STURM, Jacques Charles François (1803-1855), the discoverer of the algebraic theorem which bears his name, was born in Geneva in 1803. Originally tutor to the son of Madame de Stael, he subsequently resolved, in conjunction with his school-fellow Colladon, to try his fortune in the French metropolis. Sturm soon made the acquaintance of the foremost mathematicians in the capital, and obtained employment on the Bulletin Universel. On the discovery of his important theorem regarding the determination of the number of real roots of a numerical equation which are included between given limits, on 23d May 1829, he rapidly rose to fortune and public honours. He was chosen a member of the French Academy in 1836, became “repetiteur” in 1838, and in 1840 professor in the Polytechnic School, and finally succeeded Poisson in the chair of mechanics in the Faculty of Science at Paris. He presented numerous memoirs to the Academy, of which his admirers have said, with some pardonable exaggeration, that an impartial posterity will place them by the side of the finest memoirs of Lagrange. Sturm died at Paris on the 18th December 1855.