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Pierre Varignon
Pierre Varignon (1654 – 23 December 1722) was a French mathematician. He was educated at the Jesuit College and the University of Caen, where he received his M.A. in 1682. He took Holy Orders the following year. Varignon gained his first exposure to mathematics by reading Euclid and then Descartes' ''La Géométrie''. He became professor of mathematics at the Collège Mazarin in Paris in 1688 and was elected to the Académie Royale des Sciences in the same year. In 1704 he held the departmental chair at Collège Mazarin and also became professor of mathematics at the Collège Royal. He was elected to the Berlin Academy in 1713 and to the Royal Society in 1718. Many of his works were published in Paris in 1725, three years after his death. His lectures at Mazarin were published in Elements de mathematique' in 1731. Varignon was a friend of Newton, Leibniz, and the Bernoulli family. Varignon's principal contributions were to graphic statics and mechanics. Except for l'H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caen
Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Comparateur de territoire INSEE, retrieved 20 June 2022. making Caen the second largest urban area in and the 19th largest in France. It is also the third largest commune in all of Normandy after and Rouen. It is located inland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Varignon's Theorem
Varignon's theorem is a statement in Euclidean geometry, that deals with the construction of a particular parallelogram, the Varignon parallelogram, from an arbitrary quadrilateral (quadrangle). It is named after Pierre Varignon, whose proof was published posthumously in 1731. Theorem The midpoints of the sides of an arbitrary quadrilateral form a parallelogram. If the quadrilateral is convex or concave (not complex), then the area of the parallelogram is half the area of the quadrilateral. If one introduces the concept of oriented areas for ''n''-gons, then this area equality also holds for complex quadrilaterals. Coxeter, H. S. M. and Greitzer, S. L. "Quadrangle; Varignon's theorem" §3.1 in Geometry Revisited. Washington, DC: Math. Assoc. Amer., pp. 52–54, 1967. The Varignon parallelogram exists even for a skew quadrilateral, and is planar whether the quadrilateral is planar or not. The theorem can be generalized to the midpoint polygon of an arbitrary polygon. Proof ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michel Rolle
Michel Rolle (21 April 1652 – 8 November 1719) was a French mathematician. He is best known for Rolle's theorem (1691). He is also the co-inventor in Europe of Gaussian elimination (1690). Life Rolle was born in Ambert, Basse-Auvergne. Rolle, the son of a shopkeeper, received only an elementary education. He married early and as a young man struggled to support his family on the meager wages of a transcriber for notaries and attorney. In spite of his financial problems and minimal education, Rolle studied algebra and Diophantine analysis (a branch of number theory) on his own. He moved from Ambert to Paris in 1675. Rolle's fortune changed dramatically in 1682 when he published an elegant solution of a difficult, unsolved problem in Diophantine analysis. The public recognition of his achievement led to a patronage under minister Louvois, a job as an elementary mathematics teacher, and eventually to a short-termed administrative post in the Ministry of War. In 1685 he joined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guillaume De L'Hôpital
Guillaume François Antoine, Marquis de l'Hôpital (; sometimes spelled L'Hospital; 1661 – 2 February 1704), also known as Guillaume-François-Antoine Marquis de l'Hôpital, Marquis de Sainte-Mesme, Comte d'Entremont, and Seigneur d'Ouques-la-Chaise, was a French mathematician. His name is firmly associated with l'Hôpital's rule for calculating limits involving indeterminate forms 0/0 and ∞/∞. Although the rule did not originate with l'Hôpital, it appeared in print for the first time in his 1696 treatise on the infinitesimal calculus, entitled ''Analyse des Infiniment Petits pour l'Intelligence des Lignes Courbes''. This book was a first systematic exposition of differential calculus. Several editions and translations to other languages were published and it became a model for subsequent treatments of calculus. Biography L'Hôpital was born into a military family. His father was Anne-Alexandre de l'Hôpital, a Lieutenant-General of the King's army, Comte de Saint-Me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernoulli Family
