Poincaré and Dreyfus
A collection of materials relating to the intervention of the
topologist Henri Poincaré in the
Dreyfus case.
In 1904 Darboux, Appell and Poincaré submitted a report on the
probabilistic aspects of the first 1894 Dreyfus trial
for the 1906 appeal
(which was not granted, but did result in the freeing and reinstatement of Dreyfus).
Thanks to my colleague Colin Aitken,
Professor of Forensic Statistics at the University of Edinburgh,
for drawing my attention to the Poincaré-Dreyfus connection, and for the references.
The English translation of the report is due to him; thanks to Shu Otsuka
for typing.
- L'affaire Dreyfus, French website about the Dreyfus case.
- The original "brochure verte".
Le bordereau. Étude des dépositions de M. Bertillon et du capitaine Valerio au Conseil de Guerre de Rennes
par un ancien élève de l'école polytechnique (1904)
- The original typescript of the Darboux-Appell-Poincaré report.
- The printed version of the Darboux-Appell-Poincaré report.
- The retyped version of the Darboux-Appell-Poincaré report.
- The English translation of the Darboux-Appell-Poincaré report.
- The contemporaneous report on the Dreyfus appeal. The conclusion of the
Darboux-Appell-Poincaré report is on pages 243--245.
- Trial by mathematics: precision
and ritual in the legal process by L.Tribe, Harvard Law Review 84 (1971)
- Henri Poincaré. A life in the service of science
by J.Mawhin, Notices Amer. Math. Soc. 52, no. 9, 1036--1044 (2005).
- Introduction au rapport de
Poincaré pour le procès en cassation de Dreyfus en 1904.
R.Mansuy and L.Mazliak,
Electronic Journal for History of Probability and Statistics 1 (2005)
- Revisiting Dreyfus: A More Complete Account of a Trial by Mathematics
by D.H.Kaye, Minnesota Law Review (2006)
- An Unusual Use of an
Astronomical Instrument by S.Débarbat, J. for the History of Astronomy 27, p.45 (2006)
- Des mathématiciens dans l'affaire Dreyfus?
by Laurent Rollet, Images des Mathématiques, CNRS (2010)
- Bayes and the Law, Dreyfus (2011)