Jean-Étienne Montucla (5 September 1725 – 18 December 1799) was a French

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 ...

and historian. Montucla was born at

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. In 1754 he published an anonymous treatise on quadrature, ''Histoire des recherches sur la quadrature du cercle''. Montucla's deep interest in

history of mathematics The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments ...

became apparent with his publication of ''Histoire des Mathématiques'', the first part appearing in 1758. According to

George Sarton George Alfred Leon Sarton (; 31 August 1884 – 22 March 1956) was a Belgian-born American chemist and historian. He is considered the founder of the discipline of the history of science as an independent field of study. His most influential work ...

, the ''Histoire'' is :a history of the mathematical sciences, and might almost be called a

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...

from the mathematical angle, even as many histories of medicine are to some extent histories of science written from the medical angle. He was appointed intendant-secretary of

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

in 1758, secretary to the expedition for colonizing

Cayenne Cayenne (; ; gcr, Kayenn) is the capital city of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic coast. The city's m ...

in 1764, and chief architect and censor-royal for mathematical books in 1765. In 1778 he re-edited Jacques Ozanam's ''Recreations mathématiques'', afterwards published in English by

Charles Hutton Charles Hutton FRS FRSE LLD (14 August 1737 – 27 January 1823) was a British mathematician and surveyor. He was professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich from 1773 to 1807. He is remembered for his calculation of the ...

(4 vols, London, 1803). The

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

deprived him of his income and left him in great destitution. The offer in 1795 of a mathematical chair in one of the schools of Paris was declined on account of his infirm health. He was still in dire circumstances in 1798, when he published a second edition of the first part of his ''Histoire''. After his death, his ''Histoire'' was completed by

Jérôme Lalande Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande (; 11 July 1732 – 4 April 1807) was a French astronomer, freemason and writer. Biography Lalande was born at Bourg-en-Bresse (now in the département of Ain) to Pierre Lefrançois and Marie‐Anne‐Ga ...

, and published at Paris in 1799–1802 (4 vols).

Ivor Grattan-Guinness Ivor Owen Grattan-Guinness (23 June 1941 – 12 December 2014) was a historian of mathematics and logic. Life Grattan-Guinness was born in Bakewell, England; his father was a mathematics teacher and educational administrator. He gained his b ...

described the ''Histoire'' as a milestone: :His first volume covered Greek, Roman, and Eastern traditions, while the second covered geometry, mechanics and optics up to the seventeenth century. Forty years later the second edition began to appear, although the author then died and task of completion fell to Jérôme Lalande. With the help of various colleagues, he completed the third volume and wrote the fourth within four years. The first two volumes covered the same material as before, while the other two handled all aspects of the eighteenth century; the whole encompassed around 3000 pages, including indexes (themselves an excellent feature)...One curious feature of the work, especially in chapters on applied mathematics, is the lack of mathematical symbolism in the text: Montucla and Lalande were often content with a verbal account of the work without entering into symbolic renderings. Of course many basic aspects of the history of mathematics were thus left out.

(1994) ''Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical Sciences'', volume 2, page 1666,

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...

References

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Montucla 1725 births 1799 deaths Scientists from Lyon 18th-century French mathematicians Members of the French Academy of Sciences French historians of mathematics