Remembered for his theoretical contributions in magnetism and electricity, Simeon-Denis Poisson was also credited with furthering the work in celestial mechanics of Pierre-Simon Laplace and Joseph-Louis Lagrange. Poisson made significant inroads in the field of probability as well, developing the Poisson distribution to describe the likelihood of a particular event.

Poisson was born on June 21, 1781 in Pithiviers, Loiret, France, the son of a low-ranking civil servant. He was a sickly child whose mother often put him in the care of a nurse. When he was old enough, Poisson was made an apprentice to an uncle who was a surgeon, but the young man showed neither talent for nor interest in the profession. When he was 18, Poisson enrolled at the Ecole Central in Fontainebleau, where his aptitude for mathematics and learning in general finally came to light after an early education of limited usefulness. In fact, he did so...