Background
Cholesky was born in Montguyon, France.
Cholesky was born in Montguyon, France.
He attended the Lycée in Bordeaux and entered the École Polytechnique, where Camille Jordan and Henri Becquerel taught.
His paternal family was descendant from the Cholewski family who emigrated from Poland during the Great Emigration. He worked in geodesy and map-making, was involved in surveying in Crete and North Africa before World War I. He is primarily remembered for the development of a matrix decomposition known as the Cholesky decomposition which he used in his surveying work. He served the French military as engineer officer and was killed in battle a few months before the end of World War I.
His discovery was published posthumously by his fellow officer Commandant Benoît in the Bulletin Géodésique.