The Bernoulli family () of Basel was a patrician family, notable for having produced eight mathematically gifted academics who, among them, contributed substantially to the development of mathematics and physics during the early modern period. History Originally from Antwerp, a branch of the family relocated to Basel in 1620. While their origin in Antwerp is certain, proposed earlier connections with the Dutch family ''Bornouilla'' (''Bernoullie''), or with the Castilian family ''de Bernuy'' (''Bernoille'', ''Bernouille''), are uncertain. The first known member of the family was Leon Bernoulli (d. 1561), a doctor in Antwerp, at that time part of the Spanish Netherlands. His son, Jacob, emigrated to Frankfurt am Main in 1570 to escape from the Spanish persecution of the Protestants. Jacob's grandson, a spice trader, also named Jacob, moved to Basel, Switzerland in 1620, and was granted citizenship in 1622. His son, (Nicolaus, 1623–1708), Leon's great-great-grandson, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. He wrote works on philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, law, history and philology. Leibniz also made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in probability theory, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics and computer science. In addition, he contributed to the field of library science: while serving as overseer of the Wolfenbüttel library in Germany, he devised a cataloging system that would have served as a guide for many of Europe's largest libraries. Leibniz's contributions to this vast array of subjects were scattered in various learned journals, in tens of thousands of letters and in unpublished manuscripts. He wrote in several languages, primarily in Latin, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists and among the most influential scientists of all time. He was a key figure in the philosophical revolution known as the Enlightenment. His book (''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy''), first published in 1687, established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus. In the , Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint for centuries until it was superseded by the theory of relativity. Newton used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion, account for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Géométrie
''La Géométrie'' was published in 1637 as an appendix to ''Discours de la méthode'' (''Discourse on the Method''), written by René Descartes. In the ''Discourse'', he presents his method for obtaining clarity on any subject. ''La Géométrie'' and two other appendices, also by Descartes, ''La Dioptrique'' (''Optics'') and ''Les Météores'' (''Meteorology''), were published with the ''Discourse'' to give examples of the kinds of successes he had achieved following his method (as well as, perhaps, considering the contemporary European social climate of intellectual competitiveness, to show off a bit to a wider audience). The work was the first to propose the idea of uniting algebra and geometry into a single subject and invented an algebraic geometry called analytic geometry, which involves reducing geometry to a form of arithmetic and algebra and translating geometric shapes into algebraic equations. For its time this was ground-breaking. It also contributed to the mathemat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
René Descartes
René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathematics was central to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry. Descartes spent much of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving the Dutch States Army, later becoming a central intellectual of the Dutch Golden Age. Although he served a Protestant state and was later counted as a deist by critics, Descartes considered himself a devout Catholic. Many elements of Descartes' philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he differed from the schools on two major points: first, he rejected the splitting of corporeal substance into mat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euclid
Euclid (; grc-gre, Wikt:Εὐκλείδης, Εὐκλείδης; BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the ''Euclid's Elements, Elements'' treatise, which established the foundations of geometry that largely dominated the field until the early 19th century. His system, now referred to as Euclidean geometry, involved new innovations in combination with a synthesis of theories from earlier Greek mathematicians, including Eudoxus of Cnidus, Hippocrates of Chios, Thales and Theaetetus (mathematician), Theaetetus. With Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga, Euclid is generally considered among the greatest mathematicians of antiquity, and one of the most influential in the history of mathematics. Very little is known of Euclid's life, and most information comes from the philosophers Proclus and Pappus of Alexandria many centuries later. Until the early Renaissance he was often mistaken f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magister Artium
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have typically studied subjects within the scope of the humanities and social sciences, such as history, literature, languages, linguistics, public administration, political science, communication studies, law or diplomacy; however, different universities have different conventions and may also offer the degree for fields typically considered within the natural sciences and mathematics. The degree can be conferred in respect of completing courses and passing examinations, research, or a combination of the two. The degree of Master of Arts traces its origins to the teaching license or of the University of Paris, designed to produce "masters" who were graduate teachers of their subjects. Europe Czech Republic and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
