Enrico D'Ovidio (1842-1933) was an Italian
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
who is known by his works on
geometry
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...
.
Life and work
D'Ovidio, son of a liberal parents involved in the Italian independence movement, studied at the
university of Naples
The University of Naples Federico II ( it, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) is a public university in Naples, Italy. Founded in 1224, it is the oldest public non-sectarian university in the world, and is now organized into 26 depar ...
under his uncle,
Achille Sannia, who prepared him to enter in the School of Bridges and Roads. In 1869, he published with Sannia a very successful textbook to teach geometry in the schools.
Encouraged by
Eugenio Beltrami, he obtained the chair on Algebra and Analytic Geometry at the
university of Turin
The University of Turin (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the oldest universities in Europe and continues to play an impo ...
in 1872, and he remained there for the remaining 46 years of his life. He was also rector of the university from 1880 to 1885.
The research of D'Ovidio was mainly in geometry and the most important works were produced when he was in Turin. Specially interesting is his work
Le funzioni metriche fondamentali negli spazi di quante si vogliono dimensioni e di curvatura costante(The fundamental metrical functions in the n-dimensional spaces of constant curvature)'', published in 1876 and where he stated for first time the
law of sines
In trigonometry, the law of sines, sine law, sine formula, or sine rule is an equation relating the lengths of the sides of any triangle to the sines of its angles. According to the law,
\frac \,=\, \frac \,=\, \frac \,=\, 2R,
where , and a ...
in n-dimensional curved spaces.
References
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:D'Ovidio, Enrico
19th-century Italian mathematicians
1842 births
1933 deaths