Claude François Milliet Dechales (1621 – 28 March 1678) was a French

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest and mathematician. He published a treatise on mathematics and a translation of the works of

Euclid Euclid (; ; BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the '' Elements'' treatise, which established the foundations of geometry that largely domina ...

Biography

Born in

Chambéry Chambéry (, , ; Franco-Provençal, Arpitan: ''Chambèri'') is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Savoie Departments of France, department in the southeastern ...

, Savoy, Claude Dechales (De Challes) was the son of Hector Milliet de Challes (1568–1642), first president of Sovereign Senate of Savoy. He entered the Jesuits at the age of fifteen on 21 September 1636. He participated in the French Jesuit mission to the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

and taught literature in the schools of his order for nine years. Back in France,

Louis XIV LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...

had him appointed professor of

hydrography Hydrography is the branch of applied sciences which deals with the measurement and description of the physical features of oceans, seas, coastal areas, lakes and rivers, as well as with the prediction of their change over time, for the primary ...

in Marseille where he taught navigation and military engineering. He then moved to the Trinity College in

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

in 1674, where he simultaneously taught philosophy (4 years), mathematics (6 years) and theology (5 years). He published in Lyon his famous Cursus seu Mondus Matematicus. At the end of his life, Dechales taught mathematics in a college in Turin in Piedmont, where he died, on 28 March 1678.

Publications

* 1660–1672 :
Huict livres des Elemens d'Euclide rendus plus faciles par le R.P. Claude François Milliet Dechales, de la Compagnie de Jésus
' (B. Coral, Lyon). * 1674 : a second edition of Euclide, ''Elementorum Euclidis libri octo, ad faciliorem captum accommodati'' (Lyon, Anisson). * 1674 :
Cursus seu Mondus Matematicus
' Ex officina anissonina (Anisson). * 1677 : ''L'art de fortifier, de défendre et d'attaquer les places, suivant les méthodes françoises, hollandoises, italiennes et espagnoles'' (Paris), and ''L'art de naviger demontré par principes et confirmé par plusieurs observations tirées de l'experience'' (Paris). * 1682 : '
Traité du mouvement local et du ressort
dans lequel, leur nature, & leurs causes, sont curieusement recherchées, & ou les loix qu'ils observent dans l'acceleration & les pendules, & encore dans la percussion & la reflexion des corps, sont solidement establies'', à Lyon chez Anisson et Posuel. * 1685 : ''Euclide'' translated in English under the title ''The elements of Euclid explain'd, in a new, but most easie method : together with the use of every proposition through all parts of the mathematicks''.

References

Sources

* * *Nardi, Antonio, ''"An eccentric adherent of Galileo. The jesuit François Milliet Dechales between Galileo and Newton"'', Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences 49 (142), January 1999
Le scholasticon
, by Jacob Schmutz. * Vincent Jullien
les Eléments de géométrie
de Gilles Personne de Roberval, {{DEFAULTSORT:Dechales, Claude French Jesuits French mathematicians 1621 births Jesuit scientists 1678 deaths