Francesco Faà di Bruno
Faa di Francesco Bruno ( born March 29, 1825 Alessandria, † March 27, 1888 in Turin ) was an Italian officer, mathematician, engineer, inventor, educator, composer and clergyman. He is Seliger of the Catholic Church.
Childhood and youth
Francesco da Paola Virginio Secondo Maria Faà di Bruno came from a Piedmontese noble family. He was the twelfth and last child of Luigi, marchese di Bruno and Carolina Sappa de ' Milanesi. His brother Emilio was a naval officer and fell at the Battle of Lissa. 1834, at the age of nine, he lost his mother. From 1836 he attended the School of Somaschi in Novi Ligure. In 1840 he joined the Turin Military Academy.
Military career
As an officer of the army of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, he was entrusted with geopolitical and cartographic tasks. In 1848 he took part in the First Italian War of Independence and fought at Peschiera. In 1849 he was promoted to captain of the general staff. In the Battle of Novara he was wounded and decorated for bravery.
The army sent him to further study of mathematics and astronomy to Paris at the Sorbonne. In 1853 he asked to study at the farewell and left the army. Reasons of conscience he had refused to duel with an officer who had insulted him.
Scientific career
He studied under Augustin Louis Cauchy, Charles Hermite was his fellow student. In 1855, he began working at the Paris Observatory under Urbain Le Verrier. Since 1857, he taught at the University of Turin, where he was appointed associate professor in 1876.
He dealt with many areas of mathematics, for example, with the invariant theory and elliptic functions. The eponymous formula of Faa di Bruno ( that he is not the first aufstellte and also not the first proved ) is a generalization of the chain rule.
In addition, he also worked as an engineer and inventor. He was involved in the construction of the tower of the church of Santa Zita Turin, advanced scientific instruments and has patented several inventions.
Clergyman, musician and educator
Faa di Bruno his life was deeply religious. As a member of the military, he wrote a manual of Christian soldiers. Although he welcomed the Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, but was unhappy about their anticlerical orientation. He was a magazine about sacred music, La Lira Cattolica, out and was itself active as a composer of sacred music pieces.
He was involved in many social projects that catered primarily to the education and care of maids. This led to a 1881 order of nuns, the Minime di Nostra Signora del Suffrage ( lesser Sisters of Our Lady of Intercession for the poor souls), which was however only in 1893, after his death, officially recognized by the Church. He was a friend of Don Bosco and was ordained priest on 22 October 1876.
He suddenly died of an intestinal infection. One hundred years after his death, on September 25, 1988, he was beatified by John Paul II.
Works
He has published about 40 papers in prestigious mathematical journals ( Crelle Journal, Journal de Mathématiques, American Journal of Mathematics, Comptes rendus de l' Académie des Sciences, and others). He is the author of the following books:
- Théorie générale de l' élimination, Paris, 1859
- Calcolo degli errori, Turin, 1867; French translation Traité du calcul élémentaire of erreurs, Paris, 1869
- Théorie des formes binaires, Paris, 1876
A planned multi-volume work on elliptic functions was unfinished at the time of his death.