Edouard Zeckendorf

Edouard Zeckendorf (2 May 1901 – 16 May 1983) was a Belgian doctor, army officer and amateur mathematician. In mathematics, he is best known for his work on Fibonacci numbers and in particular for discovering (in 1939) and proving what is now known as Zeckendorf's theorem: every positive whole number is either a Fibonacci number or can be written as a sum of distinct non-consecutive Fibonacci numbers (and such a representation is unique).

Early life Zeckendorf was born in Liège in 1901, to Henriette van Gelder and Abraham Zeckendorf. His Jewish father was a Dutch dentist. "Étude fibonaccienne. Arrangements avec répétition de lettres a et de chaînes limitées de lettres b" (Mathesis.1949), "Étude fibonaccienne. De certaines coupes obliques parallèles dans les polytopes arithmétiques à (p−1) dimensions" (Mathesis, 1950), "Étude fibonaccienne" (Mathesis, 1951).

Many of his later papers appeared in the Bulletin de la Société Royale des Sciences de Liège.

In 1957, his work was recognised by the Societe Royale des Sciences de Liège when they elected him as an associate member.