Adolphe Quetelet

Adolphe Quetelet
Born
Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet

(1796-02-22)22 February 1796
Ghent, French Republic
(now Ghent, Belgium)
Died17 February 1874(1874-02-17) (aged 77)
Brussels, Belgium
NationalityBelgian
Alma materUniversity of Ghent
Known forcontributions to social physics
AwardsForMemRS (1839)[1]
Scientific career
Fieldsastronomer
mathematician
statistician
sociologist
InstitutionsBrussels Observatory

Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet FRSF or FRSE (French: [kətlɛ] ⓘ; 22 February 1796 – 17 February 1874)[1] was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist who founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences. His name is sometimes spelled with an accent as Quételet.[2][3]

He also founded the science of anthropometry and developed the body mass index (BMI) scale, originally called the Quetelet Index.[4] His work on measuring human characteristic to determine the ideal l'homme moyen ("the average man"), played a key role in the origins of eugenics.[5][6][7]

  1. ^ a b "Fellows of the Royal Society". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 16 March 2015.
  2. ^ Tylor, Edward Burnett (May 1872). "Quetelet on the Science of Man" . Popular Science Monthly. Vol. 1. ISSN 0161-7370 – via Wikisource. [scan Wikisource link]
  3. ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Adolphe Quetelet", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
  4. ^ Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference grue2006 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference bierne1987 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).