Henri Eugène Padé (December 17, 1863 – July 9, 1953) was a French mathematician, who is now remembered mainly for his development of approximation techniques for functions using rational functions.

He was educated at École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He then spent a year at Leipzig and Göttingen.

Back in France in 1890, he taught in Lille, while preparing his doctorate under Charles Hermite. His doctoral thesis disclosed the now-known Padé approximant. He proceeded as assistant professor in Université Lille Nord de France, where he succeeded Émile Borel as a professor of rational mechanics at École centrale de Lille until 1902.

He then moved to Université de Poitiers in 1902 ; he became recteur of Académie de Besançon and Dijon in 1923. He retired as Recteur of Académie de Aix-Marseilles in 1934.

External links

* O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Henri Padé", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Pade.html .
* Henri Padé at the Mathematics Genealogy Project