Johannes Buteo

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Johannes Buteo (also Jean Borrel ; * around 1492; † between 1564 and 1572) was a French mathematician .

Life

Buteo probably had around 20 siblings. His father François was Seigneur d'Expenel, who had noble German ancestors. Buteo decided to become a clergyman around 1508 and join the Abbey of St. Antoine . There he studied classical languages ​​and mathematics and soon learned to understand the original text of Euclid in the original Greek. In 1522 he went on to Paris, where he studied with Oronce Finé . In 1528 he returned to St. Antoine to resume his life as a monk. In the following period he was also abbot for two years.

During the Huguenot Wars in 1562, however, he had to flee to Romans-sur-Isère . He is said to have died there too.

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Opera geometrica , 1554

Buteo is best known today for his books. However, he did not publish his first works until he was over 60 and appeared relatively isolated as a mathematician. His book Geometrica was published in Lyon in 1554. It describes different mathematical topics in 15 articles. The first nine articles cover mechanical, arithmetic, and geometric problems. Among other things he takes up the solution of the cubes doubling by Michael Stifel and has its own approximate solution. The other six articles deal with mathematical problems that have their origins in law, such as the division of land and the division of inheritance.

In his next book De Quadraturi circuli , published in Lyon (1559), Buteo criticized the alleged exact solutions of contemporary mathematicians to square the circle (also his teacher Oronce Finé) and provides approximate solution of Bryson of Heraclea , Archimedes and Ptolemy is He deals with questions of notation and corrects the then widespread error that the author of the evidence in the elements of Euclid was Theon of Alexandria . In addition, the book began his argument with Jacques Peletier (in which Christophorus Clavius ​​also took part) over Proposition 16 in Book 3 of the Elements of Euclid, which deals with the angles that a tangent to a circle forms with the circle ( horn-shaped Angle ). He went into more detail in an apology in 1562.

The Logistica Buteos was his most influential work and was also published in Lyon in 1559. It is divided into five books: the first two Buteo deals with arithmetic , the third with algebra , which was applied to various problems in the fourth and fifth books, for example the solution of systems of linear equations and approximate solutions for square and Cube root.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ They only appear here in the Elements and have long been a starting point for discussions. Euclid showed that they are infinitesimal . The Archimedes' axiom served to exclude such quantities.
personal data
SURNAME Buteo, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Borrel, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH around 1492
DATE OF DEATH between 1564 and 1572