Edouard Lucas

François Edouard Anatole Lucas (1842-1891) was a French mathematician who was educated at the École Normale Supérieure[?]. He worked in the Paris observatory and later became a professor of mathematics in Paris. In the meantime he served in the army.

He known for his study of the Fibonacci sequence. The related Lucas sequence[?] is named after him. He gave a formula for finding the n^th term of the Fibonacci sequence.

He devised methods for testing the primality[?] of numbers. Later Lehmer[?] refined his work and obtained the Lucas-Lehmer Test[?] for primality of Mersenne numbers.

Lucas was also interested in recreational mathematics; the Tower of Hanoi puzzle was invented by him.

External Links

• Biography of Lucas in the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive (http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Lucas)