Adolphe Quetelet

Quetelet, an active internationalist, maintained strong links with scientists in several countries. Among these were Babbage, Whewell, Wheatstone, Faraday, Herschel and Airy in Britain, Ampère, Le Verrier and Hachette in France, Gauss, Goethe and Encke in Germany and de la Rive in Switzerland (many contributing to a journal he edited). He studied with Arago, Fourier and Laplace in France, also meeting Poisson, Fresnel and Humboldt. He helped Babbage, Malthus and Whewell establish a Statistical Society, and influenced Nightingale. Marx, living at the same time in Brussels, drew on his work; whether they met is unknown.