Jacques Rohault

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Jacques Rohault (* 1618 in Amiens , † December 27, 1672 in Paris ) was a French physicist and mathematician. He was a major exponent of Cartesianism in Paris and in this spirit wrote a physics textbook that was widespread in his time and up into the early 18th century.

Jacques Rohault

Rohault was the son of a wealthy wine merchant and studied with the Jesuits in Paris. He taught himself geometry and began teaching mathematics in Paris. His students included the Cartesians Claude Clerselier and Pierre Sylvain Régis and the Dauphin , whom he taught in mathematics and philosophy through the agency of Bossuet .

He was a member of the Academy of Henri Louis Habert de Montmor .

In 1656 he repeated Blaise Pascal's barometer experiments in front of a large audience in Notre Dame . In the following year he began to demonstrate physics experiments in public weekly on Wednesdays with great success.

In his physics textbook from 1671, in addition to material from the dioptric and météores of Descartes, he also deals with new topics such as magnetism and capillarity and attaches great importance to experiments. In astronomy, he partly follows the traditional theories of Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe, partly Copernicus. He also deals with biology (following Descartes and William Harvey and his theory of blood circulation). It was the standard physics textbook in France for years. In 1674 a Latin translation by the Swiss Théophile Bonet (1620-1689) appeared, another Latin version came from Newton's follower Samuel Clarke (1697 and many other editions), who also introduced additions in the sense of Newton's theory, which he compared to Descartean. This resulted in an English edition by his brother John Clarke in 1723, so that the book was also influential in England, although it did not spread the Cartesian but the Newtonian doctrine.

He was married twice.

Fonts

Oeuvres posthumous , 1682
  • Traite de Physique, Paris 1671, many new editions until 1730
    • A Latin translation was published in Geneva in 1674 and in London in 1702
  • Les entretiens sur la philosophie, Paris 1671 (defense of the doctrine of Descartes), new edition Paris 1978 ( CNRS , publisher Pierre Clair)
  • Oeuvres posthumes de M. Rohault , Paris 1682 (editor Clerselier)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Regis Biography, Catholic Encyclopedia
  2. ↑ Frauke Böttcher: The mathematical and natural philosophical learning and working of the Marquise du Chatelet, Springer, 2013, p. 182
personal data
SURNAME Rohault, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French physicist and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH 1618
PLACE OF BIRTH Amiens
DATE OF DEATH December 27, 1672
Place of death Paris