Maty's Biography of Abraham De Moivre, Translated, Annotated and Augmented

TL;DR

This paper presents the first complete English translation of Matthew Maty's 1755 biography of Abraham De Moivre, including new annotations and modern context to enhance understanding of De Moivre's contributions to probability and mathematics.

Contribution

It provides the first full English translation of Maty's biography of De Moivre, with added annotations and modern references for better historical and mathematical context.

Findings

First complete English translation of Maty's biography

Annotated with modern references and additional footnotes

Enhanced understanding of De Moivre's mathematical legacy

Abstract

November 27, 2004, marked the 250th anniversary of the death of Abraham De Moivre, best known in statistical circles for his famous large-sample approximation to the binomial distribution, whose generalization is now referred to as the Central Limit Theorem. De Moivre was one of the great pioneers of classical probability theory. He also made seminal contributions in analytic geometry, complex analysis and the theory of annuities. The first biography of De Moivre, on which almost all subsequent ones have since relied, was written in French by Matthew Maty. It was published in 1755 in the Journal britannique. The authors provide here, for the first time, a complete translation into English of Maty's biography of De Moivre. New material, much of it taken from modern sources, is given in footnotes, along with numerous annotations designed to provide additional clarity to Maty's biography for contemporary readers.