Jacques de Billy

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Diophantus redivivus, 1670

Jacques de Billy (born March 18, 1602 in Compiègne , † January 14, 1679 in Dijon ) was a French Jesuit , astronomer and mathematician .

De Billy studied at Jesuit colleges in Champagne and taught mathematics there. For example, he taught in 1629/30 in Pont-à-Mousson and studied theology there, and from 1631 to 1633 he taught in Reims . One of his students there was Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac . He then taught in Grenoble , in Chalons , Langres , Sens and from 1665 to 1668 in Dijon, where Jacques Ozanam was one of his students.

De Billy corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on number theory. A collection of problems from Fermat's letters with an essay by De Billy on Fermat's number theory was published by Fermat's son Samuel in the appendix to the posthumous publication of the Diophantus edition of Fermat in 1670 (Doctrinae analyticae inventum novum). They allow insights into Fermat's mathematical approach to solving Diophantine equations . De Billy published several mathematical treatises and textbooks.

He also published astronomical tables, such as tables of eclipses from 1656 to 1693. He rejected astrology and superstitious notions associated with the appearance of comets.

The lunar crater Billy is named after him.

Fonts

  • Abrégé des préceptes d'algèbre, 1637
  • Nova geometricae clavis algebra, 1643
  • Tractatus de proportione harmonicae, 1658
  • Diophantus geometria sive opus contextum ex arithmetica et geometria simul, 1660
  • The Inventum Novum is in Fermat, Oeuvres, III (ed. By Paul Tannery ), Paris 1896, pp. 325–398

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ All of them are lost except for one. André Weil Number theory from Fer , p. 46.
personal data
SURNAME Billy, Jacques de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Jesuit, mathematician and astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1602
PLACE OF BIRTH Compiègne
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1679
Place of death Dijon