Florimond de Beaune

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Graphic illustration of the problem

Florimond de Beaune , also Debeaune, (born October 7, 1601 in Blois , † August 18, 1652 in Blois) was a French mathematician .

After serving in the military when he was younger , he later bought a council position at the royal court in his hometown.

Beaune was an amateur mathematician who wrote a number of comments on the geometry of René Descartes , which were included by Frans van Schooten (1615–1650) in his edition of Cartesian geometry. Descartes himself also valued his work (which Beaune Descartes sent via Mersenne in 1639 ) and placed it even higher than Archimedes' parabolic quadrature.

De Beaune is better known for the so-called Beaune task, which is mentioned in Descartes' letters in 1639: Determination of a curved line from a property of its tangent . Specifically, the question is asked about the curve for which the subtangents have a constant value C (see figure). Despite the efforts of Descartes and Fermat , this problem (the solution of which is the exponential function ) remained unsolved for nearly 50 years. Leibniz gave a solution in the Acta Eruditorum in 1684 using the logarithm . With the help of the integral calculus , Johann I Bernoulli was able to provide another solution in 1693. Beaune herself was also trying to find a solution.

Florimond de Beaune died in his hometown in 1652.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The initial correspondence also dates from 1638, but has been lost. The original manuscript calling for a solution to the problem from late summer 1638 has also been lost, but a treatise from de Beaune to Roberval from 1638 contains the problem
  2. ↑ Christoph Scriba On the solution of the 2nd Debeaune problem by Descartes , Archive Hist. Exact Sciences, Vol. 1, 1961, pp. 406-419. There were four tasks in total, but only incomplete information was given about them.
  3. ^ Ernst Hairer, Gerhard Wanner: Analysis in historical development. 1st edition, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 3642137660 , pp. 26-27.
personal data
SURNAME Beaune, Florimond de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1601
PLACE OF BIRTH Blois
DATE OF DEATH August 18, 1652
Place of death Blois