Gabriel Lame

Mathematician
Born: Tours, France - 22 July 1795
Died: Paris - 1 May 1870

Gabriel Lame was a celebrated French mathematician who made several theoretical discoveries, as well as applying his expertise to numerous practical problems in various fields of engineering. He is most famous for his study of classes of ellipse-like curves, known as Lame curves. Beyond this particular aspect of mathematics, Lame was involved in a variety of inquiries into the subject of Euclidean algebra. He is one of the 72 names to be inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.

Educated at the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole des mines de Paris, Lame was invited upon gradutation to St. Petersburg by Tsar Alexander I to teach at the Institute of Transport, along with his friend, the engineer and physicist Emile Clapeyron. He spent 12 years as a professor there, and the pair supervised road construction around the Russian capital, as well as assisting Auguste de Monteferrand in the construction of the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral.