Why is Rue Anatole Lucas named after a mathematician you ask? It’s a fair question. Françoise Édouard Anatole Lucas was a French mathematician. He lived from 1842 to 1891.
Rue Anatole Lucas commemorates a man of numbers. Lucas was born in Amiens. He was educated at the École Normale Supérieure. Later, he taught mathematics in Paris. He worked at the Lycée Saint Louis and Lycée Charlemagne.
Lucas’s life was filled with numbers and puzzles. He is famous for his work with the Fibonacci sequence. The Lucas sequence is named in his honor. He created primality tests. These tests checked if numbers were prime. In 1876, he proved that 2127 – 1 was a prime number. It was the largest found by hand.
Beyond pure math, Lucas loved recreational math. He invented the Tower of Hanoi puzzle. It is still popular today. He also wrote “Récréations Mathématiques”. It is a classic book in the field.
His end came unexpectedly. At a science banquet, a waiter dropped plates. A shard cut Lucas’s cheek. He died days later from sepsis. It was an unfortunate end for a brilliant mind.
So, as you walk Rue Anatole Lucas, think of the mathematician. Think of his puzzles and prime numbers. Think of a life dedicated to the beauty of mathematics. He left a lasting mark on the world of numbers.