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Augustin-Louis Cauchy received a formal religious education in Paris,
and held outspoken religious convictions for which he was often criticized.
Neils Abel once referred to him as "mad" but admitted that his breadth
of knowledge in mathematics was vast. As a young man, Cauchy worked
as an engineer, but his mathematical ability was so strong that it is
said that Leibniz encouraged him to leave engineering for a career as
a mathematician. Cauchy's personal, academic, and professional life
were intertwined with political movements of the time; as a child, he
suffered hunger as a result of scarcities brought about by the French
Revolution. In 1830, his refusal to swear an oath of loyalty to the
incumbent regime cost him his academic appointment. In 1848 he regained
his position following the overthrow of the government. Cauchy was extremely
prolific, publishing nearly eight hundred papers in his career, in topics
ranging from differential and partial differential equations, applied
physics, complex functions, and theory of determinants. Many important
theorems are attributed to him, including the familiar mean-value theorem.
He is closely linked with Gauss, having spent much of his time expanding
Gauss's earlier work. Cauchy's collected works are available, and fill
a twenty-seven-volume set.
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