Francesco Faà di Bruno

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Francesco Faà di Bruno

Francesco Faà di Bruno (born March 29, 1825 in Alessandria , † March 27, 1888 in Turin ) was an Italian officer , mathematician , engineer , inventor , educator , composer and clergyman . He is the blessed of the Catholic Church.

Childhood and youth

Francesco da Paola Virginio Secondo Maria Faà di Bruno came from a Piedmontese noble family. He was the twelfth and last child of Luigi, marchese di Bruno and Carolina Sappa de 'Milanesi. His brother Emilio became a naval officer and died in the naval battle of Lissa . In 1834, at the age of nine, he lost his mother. From 1836 he attended the Somasker school in Novi Ligure . In 1840 he entered the Turin Military Academy.

Military career

As an officer in the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont , he was entrusted with geographic and cartographic tasks. In 1848 he took part in the First Italian War of Independence and fought near Peschiera . In 1849 he was promoted to captain of the general staff. He was wounded in the Battle of Novara and honored for his bravery.

The army sent him to Paris to study mathematics and astronomy at the Sorbonne . In 1853 he asked to leave for study purposes and resigned from the army. For reasons of conscience, he had refused to duel with an officer who had insulted him.

Scientific career

He studied under Augustin Louis Cauchy , Charles Hermite was his fellow student. In 1855 he began working at the Paris Observatory under Urbain Le Verrier . From 1857 he taught at the University of Turin , where he was appointed associate professor in 1876.

He dealt with many areas of mathematics, for example with invariant theory and with elliptic functions . The formula named after him by Faà di Bruno (which he was not the first to set up and also not the first to prove) is a generalization of the chain rule .

He also worked as an engineer and inventor. He was involved in the construction of the tower of the Santa Zita Church in Turin, developed scientific instruments and had several inventions patented.

Clergyman, musician and educator

Faà di Bruno was deeply religious throughout his life. As a member of the army, he wrote a Christian soldier's manual . Although he welcomed the Risorgimento and the unification of Italy, he was unhappy about their anti-clerical orientation. He published a magazine on sacred music, La Lira Cattolica , and was also active as a composer of sacred music.

He was involved in numerous social projects, mainly concerned with the upbringing and care of maids. This resulted in an order of nuns in 1881, the Minime di Nostra Signora del Suffragio (Minor Sisters of Our Lady of Intercession for the Poor Souls), which was not officially recognized by the Church until 1893 after his death. He was friends with Don Bosco and was ordained a priest on October 22, 1876.

He suddenly died of an intestinal infection. A hundred years after his death, on September 25, 1988, he was beatified by John Paul II .

Works

He published around 40 original papers in respected mathematical journals ( Crelles Journal , Journal de Mathématiques, American Journal of Mathematics, Comptes rendus de l'Académie des sciences, etc.). He is the author of the following books:

  • Théorie générale de l'élimination , Paris, 1859
  • Calcolo degli errori , Turin, 1867; French translation Traité élémentaire du calcul desarrurs , Paris, 1869
  • Théorie des formes binaires , Paris, 1876

A planned multi-volume work on elliptical functions was unfinished at the time of his death.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Warren P. Johnson The Curious History of Faa du Bruno's Formula , American Mathematical Monthly, Volume 109, 2002, p. 217
personal data
SURNAME Faà di Bruno, Francesco
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian officer , mathematician , engineer , inventor , educator , composer and clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1825
PLACE OF BIRTH Alessandria
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 1888
Place of death Turin