Lagrange multipliers, according to Wikipedia, are used in mathematical optimization as a strategy of finding local maxima and minima of a function subject to equality constraints. I learned about this in Advanced Calculus and I still have no idea what that first sentence means. Equations that are named after people rather than what they do often leaves students confused as to how to use the equation and what the heck the equation is for. Lagrange multipliers are no exception, named after the Italian Enlightenment Era mathematician and astronomer whose work plagues Advanced Calculus courses for all engineering students across the world. I still have no idea how to use Lagrange multipliers but I assume they are important, and the person who it is named after was probably important too. And that would be Joseph-Louis Lagrange, born Giuseppe Lodovico Lagrangia in Turin, Piedmont-Sardinia to an Italian and French family.
Lagrange did not show any aptitude for mathematics until the age of 17. Originally planning on pursuing a career as a lawyer, Lagrange came across a paper by Edmund Halley by accident and from then on was hooked on mathematics. During the next year, through persistence and obsessional interest in mathematics, he became an accomplished mathematician without assistance. In 1755, Charles Emmanual III appointed Lagrange as the “Sostituto del Maestro di Matematica (Mathematics assistant professor) at the Royal Military Academic of the Theory and Practice of Artillery. He taught courses in calculus and mechanics to support ballistic theories of Leonhard Euler for the Piedmontest army. Just like many of the professors engineering students have to endure, Lagrange tended to be a problematic professor with his oblivious teaching style and abstract reasoning. Mathematician Joseph Fourier, who attended Lagrange’s lectures in 1795, wrote that Lagrange did not have a very strong voice, was not popular with students, and spoke with a heavy accent, something many of us can relate to even now. Lagrange did many things other than just derive things used for calculus, it is thanks to his influence that we have adopted the standard units of measurement we have today. As one of the founding members of the Bureau dis Longitudes, it was Lagrange who caused the final choice of a unit system consisting of meters and kilograms, and the decimal subdivision’s final wide spread acceptance.
Even today, 201 years after his death, Lagrange’s name lives on in university level calculus textbooks all over the world, causing as much mental distress to students as he did when he was alive. Thanks Lagrange.
Leave a Reply