Bernard Frénicle de Bessy

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Bernard Frénicle de Bessy (* approx. 1605 ; † January 17, 1675 in Paris ) was a French mathematician .

As a mathematician, he was an amateur, but corresponded with famous contemporaries such as Pierre de Fermat , René Descartes , Christiaan Huygens and Marin Mersenne . In the founding year 1666 he was accepted into the Académie Royale des Sciences .

He dealt with many areas of mathematics, especially number theory and combinatorics . His research on magic squares is best known . He found all 880 magic squares with edge length 4. The standard Frénicle shape of a magic square is named after him.

He was a proponent of "experimental mathematics" as he explains in his treatise on the problem-solving method through exclusion. His solution to the proof of the unsolvability of in integers (and thus the case of the Great Fermat Conjecture ), published in 1676, came with a high degree of probability from Fermat, with whom he corresponded.

Cover picture of Méthode pour trouver la solution des probèmes par les exclusions.

Works (selection)

  • Traité des triangles rectangles en nombres , Paris: E. Michallet, 1676 digitized on Gallica .
  • Méthode pour trouver la solution of problems par les exclusions . In: P. La Hire (ed.), Divers ouvrages de mathématiques et de physique, par Messieurs de l'Académie royale des sciences , Paris: Imprimerie Royale 1693, pp. 3–44 digitized on Gallica .
  • Abrégé des combinaisons . In: P. La Hire (ed.), Divers ouvrages de mathématiques et de physique, par Messieurs de l'Académie royale des sciences , Paris: Imprimerie Royale 1693, pp. 45–64 digitized on Gallica .
  • Des quarrez ou tables magiques [Avec Table general des quarrez magiques de quatre , pp. 484 ff.]. In: P. La Hire (ed.), Divers ouvrages de mathématiques et de physique, par Messieurs de l'Académie royale des sciences , Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1693, pp. 423–507 digitized on Gallica .

Reprints

  • Recueil de plusieurs traitez de mathématique de l'Academie Royale des Sciences , Paris: Imprimerie Royale 1676 online edition of the Linda Hall Library
    In it: Traité…
  • Recueil de plusieurs traitez de mathématique de l'Academie Royale des Sciences , Paris: Imprimerie Royale 1677
    therein: Méthode… , pp. 1–86; Des quarrez… , 209–354.
  • Résolutions des quatre principaux problemèmes d'architecture par M. Blondel et Ouvrages de Mathématique de M. Frénicle. Mortier, Amsterdam 1736 Online edition of the TUB Berlin.
    Therein: Méthode… , p. 1ff .; Traité ... , p. 83ff .; Abregé ... , pp. 207ff .; Table genérale des Quarrez Magiques de quatre côtez , p. 303ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ That Bernard Frenicle was a civil servant at the Cour des Monnaies is an old and widespread mistake that stems from a mix-up with his brother Nicolas. See Catherine Goldstein , Un théorème de Fermat et ses lecteurs , St. Denis: Presse Universitaire de Vincennes, 1995, p. 29
  2. ^ Catherine Goldstein , Un théorème de Fermat et ses lecteurs , St. Denis: Presse Universitaire de Vincennes, 1995.
  3. ↑ Ernest Coumet, Mersenne, Frenicle et l'élaboration de l'analysis Combinatoire dans la première moitié du XVIIe siècle (2 vols.), Dissertation, University of Paris in 1968.
  4. ^ Proved by Kathleen Ollerenshaw and Hermann Bondi in "Magic squares of order four", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 306 (1982), 443-532.
  5. ^ André Weil, Number Theory - an approach through history from Hammurapi to Legendre, Birkhäuser 1984, p. 76
personal data
SURNAME Frénicle de Bessy, Bernard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH around 1605
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH January 17, 1675
Place of death Paris