Life is good for two things, learning mathematics and teaching mathematics.
Simeon Poisson developed many novel applications of mathematics for statistics and physics. His father had been a private soldier, and on his retirement was given a small administrative post in his native village. When the French revolution broke out, his father assumed the government of the place, and soon became a local dignitary. The small boy was left in the care of a nursemaid. He used to tell how one day his father, coming to see him, found that the nursemaid had gone out and left him suspended by a small cord attached to a nail fixed in the wall.