Jean-Marie Duhamel

Jean-Marie Constant Duhamel

Jean-Marie Constant Duhamel (Saint-Malo, February 5, 1797 – Paris, April 29, 1872) was a French mathematician and physicist. His studies were affected by the troubles of the Napoleonic era. He went on to form his own school École Sainte-Barbe. Duhamel's principle, a method of obtaining solutions to inhomogeneous linear evolution equations, is named after him. He was primarily a mathematician but did studies on the mathematics of heat, mechanics, and acoustics. He also did work in calculus using infinitesimals. Duhamel's theorem for infinitesimals says that the sum of a series of infinitesimals is unchanged by replacing the infinitesimal with its principal part.

Honours

• 19617 Duhamel, asteroid named after him.