Louis Poinsot

Louis Poinsot
Born(1777-01-03)3 January 1777
Died5 December 1859(1859-12-05) (aged 82)
Alma materÉcole Polytechnique
École des Ponts et Chaussées
Known forKepler–Poinsot polyhedron
Poinsot's ellipsoid
tennis racket theorem
Scientific career
InstitutionsLycée Bonaparte
Imperial University of France

Louis Poinsot (French pronunciation: [lwi pwɛ̃so]; 3 January 1777 – 5 December 1859) was a French mathematician and physicist. Poinsot was the inventor of geometrical mechanics, showing how a system of forces acting on a rigid body could be resolved into a single force and a couple.