Hugues Charles Robert Méray (12 November 1835, in Chalon-sur-Saône, Saône-et-Loire – 2 February 1911, in

Dijon Dijon (, , ) (dated) * it, Digione * la, Diviō or * lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920. The earlies ...

) was a French

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, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. He is noted as the first to publish an arithmetical theory of

irrational number In mathematics, the irrational numbers (from in- prefix assimilated to ir- (negative prefix, privative) + rational) are all the real numbers that are not rational numbers. That is, irrational numbers cannot be expressed as the ratio of two inte ...

s. His work did not have much of a role in the history of mathematics because France, at that time, was less interested in such matters than

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. He was an Invited Speaker of the ICM in 1900 in Paris; his contributed paper was presented by

Charles-Ange Laisant Charles-Ange Laisant (1 November 1841 – 5 May 1920), French politician and mathematician, was born at Indre, near Nantes on 1 November 1841, and was educated at the École Polytechnique as a military engineer. He was a Freemason and a liberta ...

References

1835 births 1911 deaths People from Chalon-sur-Saône École Normale Supérieure alumni French historians of mathematics {{France-mathematician-stub