Denis Henrion

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Usage du compas de proportion

Denis Henrion (also Didier Henrion ; * around 1580; † around 1632) was a French mathematician who worked in Paris .

Life

In his entry in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography in the 1970s, Jean Itard states that little is known about his life (including the place and date of his birth and exactly where and when he died) and that much is uncertain. Usually the first name is given with Denis, in his books only the initial D. (except in a Latin passage from 1623, where Desiderius stands, Latinized for Didier).

At a young age he was an engineer in the service of William of Orange's army in the Netherlands, from 1607 he settled in Paris as a mathematics teacher (he appears as a professor on the title pages of his books) and as a publisher . In the edition of his Euclid translation from 1632 it is stated that it was sold by his widow.

According to Itard, he is far behind Pierre Hérigone , but was not a pure compiler and played a role in the introduction of logarithms in France .

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His first book is an elementary math textbook for noblemen (officers). According to Itard, in the Geometry section it contains a collection of 140 remarkable problems. As usual, he takes over a lot from other writings, especially from Christophorus Clavius .

He published an early book on the logarithms by Henry Briggs (Traictés des Logarithmes, 1626), the tables by Regiomontanus (1625, 1626). This was the second book on logarithms to appear in France. The first was a description of Briggs' logarithms in 1625 by the Englishman Edmund Wingate (1596–1656), who was in Paris from 1624 as the English teacher of Henrietta Maria of France .

In addition to the logarithmic tables, he is known as a translator of Euclid's elements from Latin into French, which he published with many commentaries from 1614 onwards, which he has expanded in several editions. This was not the first translation into French ( Pierre Forcadel published the first in 1565). His translation, based on the work of the Jesuit school (Clavius), also contained the data of Euclid (using the Latin edition of Claude Hardy ). In various of his Euclid editions there is also a summary of algebra for a better understanding of the tenth book of the elements ( Sommaire et abbregé de l'algèbre, qui sert à faciliter l'intelligence du dixiesme livre ). At that time, however, he was already using outdated algebra and did not take into account the progress made by Francois Viète , Simon Stevin and Albert Girard .

He also published on geodetic instruments, such as the proportional circle , which he attributed to Jacques Alleaume . In Locacanon (1626) he described Edmund Gunter's slide rules .

In 1616 he published Problemata duo nobilissima , in which Clément Cyriaque de Mangin criticized the solutions to problems of Regiomontanus and Pedro Nunes by François Viète and Marin Getaldić . This led to a dispute between Getaldic and Alexander Anderson (a Scottish mathematician in Paris who worked on the publication of Viète's works).

He published excerpts from the works of Valentin Menherr (with remarks by Michel Coignet ) and an edition of Mathematical Conversations by Jean Leurechon . According to Itard, his works often contain polemical spikes against competitors, which is why he was also the target of attacks (as by Claude Mydorge for his comments in the edition of the book by Leurechon).

He also made other translations, such as Theodosius of Bithynia (then called by Tripoli) (1615, from a Latin version by Clavius) and the treatise on the globe by Robert Hues (1618) and mathematical conversations by Father Jean Leurechon ( 1627 and more often).

He also published under the initials DHPEM (Denis Henrion, professeur ès mathématiques).

After Claude Hardy , he published under the names Pierre Hérigone and Cyriaque de Mangin. That Henrion was a pseudonym of Cyriaque de Mangin is also asserted by Philip Beeley and Christoph Scriba in their edition of the letters from John Wallis .

Fonts

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to Jean Itard, Dictionary of Scientific Biography .
  2. ^ Itard, Dictionary Scientific Biography
  3. ^ WL Glaisher, Supplementary remarks on some early logarithmic tables, Phil. Mag., Series 4, Volume 44, 1872, p. 500, Google Books . He mentions Henrion as the early editor of Brigg's log tables alongside Adriaan Vlacq and Ezechiel de Decker .
  4. ^ Les Tables des directions et profections de Jean de Mont-Royal, 1626
  5. ↑ After Itard, Dict. Sci. Biogr.
  6. ^ Problemata duo nobilissima, quorum nec analysin geometricam, videntur tenuisse Ioannes Regiomontanus & Petrus Nonius; nec demonstrationem satis accuratam repraesentasse, Franciscus Vieta et Marinus Ghetaldus nunc demum a Clemente Cyriaco diligentius elaborata et novis analyzeon formis exculta. Inscriptiones praeterea figurarum non injucundae . Paris: David Leclerc, 1616
  7. ^ Correspondence of John Wallis, Volume 2, Oxford UP 2005, p. 315, footnote 618
  8. ↑ Itard states 1631
personal data
SURNAME Henrion, Denis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Henrion, Didier
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH around 1580
DATE OF DEATH around 1632