1685, together with many Protestants, De Moivre participated in the religious riots that shocked Europe. In this riot, he was imprisoned with many people. It was in this year that the Nanz Act, which protected Calvinists, was revoked. Subsequently, many talented scholars, including De Morville, emigrated from France to Britain. According to church records, De Moivre was imprisoned until 1688 and moved to London that year. However, according to a material discovered in the 1960s, De Moivre had already arrived in Britain as early as 1685. Since then, De Moivre has been living in England, and all his contributions to mathematics have been made in England.
After arriving in London, De Moivre immediately discovered many excellent scientific works and studied them eagerly. By chance, he read the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy just published by I Newton, and was deeply attracted by this work. Later, he recalled how he studied Newton's masterpiece: he made a living as a tutor and had to teach children from many families, so time was tight, so he took it apart. When he finished teaching children in one family, he quickly read a few pages on his way to another family and finished the book quickly. In this way, de Moivre soon had a solid academic foundation and began to conduct academic research.
1692, de Morville visited E. Halley, secretary of the Royal Society. Harley read out De Morville's first mathematical paper "On Newton's Theory of Flow Mathematics" at the Royal Society, which attracted academic attention. 1697, due to Harley's efforts, de Morville was elected as a member of the Royal Society.
De moivre's genius and achievements have been widely concerned and respected by people. Harley presented De Moivre's important work "The Theory of Chance" to Newton, and Newton appreciated De Moivre very much. It is said that when a student asked Newton a question about probability, he said, "Such questions should be asked to De Morville, who has studied these questions much more profoundly than I have." . 17 10, de Moivre was appointed to participate in the investigation of Newton-Leibniz calculus priority Committee by the Royal Society, which shows that he was highly respected by the academic community. 1735, de Moivre was elected as an academician of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. 1754 was accepted as a member of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris.
De moivre never got married. Although he has made great achievements in academic research, he is poor. From his arrival in London, England to his later years, he served as a math tutor. He writes articles from time to time, and also participates in the study of practical problems in the determination of insurance annuity, but his income is extremely meager and he can barely maintain his life. He often complains that it is a waste of time to teach children from one house to another and run around from employer to employer monotonously. To this end, he has tried many times to change his situation, but to no avail.
De moivre suffered from narcolepsy at the age of 87 and slept for 20 hours every day. When he couldn't sleep for 24 hours, he died in poverty.
There is a magical legend with mathematical color about the death of De Moivre: A few days before his death, De Moivre found that he needed to sleep 1/4 hours more than the day before, so the sleep time every day would constitute a arithmetic progression. When this arithmetic series reaches 24 hours, De Moivre will never wake up.