Lorenzo Mascheroni

Lorenzo Mascheroni (born May 13, 1750 near Bergamo , † July 14, 1800 in Paris ) was an Italian clergyman and mathematician .

Life

Mascheroni was the son of a wealthy landowner and was ordained at the age of 17. Then he taught rhetoric and from 1778 physics and mathematics at the seminary in Bergamo. In 1786 Mascheroni became a mathematics professor at the University of Pavia after making a name for himself with a book on statics . In 1789 he became rector of the university for four years. From 1788 to 1791 he was in charge of the Accademia degli Affidati. He was one of the scholars invited to Paris to discuss the metric system and died there.

In 1790 he published in his work Adnotationes ad calculum integralem Euleri some integral representations of the Euler-Mascheroni constant and calculated them to 32 decimal places, of which, however, the places 20 to 22 are incorrectly indicated (probably due to a transmission error). He did not described the constant, as is often claimed, with γ, but only with A . The origin of the term γ is an open problem. ${\ displaystyle \ gamma = \ lim _ {n \ to \ infty} \ left (1 + {\ tfrac {1} {2}} + {\ tfrac {1} {3}} + \ ldots + {\ tfrac { 1} {n}} - \ ln n \ right)}$

In 1797 (Geometria del compasso) he proved that all geometrical constructions with compasses and rulers could also be carried out with compasses alone. Georg Mohr had already proven the same theorem 120 years earlier , but his proof had been forgotten, so that the statement is now named after both mathematicians as the Mohr-Mascheroni theorem .

He made significant contributions to the statics of vaults.

He also tried his hand at poetry with strongly mythologizing poems such as Invito di Dafni Orobiano a Lesbia Cidonia .

Fonts

La geometria del compasso , 1797

Nuove ricerche sull'equilibrio delle volte , Bergamo 1785; New edition Giovanni Silvestri, Milan 1829 (Italian; with picture; on Google Books: [1] )
Adnotationes ad calculum integralem Euleri / In quibus nonnulla Problemata ab Eulero proposita resolvuntur . Petrus Galeatius, Ticini 1790–1792 (Latin; “A = 0.577215 664901 532860 618112 090082 39” on p. 23; on Google Books: [2] ); Reprint: Leonhardi Euleri Opera Omnia Ser. 1 Vol. 12., Teubner, Leipzig 1915, pp. 415-542
Problemi per gli agrimensori con varie soluzioni
La Geometria del Compasso , Pavia 1797; New edition Era Nova, Palermo 1901 (Italian; in the Internet archive: [3] , [4] )
Poetry edite ed inedite di Lorenzo Mascheroni , Pietro Bizzoni, Pavia 1823 (Italian; 2nd edition; on Google Books: [5] , [6] )
JP Gruson (Ed.): L. Mascheroni's use of the circle translated from Italian into French by Mr. AM Carette , Schlesinger, Berlin 1825 (German translation by Geometria del Compasso , 1797; on Google Books: [7] )
Aloisio Fantoni (Ed.): Poesie di Lorenzo Mascheroni. Raccolte da 'suoi manoscritti , Felice Le Monnier, Firenze (Florence) 1863 (Italian; on Google Books: [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] )
Invito a Lesbia Cidonia ed altre poesie , Edoardo Sonzogno, Milano (Milan) 1887 (in the Internet archive: [12] ); New edition: L'Invito a Lesbia Cidonia e altre poesie , Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, Torino (Turin) 1915 (Italian; with picture by Mascheroni; in the Internet archive: [13] )
Poetry e prose italiane e latine edite ed inedite , Istituto italiano d'arti grafiche, Bergamo 1903 (Italian; in the Internet archive: [14] )

literature

Luigi Pepe: Mascheroni, Lorenzo. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 71: Marsilli – Massimino da Salerno. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2008.

Web links

Commons : Lorenzo Mascheroni - Collection of images, videos and audio files

John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson : Lorenzo Mascheroni. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
mascheroni and "rusty compass" designs by Alfred Hoehn

Individual evidence

↑ Edoardo Benvenuto: An introduction to the history of structural mechanics , Springer 1991, Volume 2, p. 412ff
^ Karl-Eugen Kurrer : The History of the Theory of Structures. Searching for Equilibrium . Ernst & Sohn , Berlin 2018, pp. 32, 225, 266 and. P. 1029 (biography), ISBN 978-3-433-03229-9 .

personal data
SURNAME	Mascheroni, Lorenzo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Italian mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH	May 13, 1750
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bergamo
DATE OF DEATH	July 14, 1800
Place of death	Paris

[1] Edoardo Benvenuto: An introduction to the history of structural mechanics , Springer 1991, Volume 2, p. 412ff

[2] Karl-Eugen Kurrer : The History of the Theory of Structures. Searching for Equilibrium . Ernst & Sohn , Berlin 2018, pp. 32, 225, 266 and. P. 1029 (biography), ISBN 978-3-433-03229-9 .