Varignon

Pierre Varignon

Born: 1654 in Caen, France
Died: 23 Dec 1722 in Paris, France

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Varignon was professor of mathematics at the Collège Mazarin and later at the Collège Royal. Led into mathematics by reading Euclid, he read Descartes' Géométrie and thereafter devoted himself to mathematical sciences.

Varignon's chief contributions were to graphical statics and mechanics. He was one of the first French scholars to recognise the value of the calculus and developed analytic dynamics by adapting Leibniz's calculus to the inertial mechanics of Newton's Principia .

Other Web sites:

Rice University, USA

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. B de Fontenelle, Éloge de M Varignon, Histoire et mémoires de l'Académie des sciences 1722 (1722-23), 189-204. 
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