Jan Jansz de Jonge Stampioen

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Stampioen by Adrianus Cocquius 1638

Jan Jansz de Jonge Stampioen , or Jan Jansz Stampioen the Younger, (* 1610 in Rotterdam , † 1653 in Arras ) was a Dutch mathematician .

Life

His father was a surveyor , cartographer and manufacturer of astronomical instruments . Stampioen taught mathematics in Rotterdam and published a treatise on spherical trigonometry in 1632 (in two books, one with a new edition of Frans van Schooten's 1627 sine tables ). It shows influences from Albert Girard . In 1638 he went to The Hague as a teacher to Prince Wilhelm II (Orange) . He also opened a print shop and bookstore there, where he published his own mathematical treatises.

In 1639 he published a book on algebra ( Algebra ofte Nieuwe Stelregel ), which also dealt with cubic equations according to Niccolò Tartaglia and Gerolamo Cardano , and a treatise in which he addressed a problem that he had previously posed under a pseudonym (Johan Baptista from Antwerp) led to the solution of a cubic equation, solved. One of the problems posed also led to a dispute with the land surveyor Jacob Waessenaer from Utrecht and René Descartes , who did not speak well about Stampioen, as he challenged him in 1632 with a geometric problem that led to the solution of an equation of the fourth degree and Descartes had rejected the solution. Waessenaer was a protégé of Descartes and through him Descartes launched a criticism of the algebra textbook by Stampioen, which was similar to the geometry of Descartes, had been published by the same publisher and in which he challenged Descartes own methods. The dispute dragged on for two years. Stampioen finally challenged Waessenaer with a bet of 600 guilders to solve a problem (the proceeds should go to the poor in Leiden). The arbitrators (including Frans van Schooten, Jacob Golius ) decided in 1640 in favor of Waessenaer.

Descartes also expresses himself disparagingly in letters to Constantijn Huygens about Stampioen and describes him as a charlatan and mediocre mathematician.

In 1644 he became the teacher of Christian Huygens and his brother Constantijn. He also taught Elisabeth von der Pfalz , daughter of the "Winter King" Friedrich V and later abbess in Herford. In addition to his books and pamphlets, some of his cards are known. In 1651 he went to the Spanish Netherlands and worked for the governor Leopold Wilhelm of Austria .

He is sometimes confused with his father of the same name, a cartographer, or with his son Nicolaes Stampioen , who in 1689 was a member of a commission that judged submitted solutions to the longitude problem (which is why death was sometimes suspected after 1689). Stampioen died in a powder explosion in Arras in 1653. This emerges from a notarial declaration in Rotterdam in 1681 and he is also described as deceased in his father's will in 1660.

literature

  • Michael S. Mahoney , Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  • C de Waard, Nieuw nederlandsch biographical woordenboek 1912, online
  • Pierre Costabel : Descartes et la racine cubique des nombres binômes, Rev. Histoire Sci. Appl., Vol. 22, 1969, pp. 97-116, online
  • David Bierens de Haan Bouwstoffen voor de geschiedenis the wis- en naturalistic wetenschappen in de Nederlanden , Vers. Med. Kon. Akad. Wet., 1887
  • Henri Bosmans : L'auteur principal de l '"onwissen wiskonstenaer. J. STAMPIOENIUS discovered by Jacobus A WESSENAER »(Leyde 1640), Mathesis, Volume 41, 1927, Supplement, pp. 1-29 (excerpt from Revue des Questions Scientifique, January 1927), online

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edited by Léon Roth (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1926), the passages on Stampioen are cited in the article by Henri Bosmans (see literature).
  2. ↑ De Waard, Nederl. Woordenboek
  3. ^ Mahoney, Dictionary Scientific Biography
personal data
SURNAME Stampioen, Jan Jansz de Jonge
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jan Jansz Stampioen the Younger
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH 1610
PLACE OF BIRTH Rotterdam
DATE OF DEATH 1653
Place of death Arras