points: This Frenchman, who made it to the ripe old age of 35, used Galois theory to provide, in 1837, the first rigorous proof that it is impossible to trisect a general angle using only straightedge and compass, and likewise to square the circle  or double the cube, geometrical problems  which had defied mathematicians for 2,000 years.
points: This Frenchman, who made it to the ripe old age of 35, used Galois theory to provide, in 1837, the first rigorous proof that it is impossible to trisect a general angle using only straightedge and compass, and likewise to square the circle  or double the cube, geometrical problems  which had defied mathematicians for 2,000 years.
points: This Frenchman, who made it to the ripe old age of 35, used Galois theory to provide, in 1837, the first rigorous proof that it is impossible to trisect a general angle using only straightedge and compass, and likewise to square the circle  or double the cube, geometrical problems  which had defied mathematicians for 2,000 years.
Pierre Laurent Wantzel