Alphonse de Polignac (1826–1863) was a French mathematician. In 1849, the year he was admitted to Polytechnique, he made what's known as Polignac's conjecture: For every positive integer k, there are infinitely many prime gaps of size 2k. The case k = 1 is the twin prime conjecture. He also conjectured Romanov's theorem. His father, Jules de Polignac (1780-1847) was prime minister of Charles X until the Bourbon dynasty was overthrown (1830). See also de Polignac's formula Polignac family References 1826 births 1863 deaths 19th-century French mathematicians