Jan Pieterszoon Dou
Jan Pieterszoon Dou (* 1572 or 1573 in Leiden ; † August 5, 1635 ) was a Dutch surveyor and mathematician .
Life
He was the son of a cooper (Pieter Adriaensz. Or Arentsz.). Nothing is known about his training, but he was mentioned as early as 1590 as assistant to the surveyor Pieter Bruyns and maker of maps of the Rijnland (an area southwest of Amsterdam that includes Leiden and Haarlem) with the Hollandse IJssel and the Haarlemmermeer . He was the official land surveyor of the Rijnland water board and the city of Leiden and was also responsible for measuring the wine barrels in Leiden and was a member of the vigilante group. More than 1150 cards are known from him. He also made plans for the city expansion of Leiden in 1611. In 1608 he was involved in the drainage measures of the Beemster and in plans for a canal from the high moor de Peel to the Maas as well as various dyke construction measures and measures to dike polders (such as the Soetermer). In 1619 he came into conflict with the authorities, as he was accused of having supported the preacher Adriaan van den Borre (1565-1630) , who was one of the Remonstrants . At that time there was a fierce dispute in the Reformed Church between Remonstrants (Arminians), who ultimately lost, and Contraremonstrants ( Franciscus Gomarus ) of the pure Calvinist doctrine, which also had political effects. He was threatened with loss of office and banishment from Leiden, but because of his services as a surveyor and geometer he got away with it again. He was arrested briefly after the attack on Prince Maurits in 1623, which the Remonstrants were charged with, and questioned sharply . But then he received orders from the city again. He died in 1635 in the plague epidemic in Leiden that killed over 10,000 people. In part, this was attributed to the poor condition of the canals that he had been working on.
In addition to his work as a surveyor, as a young man he studied arithmetic and geometry as an autodidact from books and in private lessons with Symon Fransz. van Merwen, who taught at the engineering school at Leiden University. He wrote books on the practice of land surveying and geometry. In 1606 he published the first Dutch edition of the first six books of the Elements of Euclid , in fairly free translation. As a template, he used the German edition of Guilielmus Xylanders (also very free, leaving out the evidence) and a French edition by Errard de Bar-le-Duc . His Euclid edition had many editions and was widely used as a school book.
Claes Jansz Vooght obtained the first complete Dutch edition in 1695. In between, Frans van Schooten also published a Dutch edition in 1617 (of 15 books of the elements) (expanded in 1662 by Jacob van Leest ).
Around 1610 he invented an instrument for land surveying, the Dutch compass , a full circle with a diameter of 20 to 30 cm, (also decimal) graduation and sights as well as a compass (from which height, sine, cosine could be read), which was both horizontal and vertical was used.
He was married twice. The first marriage in 1598 ended with the death of his wife Marytge Louris in 1603. Four years later he married again (Josina Sadelaer, born in 1583 from a well-off family of engravers in Ghent). The son Johannes Dou (1615–1682) was also a land surveyor as his father's successor and also a notary in Leiden.
Fonts
- Tractaet van 't maken ende bridged eens nieuw geordonneerden mathematical instrument. Amsterdam 1612, 1620 (Dutch Circle)
- The geometrya hat spot. 1592
- with Jan van Hout, Simon Fz. van Merwen, Ludolph van Ceulen , Math. Minten: Corte onderrichtinge dienende tot het maecken van de reductien van de jaercustingen totgereede penningen. Leiden 1599, reprinted in Haarlem 1879 (it also uses the calculation with decimal numbers , following the example of Simon Stevin )
- with Johan Sems: Practijck des Lantmetens. Leiden 1600, reprint Amsterdam 1612 (and 1620)
- This first bouquets Euclidis van de beginselen end of the foundation of geometry. Leiden 1606 (and Amsterdam 1626, 1701 and by Hendrik Coets 1702, Rotterdam 1632, 1647, 1681)
- Tractaet der roeden en landmaten. 1629 (treatise on measures and measures of land)
literature
- F. Westra: Jan Pietersz. Dou (1573-1635) - Invloedrijk landmeter van Rijnland. In: Caert-Thresoor. Volume 13, 1994, No. 2, pp. 37-48
- HC Pouls: De landmeter Jan Pietersz. Dou en de Hollandse Cirkel. Nederlandse Commissie voor Geodesie 41, Delft 2004 (102 pages)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Thomas Heath : The thirteen books of Euclid's Elements. Cambridge 1908, Volume 1, p. 108
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dou, Jan Pieterszoon |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Dutch mathematician and mathematician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1572 or 1573 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Suffer |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 5, 1635 |