Pierre de Carcavi

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Pierre de Carcavi (* around 1600 or around 1605 ; † 1684 in Paris ) was a French mathematician and royal librarian in Paris, correspondent of Pierre de Fermat and other leading scientists of his time.

Life

Different dates of birth are mentioned in the literature. In a letter of justification for allegations related to his dismissal as the king's librarian dated November 14, 1683, he states that he is 80 years old. Lyon is often given as the place of birth. According to the Fermat researcher Klaus Barner, on the other hand, he may have been born in 1606, knew Pierre de Fermat before his time in Toulouse (probably from studying together in Orléans) and was probably not born in Lyon, as is often written, but probably in Cahors . His father Jean de Carcavi had immigrated to Cahors from Lombardy via Lyon. He was an important banker (money changer) and general tenant for the provinces of Languedoc, Guyenne and Lyonnais.

Carcavi must have studied civil law due to his career path (nothing is known about a university education) and was a judge at one of the chambres des enquêtes of the Parlement de Toulouse from 1632 to 1636 , where he cultivated his long-standing friendship with Fermat. In 1634 he visited Italy. In 1636 he became councilor at the Grand Conseil of Paris (he bought the job with his father's help), but had to sell the job in 1648 to pay his bankrupt father's debts. After that he was a bookseller for a while. He was able to get a position in the vicinity of the Duke of Liancourt Roger du Plessis, Duc de Liancourt , for whom he worked until 1663. He was involved in 1648 on a trip to Italy (during which he secretly spied for France) in the unsuccessful attempt of the Duke of Guise Henri II. De Lorraine, duc de Guise , to wrest power in Naples from the Spaniards.

Carcavi had a central position among the scientists in Paris, especially as a mediator and contact person for scientists outside Paris. Not insignificant was his affable character and his ability to make friends. Until his death in 1648 he belonged to the circle around Marin Mersenne , in the continuation of his academy by Jacques Le Pailleur , and was later a member of the academy of Henri Louis Habert de Montmor (which met from 1654).

In Paris, Carcavi had close contacts with Gilles Personne de Roberval , made friends with Blaise Pascal and corresponded with scientists such as Galileo Galilei (among other things through his trap experiments in 1637), Christian Huygens (who had his contact with Fermat through Carcavi), René Descartes (dem For example, after the death of Mersenne, he offered his correspondence, in 1649 reported Pascal's air pressure experiments and Roberval's objections to the geometry of Descartes) and Evangelista Torricelli . Fermat sent him many of his writings and also intended to have some published about Carcavi, but this did not materialize, although Carcavi contacted both Pascal and Huygens about it (hardly anything was printed by Fermat during his lifetime). He also served as a mediator between Pascal and Fermat. Pascal sent him his calculating machine and used him with Roberval as arbiter for a mathematical price problem about the cycloid that Pascal advertised in 1658.

In 1645 he was involved in one of the disputes about the attempts to prove the square of the circle . The Danish astronomer Longomontanus said he had found a method, which John Pell denied. Carcavi sent Pell a refutation letter, arguing that it is impossible to square the circle.

In 1663 he received the patronage of Jean-Baptiste Colbert , the successor of Cardinal Mazarin, who died in 1661 . Carcavi had cataloged the Mazarin library to Colbert's satisfaction and received the post of royal librarian through him in 1663, which he remained until shortly before his death. He ran the business with a hard hand and was therefore also called Cerberus of the Bibliothèque Royale . Under his leadership, the Bibliothèque Royale was expanded considerably through acquisitions. He was also a founding member of the Académie des sciences in 1666 and played an important role in it in its early years. For example, he corresponded on behalf of the academy with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , who presented his calculating machine to the academy in 1675. The Royal Library was also the Academy's first meeting point.

In 1668 Colbert appointed him one of the members of a commission (which also included Huygens, Roberval, Adrien Auzout , Jean Picard , Jean Gallois ) that was supposed to evaluate a proposal for longitude determination that a German nobleman (R. de Neystt) sent in. On June 6, 1668, the commission rejected the proceedings.

His last year of life was obscured by an indictment by Colbert's successor François Michel Le Tellier de Louvois , who accused him of embezzling medals from the king's collection in particular (he was also responsible for the medal collection). There was no evidence, however, and Carcavi was officially dismissed as a librarian because of his old age in 1683 and died soon after. His successor as librarian and member of the academy was Gallois.

In 1638 he married Louise de Chaponay from an influential family in Lyon against the wishes of her parents (Humbert de Chaponay, director of the Bourbonnais , and Éléonore de Villares), whom she temporarily violated. He had a son, Abbé Charles-Alexandre de Carcavi (or Carcavy, died 1723).

literature

  • Hubert LL Busard : Article de Carcavi in Dictionary of Scientific Biography , Online
  • Charles Henry: Pierre de Carcavy, intermediaire de Fermat, de Pascal, et de Huygens , Bollettino di Bibliografia e storia delle scienze mathematiche e fisiche, Volume 17, 1884, pp. 317-391.
  • Pierre Costabel: Pierre de Carcavy et ses relations italiennes , in M. Bucciantini, M. Torrini (editor) Geometria e atomismo nella scuola galileiana , Florence 1992, pp. 35-48.
  • Thierry Sarmant: Le Cabinet des médailles de la Bibliothèque nationale, 1661-1848 , Paris, École nationale des chartes, 1994
  • Simone Balayé: La Bibliothèque nationale des origines à 1800 , Geneva: Droz 1988

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Suzanne Solent Nouveaux détails sur les manuscrits de Pierre de Carcavi , Bibliothèque de l´Ecole des Chartres, Volume 111, 1953, p. 136.
  2. ↑ He appears as a witness in Fermat's marriage contract of February 18, 1631. (Archives départementales de la Haute Garonne, Minutier, 3E 6070, 2e partie, ff. 376–378)
  3. ↑ Biographical information, Center de Recherches du Chateau de Versailles
  4. ^ André Weil Number theory. An approach through history , Birkhäuser 1984
  5. ↑ Suzanne Solent Nouveaux détails sur les manuscrits de Pierre de Carcavi , Bibliothèque de l'Ecole of Chartres, vol 111, 1953, pp 124-139, with impression of a letter from Carcavi from Rome in 1648 on the events in Italy. He was in Italy also on Ragusa in Sicily.
  6. ↑ When Carcavi defended Roberval's position in the course of the correspondence, Descartes broke with Carcavi at the end of 1649
  7. ↑ So in 1637 his Isagoge ad locos planos et solidos of 1636, in which he developed analytic geometry before the publication of Descartes' book
  8. ↑ Among other things, Novus secundarum et ulterioris radicum in analyticis usus , which he sent to him in 1650
  9. ↑ Huygens promised to get Elsevier in Amsterdam published in 1659, but was apparently annoyed by further work by Fermat that Carcavi sent him, as it contained results that Huygens had already proven
  10. ↑ He came into contact with Colbert through the mediation of Abbé Amable de Bourzeis , who also worked for Liancourt. In addition to building the library, he organized large-scale copying of documents for Colbert and sifted through Mazarin's estate. Until 1669 he was also responsible for Colbert's library, which he gave to Etienne Baluze.
personal data
SURNAME Carcavi, Pierre de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French mathematician and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH around 1600 or around 1605
DATE OF DEATH 1684
Place of death Paris