I would like to introduce the newest member of the Pantheon of my heroes, but first, a quick list of the most important of them:

Mohandas Gandhi (spirtual leader)
V.I. Lenin (revolutionary)
Albert Einstein (genius)
Bernhard Riemann (genius, son of a Lutheran minister)
AND NOW...




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Evariste Galois

Galois Theory (concerning the solubility of quintic roots, prime roots, etc.)
More Galois Theory

A Brief Biography

Childhood:
At first Galois did well in school and won prizes, but by his second year he became bored with the classical studies. His work became mediocre, and he had trouble with the school authorities. He happened on a geometry book by the mathematician Legendre, a difficult book, and quickly mastered it. The algebra textbook used in the school disgusted him and he ignored it. It lacked, he said, the creator's touch of a mathematician, so he went to the masters, Lagrange and Abel. In reports, his teachers described him as "not wicked," "original and queer," "argumentative," "there is only slovenliness and eccentricity in his assigned tasks -- when he deigns to pay any attention to them."

I want to be Evariste Galois.

At 19, Galois attended the university and wrote 3 original papers on the theory of algebraic equations. He submitted them to the Academy of Sciences for the competition in mathematics. The Secretary of the Academy took them home to read, but then died before writing a report about them and the papers were never found. Galois was understandably upset: "Genius is condemned by a malicious social organization to an eternal denial of justice in favor of fawning mediocrity."

I think that's going to be my theme from now on.

In 1830 the French masses revolted, and Galois was a staunch supporter. In the months after the July events, Galois must have joined the "Société des Amis du Peuple" (Society of Friends of the People). It was an organization founded that very year and its members were also the most active and aggressive ones of the republican party. They worked as a secret organization after a public start. They were regarded as very dangerous by most of the press, especially the government controlled press.
The members of the Société des Amis du Peuple organised a banquet in honour of the artillerymen, which was held on the 9th of May at the restaurant "Aux Vendanges de Bourgogne". As Alexandre Dumas, who was one of the guests - says in his memoirs: "It would be difficult to find in all Paris, two hundred persons more hostile to the government than those to be found reunited at five o'clock in the afternoon in the long hall on the ground floor above the garden." Naturally, Galois was one of them.
Even though they had planned not to provoce the police with the toasts, many guests couldn't restrain from flamboyant republican speeches. But Galois "toast" immediately led to chaos and an untimely end of the event. He had raised a knife and said: "To Louis-Philippe!"
So great...
He was then tried for threatening the King, and found innocent.
The republicans organised a patriotic demonstration for the celebrations of the 14th of July at the place de la Bastille. They wanted to plant a symbolic tree of liberty. A poster was prepared to incite people to attend the demonstration, but the police confiscated all the posters and wanted to arrest those republicans, which were considered responsible. They broke into Galois house - as they did with the other suspects as well - during the night preceding the 14th. Galois had been warned and was not home, but the following day he was preventatively arrested together with his friend Duchalet, roaming the streets of Paris. He was dressed in Artillery Guard uniforms - which was strictly forbidden - and armed to the teeth, carrying besides his usual knife, several pistols and his regulation carbine.
Galois then spent 9 months in prison.
After being released from prison, Galois remained politically active and published more mathematical theories. At the age of 20, the night before dying in a duel against a political enemy, Galois finished his now-famous proof, which has been very important to the development of mathematics.

Congratulations Evariste, you are the coolest person ever. I want to be you.