Adolphe Quetelet
1796
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1874
photo credits: Wikimedia Commons
country of citizenship: Belgium
native language: French
languages spoken, written or signed: French
educated at: Ghent University
occupation: astronomer, mathematician, physicist, criminologist, statistician, sociologist, university teacher, naturalist, writer, botanist
award received: Foreign Member of the Royal Society, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
position held: university teacher
influenced by: Joseph Fourier
Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet FRSF or FRSE (French: [kətlɛ] ; 22 February 1796 – 17 February 1874) was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist who founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences. His name is sometimes spelled with an accent as Quételet.He also founded the science of anthropometry and developed the body mass index (BMI) scale, originally called the Quetelet Index. His work on measuring human characteristic to determine the ideal l'homme moyen ("the average man"), played a key role in the origins of eugenics. Source: Wikipedia (en)
Human - wd:Q20012