Jean Frédéric Frenet
French scientist (1816-1900)
Jean Frédéric Frenet (French: [fʁənɛ]; 7 February 1816 – 12 June 1900) was a French mathematician, astronomer, and meteorologist. He was born and died in Périgueux, France.
He is best known for being an independent co-discoverer of the Frenet–Serret formulas. He wrote six out of the nine formulas, which at that time were not expressed in vector notation. These formulas are important in the theory of space curves (differential geometry), and they were presented in his doctoral thesis at Toulouse in 1847. That year he became a professor at Toulouse, and one year later, 1848, he became professor of mathematics at Lyon. He also was director of an astronomical observatory at Lyon. Four years later, in 1852, he published the Frenet formulas in the Journal de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées.
In 1856 his calculus primer was first published, which ran through seven editions, the last one published posthumously in 1917.
The public source identifies “Jean Frédéric Frenet” as french scientist (1816-1900). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Jean, Frédéric and Frenet.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q205331. VIAF identifies the subject as 42202985. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1816, 1900, 1847 and 1848.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jean Frédéric Frenet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.