Guillaume François Antoine, Marquis de L'Hospital

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Guillaume François Antoine l'Hospital

Guillaume François Antoine, Marquis de L'Hospital or L'Hôpital ( [lopi'tal] ) (* 1661 in Paris ; † February 2, 1704 ibid) was a French mathematician . He is best known for the sentence named after him ( rule from de l'Hospital ), which was actually discovered by Johann I Bernoulli .

Analysis of the infiniment petits pour l'intelligence des lignes courbes
Traité analytique

family

Hospital came from a distinguished noble family. His father Anne-Alexandre de l'Hospital (Comte de Saint Mesme, died 1701) was a royal lieutenant general and was associated with the House of Orleans (via Gaston d'Orleans ). His mother was Elisabeth Gobelin, former maid of honor of the Grand Duchess of Tuscany and daughter of the State Council and State Secretary Claude Gobelin (died 1666).

Hospital married Marie Charlotte de Romilly de la Chesnaye on January 10, 1688, and together they had a son and three daughters. From his marriage, Hospital had the title of Comte d'Entremonts, in addition to his titles Marquis de L'Hospital, Marquis de Sainte Mesme et de Mantellier.

Life

Hospital took an early interest in mathematics and showed a gift for mathematics (at the age of 15 he solved Blaise Pascal's problem about the cycloid that came up in a conversation), but initially chose a professional career as a cavalry officer. He gave up the job because of myopia, but mainly to do mathematical studies. In Paris around 1690 he belonged to the circle of the philosopher and mathematician Nicolas Malebranche . There he also met Johann I. Bernoulli when he visited Paris in 1691 and gave lectures for the group around Malebranche and made known the infinitesimal calculus newly developed by Leibniz. Hospital then took private lessons from him when he invited him to his castle in Oucques ( Canton Marchenoir ) in 1692 . They were then in correspondence. Hospital even paid Johann Bernoulli to send him new results exclusively.

Hospital is also the author of the first textbook on differential calculus published in 1696 . It contains writings by his teacher Johann Bernoulli. In a foreword, Hospital pays tribute to the Bernoullis and Leibniz , but at the same time claims to have developed the basics of the presentation of differential calculus in his book himself. His textbook was very influential and had editions until 1781. It was commented on by Pierre de Varignon , among others . Johann Bernoulli himself only made claims after the death of Hospital that he wrote large parts of the book himself. It was not until the 20th century that the manuscripts of Bernoulli's lectures in Paris, which Hospital followed in his book, and his financial arrangements with Hospital became known.

Due to his aristocratic status, he could not easily join the Academie des Sciences, but received an honorary position (Vice President) when it was reorganized in 1699. He corresponded with Leibniz and Christian Huygens , whom he introduced to the new infinitesimal calculus.

When he died, he left behind the manuscript for another book ( Traité analytique des sections coniques et de leur usage pour la résolution des équations dans lesproblemèmes tant déterminés qu'indéterminés ), this time on integral calculus , which appeared in 1707 and the second edition in 1720. He had given up plans to publish the book during his lifetime after hearing about Leibniz's plan to publish a book about it himself.

Fonts

  • Analysis of the infiniment petits pour l'intelligence des lignes courbes. 1696. 2nd edition 1715.
  • Traité analytique des sections coniques et de leur usage pour la resolution des equations in the problems tant détermines qu'indétermines. 1776.

literature

  • Obituary by Fontenelle in the Histoires Academie des Sciences 1704.
  • OJ Rebel: The correspondence between Johann (I.) Bernoulli and the Marquis de l'Hospital. Heidelberg 1932 (dissertation).
  • Clifford Truesdell The new Bernoulli edition. In: Isis , Volume 49, 1958, pp. 54-62.
  • Julian Coolidge The mathematics of great amateurs. 1949.

Web links

Remarks

  1. It appears in Chapter 9 of his textbook on Analysis.
  2. Biographical entry of the hospitals in the pages of Chroniques paroissiales, Boisgasson, French ( Memento of the original dated February 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / radiointensite.free.fr
  3. He also mentions Newton's independent invention of calculus, but considers Leibniz's method to be simpler and more useful for applications.
  4. ^ Paul Schafheitlin (Ed.): The differential calculation by Johann Bernoulli from the years 1691-1692. Ostwald's classic, 1924