics mainly focused on [[Number theory|Number Theory]] and he specifically worked with [[Prime number|prime numbers]].

== Polignac's Conjecture ==
In his first year at Polytechnique Polignac formulated his eponymous conjecture, which states that: <blockquote>For every positive integer ''k'', there are infinitely many [[prime gap]]s of size 2''k''.</blockquote>

== Other work in Mathematics ==
Polignac also conjectured [[Romanov's theorem|Romanov's Theorem]], which states that: <blockquote>Every odd number larger than 3 can be written as the sum of an odd prime and a power of 2<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Académie des sciences (France) |last2=Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) |date=1835 |title=Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences. |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000503547 |pages=261 v |issn=0001-4036}}</ref></blockquote>The same year that he formulated his two most famous conjectures, Polignac also formulated a false conjecture which he presented to the [[French Academy of Sciences|Academy of Sciences]]. It incorrectly asserted that any odd number was equal to the power of 2 plus a prime number.<ref>{{Cite web |last=texte |first=Académie des sciences (France) Auteur du |date=1849-07-01 |title=Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences / publiés... par MM. les secrétaires perpétuels |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2986m |access-date=2023-04-12 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[de Polignac's formula]]
*[[Polignac family]]

==References==
{{reflist}}
*{{MathWorld|urlname=dePolignacsConjecture|title=de Polignac's Conjecture}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Polignac, Alphonse De}}
[[Category:1826 births]]
[[Category:1863 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century French mathematicians]]
[[Category:Polignac family|Alphonse]]
[[Category:Children of prime ministers of France]]


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