Charles Hermite (pronounced "air meet") (December 24, 1822 - January 14, 1901) was a French mathematician who did research on number theory, quadratic forms, invariant theory, orthogonal polynomials, elliptic functions, and algebra. Hermite polynomials, Hermite normal form , Hermitian operators, and cubic Hermite splines are named in his honor.
He was the first to prove that e, the base of natural logarithms, is a transcendental number. His methods were later used by Ferdinand von Lindemann for the proof of his celebrated theorem that π is transcendental.
