Abraham de moivre biography of albert

The Franco-English mathematician Abraham Demoivre (1667-1754) was a successful exponent of the calculus of Newton and Leibniz and an early writer on the mathematics of life insurance.

Abraham Demoivre, the son of a surgeon living at Vitry, Champagne, was born May 26, 1667.

He was given a Protestant schooling and at the age of 11 went to the Protestant University of Sedan. He studied logic at Saumur, and at the Collège d'Harcourt in Paris he learned the physics of the day, mainly according to the system of René Descartes.

When Demoivre was 18, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had granted toleration to Protestants, and the youth was forced to flee Paris, eventually settling in London.

Once in London, Demoivre earned a meager living as a private teacher and lecturer in mathematics and natural science.

He obtained a copy of Isaac Newton's recently published Principia (1687) and studied it assiduously. It is said that he tore the book into sheets, c