Abstract:

This book presents an original portrait of the famous French mathematician Henri Poincaré through from what the newspapers of its time said about him. An abundant choice of press cuttings (New York Times, Washington Pots, Herald Tribune, …) allows to rebuild his biography highlighting many unknown anecdotes of his life (his surname was not Henri but Henry, he received his Bachelor of Science with zero in mathematics) and of his career (he was involved in a controversy about the rotation of the Earth from 1900 to his death, his intervention in the Dreyfus affair has played an important role.)

Moreover, this approach enables on the one hand to draw an original portrait of the character and on the other hand to evaluate the reception of the scientific and philosophical works of Henri Poincaré in the daily papers, i.e. by ordinary people. As an example, it may be interesting to discover how the newspapers reveal the “mysteries” of the stability of the solar system when Poincaré won King Oscar II prize in 1889…