1637 in science

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The year 1637 in science and technology involved some significant events.

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Mathematics

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophie Germain</span> French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher

Marie-Sophie Germain was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Despite initial opposition from her parents and difficulties presented by society, she gained education from books in her father's library, including ones by Euler, and from correspondence with famous mathematicians such as Lagrange, Legendre, and Gauss. One of the pioneers of elasticity theory, she won the grand prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her essay on the subject. Her work on Fermat's Last Theorem provided a foundation for mathematicians exploring the subject for hundreds of years after. Because of prejudice against her sex, she was unable to make a career out of mathematics, but she worked independently throughout her life. Before her death, Gauss had recommended that she be awarded an honorary degree, but that never occurred. On 27 June 1831, she died from breast cancer. At the centenary of her life, a street and a girls' school were named after her. The Academy of Sciences established the Sophie Germain Prize in her honour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1665</span> Calendar year

1665 (MDCLXV) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar, the 1665th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 665th year of the 2nd millennium, the 65th year of the 17th century, and the 6th year of the 1660s decade. As of the start of 1665, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fermat's principle</span> Principle of least time

Fermat's principle, also known as the principle of least time, is the link between ray optics and wave optics. Fermat's principle states that the path taken by a ray between two given points is the path that can be traveled in the least time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrien-Marie Legendre</span> French mathematician (1752–1833)

Adrien-Marie Legendre was a French mathematician who made numerous contributions to mathematics. Well-known and important concepts such as the Legendre polynomials and Legendre transformation are named after him. He is also known for his contributions to the method of least squares, and was the first to officially publish on it, though Carl Friedrich Gauss had discovered it before him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis de Broglie</span> Nobel Laureate physicist (1892–1987)

Louis Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie was a French aristocrat and physicist who made groundbreaking contributions to quantum theory. In his 1924 PhD thesis, he postulated the wave nature of electrons and suggested that all matter has wave properties. This concept is known as the de Broglie hypothesis, an example of wave–particle duality, and forms a central part of the theory of quantum mechanics.

In number theory, Fermat's little theorem states that if p is a prime number, then for any integer a, the number apa is an integer multiple of p. In the notation of modular arithmetic, this is expressed as

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frans van Schooten</span> Dutch mathematician (1615–1660)

Frans van Schooten Jr. also rendered as Franciscus van Schooten was a Dutch mathematician who is most known for popularizing the analytic geometry of René Descartes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude Gaspar Bachet de Méziriac</span> French mathematician (1581–1638)

Claude Gaspar Bachet Sieur de Méziriac was a French mathematician and poet born in Bourg-en-Bresse, at that time belonging to Duchy of Savoy. He wrote Problèmes plaisans et délectables qui se font par les nombres, Les éléments arithmétiques, and a Latin translation of the Arithmetica of Diophantus. He also discovered means of solving indeterminate equations using continued fractions, a method of constructing magic squares, and a proof of Bézout's identity.

The year 1749 in science and technology involved some significant events.

The year 1736 in science and technology involved some significant events.

The year 1630 in science and technology involved some significant events.

The year 1640 in science and technology involved some significant events.

The year 1636 in science and technology involved some significant events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugène Charles Catalan</span> French-Belgian mathematician

Eugène Charles Catalan was a French and Belgian mathematician who worked on continued fractions, descriptive geometry, number theory and combinatorics. His notable contributions included discovering a periodic minimal surface in the space ; stating the famous Catalan's conjecture, which was eventually proved in 2002; and introducing the Catalan numbers to solve a combinatorial problem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Tannery</span> French mathematician (1843–1904)

Paul Tannery was a French mathematician and historian of mathematics. He was the older brother of mathematician Jules Tannery, to whose Notions Mathématiques he contributed an historical chapter. Though Tannery's career was in the tobacco industry, he devoted his evenings and his life to the study of mathematicians and mathematical development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Orléans</span> French university in Orléans created in 1966

The University of Orléans is a French university, in the Academy of Orléans and Tours. As of July 2015 it is a member of the regional university association Leonardo da Vinci consolidated University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre de Fermat</span> French mathematician and lawyer

Pierre de Fermat was a French mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he is recognized for his discovery of an original method of finding the greatest and the smallest ordinates of curved lines, which is analogous to that of differential calculus, then unknown, and his research into number theory. He made notable contributions to analytic geometry, probability, and optics. He is best known for his Fermat's principle for light propagation and his Fermat's Last Theorem in number theory, which he described in a note at the margin of a copy of Diophantus' Arithmetica. He was also a lawyer at the Parlement of Toulouse, France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fermat's Last Theorem</span> 17th-century conjecture proved by Andrew Wiles in 1994

In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem states that no three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation an + bn = cn for any integer value of n greater than 2. The cases n = 1 and n = 2 have been known since antiquity to have infinitely many solutions.

Adequality is a technique developed by Pierre de Fermat in his treatise Methodus ad disquirendam maximam et minimam to calculate maxima and minima of functions, tangents to curves, area, center of mass, least action, and other problems in calculus. According to André Weil, Fermat "introduces the technical term adaequalitas, adaequare, etc., which he says he has borrowed from Diophantus. As Diophantus V.11 shows, it means an approximate equality, and this is indeed how Fermat explains the word in one of his later writings.". Diophantus coined the word παρισότης (parisotēs) to refer to an approximate equality. Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac translated Diophantus's Greek word into Latin as adaequalitas. Paul Tannery's French translation of Fermat’s Latin treatises on maxima and minima used the words adéquation and adégaler.

Cornelis de Waard was a Dutch mathematics teacher and a historian who specialized in researching science and mathematics of the seventeenth century.

References

  1. Crilly, Tony (2007). 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know. London: Quercus. p. 68. ISBN   978-1-84724-008-8.