Philip Jourdain

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Philip Edward Bertrand Jourdain (born October 16, 1879 in Ashbourne , Derbyshire , † October 1, 1919 in Crookham , Hampshire ) was an English mathematician.

Jourdain was the son of a country pastor and attended Cambridge University from 1898 after his school days in Cheltenham . Even in his youth he was handicapped by a severe, slowly progressing nervous disease ( Friedreich's ataxia ), which also impaired his studies and from which he finally died. He attended logic courses with Bertrand Russell , who had a strong influence on him. In a series of works between 1906 and 1913 he dealt with Georg Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers and formulated a number of paradoxes. A version of the liar's paradox (the card paradox ) is named after him: One card says that the sentence on the back of the card is true - but it says: The sentence on the other side is false. He also published a number of essays on the fundamentals of mechanics and their principles of variation, the fundamentals of probability theory (published in Mind ), the application of logic in physics and the history of mathematics, with his knowledge of foreign languages ​​benefiting him. He was considered an expert on Isaac Newton and planned a new edition of his works. Jourdain was editor of the philosophical journal The Monist and the International of Ethics . From 1913 he was the European editor of the Open Court Publishing Company . In 1915 he married.

The principle of virtual performance in mechanics is named after him.

literature

  • Ivor Grattan-Guinness : Jourdain . In Dictionary of Scientific Biography .
  • L. Jourdain, George Sarton : Philip EB Jourdain, 1879-1919 . In: Isis 5, 1923, pp. 126–136, with bibliography and portrait.
  • Philip EB Jourdain: Selected essays on the history of set theory and logics. (1906-1918) . Ed. by Ivor Grattan-Guinness. Ed. CLUEB, Bologna 1991, ( Instrumenta rationis 6, ZDB -ID 2374170-3 ).
  • Philip EB Jourdain: The nature of mathematics . TC & EC Jack, London 1912, ( The people's books 94).
  • Ivor Grattan-Guinness: Dear Russell - dear Jourdain. A commentary on Russell's Logic, based on his Correspondence with Philip Jourdain . Columbia University Press, New York 1977.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Grattan-Guinness in Dauben, Scriba (ed.) Writing the history of mathematics , 2002, indicates Fleet, Hampshire
personal data
SURNAME Jourdain, Philip
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jourdain, Philip Edward Bertrand (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Ashbourne , Derbyshire , England
DATE OF DEATH October 1, 1919
Place of death Crookham , Hampshire , England