Angelo Genocchi (5 March 1817 – 7 March 1889) was an Italian

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

who specialized in

number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

. He worked with

Giuseppe Peano Giuseppe Peano (; ; 27 August 1858 – 20 April 1932) was an Italian mathematician and glottologist. The author of over 200 books and papers, he was a founder of mathematical logic and set theory, to which he contributed much Mathematical notati ...

. The Genocchi numbers are named after him.

Life and Works

Angelo Genocchi was born and grew up and went to school in

Piacenza Piacenza (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Piacenza, eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with more ...

, Italy. Despite his love of mathematics, he studied law at Piacenza University. After practicing law in Piacenza for a number of years, he was invited by the university to become the Chair of Law. He was mostly unsuccessful as a teacher however and disliked by many of his students. Angelo Genocchi was part of a group who participated in the attempted overthrow of the Austro-Hungarian government in

. The revolution was unsuccessful. After the revolution Genocchi moved to

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

, where he took up

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

as the subject of his research and teaching. He became President of the Academy of Sciences of

. It was there that he worked with

. His biggest discovery was the Genocchi Numbers, named after him. After years of ill-health, he died in 1889, aged 72.

Notes

References

* Obituary in: * 19th-century Italian mathematicians 1817 births 1889 deaths {{Italy-mathematician-stub