Marin Mersenne
Born: 8 Sept 1588 in Oize in Maine, France
Died: 1 Sept 1648 in Paris, France
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Mersenne is best known for his role as a clearing house for correspondence between eminent philosophers and scientists and for his work in number theory.
Mersenne joined the religious order of the Minims in 1611 and taught philosophy at the Minim convent at Nevers. His cell in Paris became a meeting place for Fermat, Pascal, Gassendi, Roberval, Beaugrand and others who later became the core of the French Academy. Mersenne corresponded with other eminent mathematicians and he played a major role in communicating mathematical knowledge throughout Europe at a time when there were no scientific journals.
Mersenne investigated prime numbers and he tried to find a formula that would represent all primes. Although he failed in this, his work on numbers of the form
2
- 1, p prime
has been of continuing interest in the investigation of large primes.
It is easy to prove that if the number n = 2-1 is prime then p must be a prime.
In 1644 Mersenne claimed that n is prime if p = 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 31, 67, 127 and 257 but composite for the other 44 primes smaller than 257.
Over the years it has been found that Mersenne was wrong about 5 of the primes less than or equal to 257 (he claimed one that didn't lead to a prime (67) and missed 4 that did: 61, 89, 107, 257).
Mersenne defended Descartes and Galileo against theological criticism and struggled to expose the pseudo sciences of alchemy and astrology. He continued some of Galileo's work in acoustics and stimulated some of Galileo's own later discoveries. He proposed the use of the pendulum as a timing device to Huygens, thus inspiring the first pendulum clock.
In 1634 Mersenne published Les Méchanique de Galilée which was a version of Galileo's lectures on mechanics. He translated parts of Galileo's Dialogo into French and in 1639 he published a transation of Galileo's Discorsi . It is through Mersenne that Galileo's work became known outside Italy.
Two important publications in mathematical physics were L'Harmonie Universelle (1636) and Cogitata Physico-Mathematica (1644).
After his death letters in his cell were found from 78 different correspondents including Fermat, Huygens, Pell, Galileo and Torricelli.
References elsewhere in this archive:
Tell me about Mersenne and Number Theory
References:
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