Record. xlv 



Notice of the Death of Poincare. 



Dr. James then read the following : 



Mr. President and Members — It seems fitting that on 

 this, the first meeting of the Academy since Spring, we 

 should express our recognition of the loss which science 

 has suffered in the death of M. Jules Henri Poincare, 

 Member of the Institute of France and Professor of 

 Celestial Mechanics in the Sorbonne. 



M. Poincare died in Paris on July 17 of an embolism after a two 

 weeks' illness, and on July 19 after the religious ceremonies at 

 the Church of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, the funeral procession 

 passed to the cemetery of Montparnasse, where lie also his friends 

 Tisserand and Callandreau, who preceded him by but a few years. 



Eulogies were delivered by M. Claretie, Director of the French 

 Academy; by M. Lippmann, President of the Academy of Science; by 

 M. Plainleve, of the Institute; by M. Appell, Dean of the Faculty of 

 Science, and by M. Bigourdan, President of the Bureau of Longitudes. 



M. Poincare was born at Nancy, April 29, 1854, received the de- 

 gree of Doctor of Science from the University of Paris in 1879, and 

 in 1881, at the age of 27, was offered the chair of Mecanique Physique 

 by the Faculty of Science. In a period of 30 years he occupied suc- 

 cessively the chairs of Mechanics, Mathematical Physics, Mathemati- 

 cal Astronomy and Celestial Mechanics. 



In 1887, at the age of 33, he was elected to the Academy of Science, 

 and in 1908 to the French Academy. He became a member of all the 

 National Academies of Science of the world of the first class before 

 he was 40, the only scholar ever accorded that honor. 



In 1885 he was awarded the Poncelet prize, and in 1896 the Regnaud 

 prize, both by the French Academy of Science. In 1889 he received 

 the King Oscar II prize, in 1900 the gold medal of the Royal 

 Astronomical Society, in 1901 the Sylvester medal, in 1904 the 

 Lobachevsky prize, in 1905 the first award of the Boylai prize, and in 

 1909 the gold medal of the French Association for the Advancement 

 of Science. 



His memoirs and papers exceed fifteen hundred, and his published 

 volumes cover almost the entire field of mathematical physics and 

 astronomy. 



In celestial mechanics alone his work would suffice for his glory. 

 In 1887 King Oscar of Sweden established an International Con- 

 gress of Mathematics, and it was the great medal of gold which was 

 adjudged to Poincare in 1889 for his study of the mechanical stability 

 of our universe. 



Year after year this intellectual giant attacked new problems and 

 opened up new solutions for those that had long baffled the ablest 



