Niels Henrik Abel

Niels Henrik Abel is a Norwegian mathematician, born on 5 August 1802, who made pioneering contributions to several fields of mathematics during his short lifetime. He is best known for providing the first complete proof of the impossibility of solving the general quintic equation in radicals, a problem that had remained unresolved for over 250 years. He also made significant innovations in the theory of elliptic functions and discovered Abelian functions, while living in poverty throughout much of his career. Abel died of tuberculosis on 6 April 1829 at the age of 26 in Froland, Norway, just days before learning of a professorship secured for him in Berlin.