Pierre Rémond de Montmort

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Pierre Rémond de Montmort (born October 27, 1678 in Paris ; † October 7, 1719 ibid) was a French mathematician who is considered a pioneer of probability theory .

Life

De Montmort was the second of three sons in a noble family and, according to his father, François Rémond, was to become a lawyer. Instead, when he was eighteen, he left his parents' home and traveled through Europe, England, the Netherlands and Germany, where he visited a relative (Monsieur de Chamois) who was the French envoy in Regensburg . In 1699 he was reconciled with his father and began to study under Nicolas Malebranche , in particular philosophy, physics (in the tradition of Descartes ) and mathematics. After his father's death a year later, he was financially independent. In 1700 he visited London again, where he met Isaac Newton . He was a Catholic and, at the instigation of his brother, who previously held this position, was canon at Notre Dame de Paris in 1700 , but gave up his ecclesiastical position in 1706 in order to marry. He had previously bought a castle (Château de Montmort) in Montmort-Lucy in 1704 , which is why he adopted the name de Montmort . The castle is located 120 km east of Paris in the Marne department and is still owned by the de Montmorts.

He did mathematical studies. He became known through his book Essay d'analysis sur les jeux de hazard from 1708, which dealt with the application of combinatorial considerations, as they occur in elementary probability theory, to gambling, in particular a card game called treize . No author's name is mentioned in the book, but Montmort freely gave it away so that its authorship was well known. The inspiration for the book came from previous investigations by Christian Huygens (1657, in the edition by Frans van Schooten ), Blaise Pascal and references to the then unpublished book Ars conjectandi by Jakob I Bernoulli in his obituaries (he died 1705). The Book of Montmort encouraged Abraham de Moivre to treat the topic more thoroughly (published in 1718, a previous version as early as 1711), which is why there was a dispute over priority - Montmort attacked him sharply in the new edition of his book in 1713. The dispute was later settled peacefully and Montmort even tried to start a correspondence with de Moivre (he sent him some mathematical papers in 1715 to be published). Montmort's book also led to connections with well-known mathematicians such as Nikolaus I Bernoulli , who stayed at his castle for three months in 1713. His letters were included in the new edition of Montmort's book, which in turn inspired Nikolaus Bernoulli to publish the almost complete manuscript of his uncle's Ars Conjectandi when he died (the book is considered a milestone in probability theory). He was also friends with Brook Taylor and corresponded with Leibniz , Jakob Hermann , John Craig , Edmond Halley and Giovanni Poleni . So at that time he was on good terms with both sides in the violent priority dispute between Newton and Leibniz, which split the mathematicians of Europe into two camps. He died during a chickenpox epidemic.

In 1715 he was on a visit to England (he observed a solar eclipse with Edmond Halley, among others) Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1716 an associate member of the Académie des Sciences . Since he did not live in Paris, he could not become a full member.

He also named Pascal's triangle after Blaise Pascal . The knight problem in chess, later dealt with by Leonhard Euler (1759), was dealt with by de Montmort, as was by de Moivre. In his book there is also a sentence of the difference calculation , which was rediscovered by Christian Goldbach in 1718. The method was also the subject of a book from 1717 by François Nicole (1683–1758), with whom de Montmort was friends since studying mathematics together in Paris.

Jumper problem: Rémond de Montmort's solution
1 38 31 44 3 46 29 42
32 35 2 39 30th 43 4th 47
37 8th 33 26th 45 6th 41 28
34 25th 36 7th 40 27 48 5
9 60 17th 56 11 52 19th 50
24 57 10 63 18th 49 12 53
61 16 59 22nd 55 14th 51 20th
58 23 62 15th 64 21st 54 13

In addition to his book on gambling, he published only one treatise on infinite series ( De seriebus infinitis tractatus , Transactions Royal Society, Volume 30, 1720, pp. 633-675), with an appendix by Brook Taylor.

He was married to Mademoiselle de Romicourt, the niece of the Duchess of Angouleme, who lived in the neighborhood of Montmort. The marriage is said to have been happy. The Duchess lived in Montmort Castle from 1710 until her death.

Fonts

Essay d'analysis sur les jeux de hazard , 1713

literature

  • Ian Hacking: Montmort, Pierre Rémond de . In: Charles Coulston Gillispie (Ed.): Dictionary of Scientific Biography . tape 9 : AT Macrobius - KF Naumann . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1974, p. 499-500 .
  • Éloge de M. de Montmort , in: Histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences pour l'année 1719 (1721), pp. 83-93.

Web links

Commons : Pierre Rémond de Montmort  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Moritz Cantor Lectures on the History of Mathematics , Volume 3, p. 334
  2. ↑ Official website for the castle
  3. ↑ Not even in the second edition, but there are clear indications there, for example through the printed correspondence
  4. ^ Moritz Cantor Lectures on the History of Mathematics , Volume 3, p. 349
  5. ^ Letter from Nikolaus Bernoulli to Leibniz, April 7, 1713, quoted in Moritz Cantor's Lectures on the History of Mathematics , Volume 3, p. 334
  6. ^ The correspondence is printed in Brook Taylor Contemplatio philosophica , London 1793
  7. ↑ De Montmort had sent him both editions of his book. Leibniz was also in correspondence with de Montmort's brother, Nicolas Rémond in Paris. Moritz Cantor Lectures on the History of Mathematics , Volume 3, p. 355
  8. ^ Hacking in Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  9. ↑ It can also be found in a Sanskrit poem from the 9th century (Kavyalankara) by Rudrata , but also in a codex from the 14th century in the Paris National Library. Von der Linde History and Literature of the Chess Game , Berlin 1874, Volume 2, Ahrens Mathematical Entertainments and Games , Teubner 1901, p. 165. WW Rouse Ball Mathematical recreations and essays , Macmillan 1905, p. 168ff. Rouse Ball cites Jacques Ozanam's books on entertaining mathematics , which provide clues to de Moivre and de Montmort's solutions. Euler was not aware of previous references, he found out about them during a conversation.
  10. ^ Rouse Ball, Chapter The development of analysis on the continent in Short account of the history of mathematics , 4th edition 1908
  11. ↑ Jacques Sesiano: Euler et le parcours du cavalier . Avec une annexe sur le théorème des polyèdes. Presses Polytechniques et Univérsitaires Romandes, Lausanne 2015, ISBN 978-2-88074-857-9 , pp. 169 (French, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed October 7, 2019] Figure "Fig. 258").
  12. ^ Hacking in Dictionary of Scientific Biography
personal data
SURNAME Montmort, Pierre Rémond de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1678
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1719
Place of death Paris