Herbrand, Jacques (1908–1931)

French mathematical prodigy who originated some innovatory concepts in the field of mathematical logic. He formulated the Herbrand theorem, which established a link between quantification theory and sentential logic.

Herbrand was born in Paris, where he was educated at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. At the age of 20 he published his first paper on mathematical logic for the Paris Academy of Sciences, and in the following year – 1929 – for his doctorate, he produced the paper containing the Herbrand theorem. This has since found many applications in such fields as decision and reduction problems.

Herbrand was also fascinated by modern algebra and wrote a number of papers on class-field theory.