Oresme

Nicole d' Oresme

Born: 1323 in Allemagne, France
Died: 11 July 1382 in Lisieux, France

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After studying theology in Paris Oresme was bursar in the University of Paris, then canon and later dean of Rouen. In 1370 he was appointed chaplain to King Charles V and advised him on financial matters.

Oresme invented coordinate geometry before Descartes, finding the logical equivalence between tabulating values and graphing them. He proposed the use of a graph for plotting a variable magnitude whose value depends on another. It is possible that Descartes was influenced by Oresme's work since it was reprinted several times over 100 years after its first publication. Oresme also worked on infinite series.

Another work by Oresme contains the first use of a fractional exponent, although, of course, not in modern notation. Oresme also opposed the theory of a stationary Earth as proposed by Aristotle and taught motion of the Earth, 200 years before Copernicus.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. O Pederson, Nicole Oresme (Copenhagen, 1956).
  3. G W Coopland, Nicole Oresme and the Astrologers: A Study of His "Livre de divinacions" (1952).
  4. E Grant, Nicole Oresme and the Commensurability or Incommensurability of Celestial Motions, Archive for History of Exact Sciences 1 (1961), 420- .
  5. H-J Ilgauds, Nicole Oresme, in H Wussing and W Arnold, Biographien bedeutender Mathematiker (Berlin, 1983).
  6. M Clagett, Nicole Oresme and the Medieval Geometry of Quantities and Motions (Madison, 1968). 
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