Gassendi

Pierre Gassendi

Born: 22 Jan 1592 in Champtercier, Provence, France
Died: 24 Oct 1655 in Paris, France

Previous (Chronologically) Next     Biographies Index

Previous ( Alphabetically) Next          Welcome page
Pierre Gassendi received a doctorate in theology from Avignon and was ordained in 1615, one year later. Mersenne persuaded him to give up mathematics and theology in favour of philosophy.

Gassendi rejected Descartes' philosophy emphasising the inductive method. He believed in atomism and defended a mechanistic explanation of nature. Kepler had predicted a transit of Mercury would occur in 1631 and Gassendi was the first to observe such a transit. His Philosophical Treatise was published 3 years after his death.

Other Web sites:

Rice University, USA

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. A G Debus, Pierre Gassendi and his Scientific Expedition of 1640, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences 63 (1963), 133-134.
  4. Pierre Gassendi, sa vie et son oeuvre, Centre International de Synthèse (Paris, 1955).
  5. L S Joy, Gassendi the atomist : advocate of history in an age of science (Cambridge, 1987).
  6. A J Turner, Pierre Gassendi : astronomer and natural philosopher, Interdisciplinary science reviews 19 (1994), 135-139.
  7. B Brundell, Pierre Gassendi : from Aristotelianism to a new natural philosophy (Dordrecht, 1987).
Previous (Chronologically) Next     Biographies Index

Previous ( Alphabetically) Next          Welcome page

History Topics Index              Famous curves index

Chronologies                           Birthplace Map

Mathematicians of the day  Anniversaries for the year

Search Form   Simple Search Form   Search Suggestions
JOC/EFR February 1996