Talk:Louis Bachelier

Grammar
In the Academic Career section, should it read "reconciled himself *with* Bachelier" rather than "reconciled himself *to* Bachelier"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by AJR 1978 (talk • contribs) 05:34, 24 December 2005
 * Yes. — Aetheling 12:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * My fault. Thanks for pointing it out. I didn't realize that "reconcile to" actually means something quite different. JMBrust 06:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Death Date
Could we please get a third reference for the date of his death? The page http://sjepg.univ-fcomte.fr/sjepgbis/libre/bachelier/panneaux/panneau2/panneau2.html shows him dead on the 28th April. (which is correct?)
 * The Dictionary of Scientific Biography also has his dates as 11 March 1870 - 28 April 1946. I added a reference to this effect. -- phoebe/ (talk) 00:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The website of the University of Franche-Comte has a detailed page of facts on Louis Bachelier, including the death date of 28 April 1946. Repères Biographiques — Aetheling 17:15, 21 June 2007 (UTC).

Dissertation committee
The Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP) lists Henri Poincaré as a "dissertation advisor" for Louis Bachelier. That does not mean that Poincaré was the only advisor, or even that he was the chairman of Bachelier's committee. When one submits an entry to the MGP, the form merely asks for the names of two advisors, labeled "Advisor 1" and "Advisor 2". The website of the Université de Franche-Comte, on this page, lists Paul Appell as the president of the doctoral examination jury (equivalent, perhaps, to chairman of the dissertation committee), and it lists Joseph Boussinesq and Henri Poincaré as the other two committee members. This is at least an indication that Paul Appell was Bachelier's official dissertation chairman, but not proof. I hesitate about concluding this, because it seems to me that of the three examiners Boussinesq had interests far more closely related to Bachelier's thesis topic than did either Appell or Poincaré. — Aetheling 17:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * All of the information above matches with the documents I have read. I understand there were two parts to Bachelier's thesis approval process. The first of these was his written submission of Theory de la Speculation, an original piece of work. The report on this, dated 1900-03-29, concluded with signatures, in order, of " Paul Appell, Henri Poincaré, J. Boussinesq." Secondly there was an oral examination, which in Bachelier's case was about the fluid mechanics work of Boussinesq. A written report following this examination concluded with awarding the grade "Docteur avec mention honorable" and was signed only by Appell. Specifically: "Le président P. Appell"


 * In defining the infobox field for doctoral advisor I interpret this as mentor to the person under consideration. In the education systems I am familiar with it is, today, formally identified with a student when they start a PhD with an institution. The situation in France circa 1900 may well have been slightly different and using the concept of a examiner could be more appropriate. Still today I believe it is customary for the advisor to be one of the representatives on the thesis assessment board. Bachelier took courses with Poincaré and Boussinesq so, as mentioned above, they look to be obvious candidates. However I've not found any references suggesting he consulted with, or was advised by, either on his doctoral work. Although we have circumstantial evidence, in the absence of a concrete reference that either was assigned as Bachelier's advisor, I think we have to leave the field empty since doing otherwise would go against the verifiability concept.


 * Any comments, assistance, suggestions or clarifications provided will be gratefully received. — Asperal 20:23, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 07:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Stochastic models
In the introduction:

''Louis Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Bachelier (March 11, 1870 – April 28, 1946)[1] was a French mathematician at the turn of the 20th century. He is credited with being the first person to model the stochastic process now called Brownian motion, which was part of his PhD thesis The Theory of Speculation, (published 1900).

His thesis, which discussed the use of Brownian motion to evaluate stock options, is historically the first paper to use advanced mathematics in the study of finance. Thus, Bachelier is considered a pioneer in the study of financial mathematics and stochastic processes.''

I think it should be added something about Einstein and Smoluchowski, at least a note. In spite of the fact they have published five years later for the first and six for the latter, there is no reason to believe they have copied each other. Further, they were concerned about different things. Furthermore, as far as I know, maybe I wrong, Louis Bachelier has not modelled Brownian motion itself as did Einstein and Smoluchowski. Thus, it is wrong to credit just one; so far I have just found Einstein and Smoluchowski on the books of stochastic process, just in Wikipedia articles, such as the one about SDE I saw mentions to Louis Bachelier as one of the founders of stochastic calculus.

Jorge Pires (talk) 18:05, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

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Age in the photo
I tried finding the exact age that Bachelier had in the picture shown, but I couldn't find anything useful. The English version shows that he was aged 20, while the French version shows age 15 (which I think, honestly, could be correct looking at the facial features in the photo). If anyone can look into this better than me I would be happy to move aside. Thank you! Giacomo Padova (talk) 22:30, 27 February 2024 (UTC)


 * There is no way to reliably verify the date other than by facial features, unless it is asserted as so by a reliable source, which is difficult for timing of pictures. So I would go for the French version or just omit the date. Limit-theorem (talk) 02:12, 28 February 2024 (UTC)