QUETELET

BELGIUM (see also List of Individuals)

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22.2.1796 Ghent/B - 17.2.1874 Brussels/B

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Adolphe Quetelet graduated as a mathematician from the University of Gent and was appointed then Lecturer at the College of his hometown. He submitted a PhD thesis in 1819 and then moved as a professor to the Athénée Royale in Bruxelles. He was elected in 1820 Member of the Belgian Academy of Sciences and Literature, and appointed its Perpetual Secretary in 1834. He was from 1826 the director of the Observatory of Brussels where he stayed until his death. In 1833 he initiated a long series of observations on meteorology and earth sciences. Quetelet collaborated at three institutions, namely the Observatory, the Academy and the Central Commission of statistics. He was elected Foreign Member of Institut de France in 1872, he was a Member of the Royal Society, London, and Academician of Berlin and Saint Petersburg, next to a number of distinctions. A statue was erected in 1880, showing him seated in an armchair, the fingers on the left hand spread out on the nearby globe, and his head raised as he peers into the secrets of space.

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Quetelet envisioned a new scientific discipline that he called "social physics". Social physics combines statistical data with the analytical tools of probability theory. He was also the untiring promoter of the international corporation in the collection of statistical data. He organized international corporation in meteorology, geophysics and statistics. He urged to consider not only the average but also the deviation to know whether the latter was accidental or not. From 1828 to 1839 he edited the journal Correspondance Mathématique et Physique in which problems in theoretical physics were discussed.

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_{Anonymous (1957). A. Quetelet. Gedenkboek van de Rijksuniversiteit te Gent 1930-1956: 16-17.}

_{Rijksuniversiteit: Gent. P}

_{Arnould, E. (1874). Adolphe Quetelet. Les Mondes 33: 626-627.}

_{Freudenthal, H. (1975). Quetelet, Lambert A. J. Dictionary of scientific biography 11: 236-238. Godeaux, L. (1973). L'œuvre mathématique de Adolphe Quetelet. Janus 60: 97-99.}

_{Quetelet, A. (1849). Sur le climat de la Belgique. Hayez: Bruxelles.}

_{Quetelet, A. (1864). Histoire des sciences mathématiques et physiques chez les Belges.}

_{Merzbach: Bruxelles.}

_{Quetelet, A. (1869). Physique sociale ou essai sur le développement des facultés de l'homme.}

_{Haumann: Bruxelles.}

_{Swijtink, Z.G. (2000). Lambert-Adolphe-Jacques Quetelet. Science and its times 5: 262-263,}

_{N. Schlager, ed. Gale Group: Detroit. P}