Mistaken Identity
For two centuries, until the recent discovery of the error in 2005, books, paintings and articles have incorrectly printed the side-view portrait of Louis Legendre shown above as that of the French mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752-1833). The error arose from the fact that the sketch was labelled simply "Legendre". The error only came to light when a 1820 book containing the sketches of seventy-three famous French mathematicians was discovered in 2005.
Read more about this topic: Louis Legendre
Famous quotes containing the words mistaken and/or identity:
“He had not the least pride of birth and rank, that common narrow notion of little minds, that wretched mistaken succedaneum of merit.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
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