In the history of mathematics, Ignatius Carbonnelle is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Ignatius Carbonnelle as Jesuit and mathematician (1829-1889).
Ignatius Carbonnelle was born at Tournai in 1829. His recorded nationality is Belgium.
The nineteenth century made mathematics rigorous: definitions were tightened, foundations questioned, and whole fields created from scratch.
Mathematical work is judged by whether anyone can build on it, and that judgement takes decades.
That the work was done from Belgium matters: mathematical training, institutions and the language of publication have never been evenly distributed.
Ignatius Carbonnelle died in 1889, aged 60. The proofs remain, and a proof does not decay - which is the particular permanence mathematics offers.
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