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QUETELET, LAMBERT ADOLPHE JACQUES (17...
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See also:QUETELET, See also:LAMBERT ADOLPHE JACQUES (1796-1874) , Belgian astronomer, meteorologist and statistician, was See also:born at See also:Ghent on the 22nd of See also:February 1796, and educated at the See also:lyceum of that See also:town. In 1819 he was appointed See also:professor of See also:mathematics at the See also:athenaeum of See also:Brussels; in 1828 he became lecturer at the newly created museum of See also:science and literature, and he continued to hold that See also:post until the museum was absorbed in the See also:free university in 1834. In 1828 he was appointed director of the new royal See also:observatory which it had been decided to found, chiefly at his instigation. The See also:building was finished in 1832, and the See also:instruments were ready for See also:work in 1835, from which date the observations were published in 4to volumes (Annales de' l'Observatoire Royal de Bruxelles), but Quetelet chiefly devoted himself to See also:meteorology and See also:statistics. From 1834 he was perpetual secretary of the Brussels See also:Academy, and published a vast number of articles in its Bulletin, as also in his See also:journal, Correspondance mathematique et physique (II vols., 1825-39). He died at Brussels on the 17th of February 1874. His son, ERNEST QUETELET (1825-78), was from 1856 attached to the observatory, and on his See also:death succeeded him as director. He made a See also:great number of observations of stars with proper See also:motion. Quetelet's astronomical papers refer chiefly to See also:shooting stars and similar phenomena. He organised extensive magnetical and meteorological observations, and in 1839 he started See also:regular observations of the periodical phenomena of vegetation, especially the flowering of See also:plants. The results are given in various See also:memoirs published by the Brussels Academy, and in his See also:works Sur le climat de la Belgique and Sur la physique du globe (the latter forms vol. xiii. of the Annales, 1861). He is, however, chiefly known by the statistical investigations which occupied him from 1823 onward. In 1835 he published his See also:principal work, Sur l'homme et le developpement de ses facultes, ou essai de physique sociale (2nd ed., 1869), containing a resume of his statistical researches on the develop, See also:meat of the See also:physical and intellectual qualities of See also:man, and on the " See also:average man both physically and intellectually considered. In 1846 he brought out his Lettres a S. A. R. le duc regnant de See also:Saxe-See also:Coburg et See also:Gotha sur la theorie See also:des probabilites appliquee aux sciences morales et politiques (of which See also:Sir J. See also:Herschel wrote a full See also:account in the See also:Edinburgh See also:Review), and in 1848 Du systeme social et des lois qui le regissent. In these works he shows how the See also:numbers re-presenting the individual qualities of man are grouped See also:round the numbers referring to the ' average man " in a manner exactly corresponding to that in which single results of observation are grouped round the mean result, so that the principles of the theory of probabilities may be applied to statistical researches on the subjects. These ideas are further See also:developed in various papers in the Bulletin and in his L'Anthropometrie, ou mesure des See also:differences facultes de l'homme (1871), in which he See also:lays great stress on the universal applicability of the See also:binomial See also:law,—according to which the number of cases in which, for instance, a certain height occurs among a large number of individuals is represented by an See also:ordinate of a See also:curve (the binomial) symmetrically situated with regard to the ordinate representing the mean result (average height). A detailed Essai sur la See also:vie et See also:les travaux de L. A. J. Quetelet, by his See also:pupil and assistant E. See also:Mailly, was published at Brussels in 1875. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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