Antonio Santini (mathematician)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Antonio Santini (* 1577 in Lucca , † 1662 in Tuscany ) was an Italian mathematician and astronomer. He was Galileo Galilei's correspondent .

Santini was a merchant in Venice . He was a member of the Somasker Order.

In May 1610 he was the first to confirm Galileo's observation of Jupiter's moons with the telescope (before Johannes Kepler at the end of August / beginning of September and three months after the appearance of Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius). He received no support from Galileo in the form of telescopes, lenses or instructions for their manufacture, but he knew them (possibly from Padua). The first telescopes existed in Venice as early as 1609 and Santini apparently built them (Venice itself was known to have excellent glassblowers). Santini informed Galileo of the confirmation by letter in June and repeated the observation in September.

He later taught in Genoa , where he wrote to Galileo in 1624 to thank him for lenses for his telescope. In Genoa, Famiano Michelini was his pupil. He was also in correspondence with Marin Mersenne who sent him mathematical works by Pierre de Fermat and the geometry of Descartes (not least so that he could pass them on to Evangelista Torricelli ). Santini sent Galileo in 1641 the Cursus Mathematicus by Pierre Hérigone , which he passed on to Bonaventura Cavalieri . He was also in contact with Marino Ghetaldi .

As a mathematician, he was embroiled in a controversy with Petro Caravagio , who attacked the algebraic publications of Santini in 1650, succeeding François Viète . Santini published Supplementi Francisci Vietae in 1644 and Inclinationum appendix in 1648 . He applied Viète's algebra to the solution of the geometric mean and the classic geometric problems of angle division and cube doubling.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mario Biagioli in Jürgen Renn (Ed.) Galilei in Context , Cambridge University Press 2001, p. 283
  2. ^ In Geometria Male Restaurata from authore ASL rimae detectae a Petro Paolo Caravagio, Milan 1650
  3. ↑ Inclinativm appendix SEU to geometriae PLEROMA per Antonivm Sanctinivm Lvcensem, Macerata 1648 Online
personal data
SURNAME Santini, Antonio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian mathematician and astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH 1577
PLACE OF BIRTH Lucca
DATE OF DEATH 1662
Place of death Tuscany