Louis Gros’s Theory of the Chinese Rings

After Pacioli and Cardano in the 16th, Wallis in the 17th, and Lichtenberg in the 18th century, it was the French legal professional Louis Gros who published in 1872 a Théorie du Baguenodier. The small book was based on the revolutionary new idea to marry the mechanical puzzle which is now known as the Chinese Rings with the binary number system. An unpublished, much broader manuscript, discovered recently by Lisa Rougetet, offers new insight into Gros’s biography and the circumstances of his scientific achievements. Although the mathematical results were mainly empirical, we will demonstrate that they are all well-founded in modern interpretation.