Joseph Saurin

Joseph Saurin ( born September 1, 1659 Courthézon in the Principality of Orange, † December 29, 1737 in Paris) was a French mathematician and converted Protestant minister.

At first he was like his father, a Protestant theologian and preacher of the church should be your in the Dauphiné, but was forced to flee in 1683 to Geneva because of the persecution of Protestants under Louis XIV. In Switzerland, he first stood in front of the parish Berchier, later the parish of Yverdon. But he also felt in Switzerland focus - probably because he had refused to sign the Consensus Helveticus or because he was accused of stealing - and returned in 1690 via Holland to Paris, where he Catholic under the influence of Jacques Bénigne Bossuet to Church entered. For this he received a pension from Louis XIV of 1500 livres, which he used to devote himself to mathematics.

Saurin was dedicated to the then new calculus. He was one of the editors of the Journal of sçavans in which he published many mathematical works. He dealt with the calculus of variations, the treatment of gravity in the physical system of Descartes and the determination of tangents, which he determined the tangents at the double points of algebraic curves.

He was accused in 1712 by Jean -Baptiste Rousseau, to his real author people high derogatory verses that were rumored to be attributed to Rousseau, because they resembled earlier poems by Rousseau. Rousseau argued about it with Saurin in court that not only Saurin acquitted at the end, but Rousseau sentenced for false accusation and as the author of the verses to perpetual exile from France.

Joseph Saurin was a member of the Académie des sciences and the father of Bernard- Joseph Saurin.