Marin Mersenne

Marin Mersenne ( born September 8, 1588 Sountière at Bourg d' Oizé, Maine; † September 1, 1648 in Paris; Taught name Marinus Mersenius ) was a French theologian, mathematician and music theorist.

Life

Mersenne learned from 1604 to 1609 at the Jesuit college of La Flèche, along with René Descartes and studied from 1609 to 1611 Theology at the Sorbonne in Paris. He joined in 1611 the Paulaner Medal in the following year and received priestly ordination. From 1620 he was a lot of traveling throughout Western and Southern Europe.

While he was initially followed a narrow scholasticism, he moved to the middle of his life the pages. As a vehement opponent of Aristotelianism and mystical teachings ( alchemy, astrology, Kabbalah, Rosicrucian ), he supported the modern science, the astronomical theories of Galileo and the philosophy of René Descartes.

From 1623 he was looking for Galileo and Descartes on personally, with other leading scholars such as Pierre Gassendi, Gilles Personne de Roberval, Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat he corresponded extensively. This made him an important mediator of information and contacts between the contemporary scholars. It was said that Mersenne was informed by a discovery of the same amount as their names published in print. He suggested Gassendi on to its response to Descartes ' Meditations; Huygens he made to the usability of the pendulum in timekeeping attention (which led to the invention of the pendulum clock ).

Services

Not only as an agent, even when researchers made ​​Mersenne Major. He published in 1626 a collection of texts Synopsis mathematica mathematics and mechanics and provided contributions to acoustics and music theory as well as to look. Next he examined cycloid.

Famous is his list of - his assumption by - prime numbers, which form the

Have, which also is a prime number. Numbers with this property are called Mersenne primes today. However, his list contained errors and also was not complete. Nevertheless, they suggested generations of number theorists to further investigations.

In acoustics Mersenne examined the relationship between frequency and pitch. He found out here that the frequency of a vibrating string directly proportional to the square root of the tension force F and inversely proportional to the string length l and the square root of the cross section q:

Mersenne also measured the first value for the speed of sound in air ( according to Ullmann 1996, p 2 ) by measuring the time between the sighting of a muzzle flash and the perception of the shot. He received the ( high ) value of 448 m / s In the universal harmony of 1636 he tried again a measurement with a different method: He measured the time until the direct sound back as an echo from a stationary wall at a known distance, and so was given the value 316 m / s The correct value is about 342 m / s

Mersenne treated in his book Traité de l' harmonie universal ( 1636-37 ), music theory ( " doctrine of affections " ) and practices of his time - a valuable source of information about the musical history of the 17th century. His contributions also include his proposal for the well-tempered semitone, which was more precise than that of Vincenzo Galilei.

Among his better-known publications include Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim ( 1623), a polemic against mystical teachings, and La Vérité dans les sciences ( 1625, The Truth in the Sciences ).

The lunar crater Mersenius is named after him.

Writings

  • Cogitata physico mathematica, Paris 1644
  • Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, publiée et annotee par Cornelis de Waard, Bernard Rochot et Armand Beaulieu. 17 vol. , CNRS, Paris 1932-1988
  • Harmonicorum, libri XII: in quibus agitur Sonorum de natura, causis, et affectibus; de consonantiis, dissonantiis, rationibus, generibus, modis, cantibus, compositione, orbisque Totius Harmonicis instrumentis. Reprint of the edition Paris 1648; Ed. aucta: Minkoff, Geneva 1972, ISBN 2-8266-0368- X
  • Universal harmony: théorie et la pratique la contenant de la musique. (Paris 1636), Reprint Centre nat. de la recherche scientifique, Paris 1965
  • L' impiété of Déistes, athées libertins et de ce temps. Paris 1624 Faks Stuttgart -Bad Cannstatt 1975
  • La vérité des sciences: contre les sceptiques ou pyrrhoniens. Paris 1625 Éd. et annot. par Dominique Descotes, Champion, 2003 Paris, 1025 p.
  • Questiones Celeberrimae in Genesim, Paris 1623rd
  • Questions Harmoniques, Paris to 1634.
  • Questions inouyes, harmoniques Questions, Questions théologiques, Les Méchaniques de Galilée, Les Préludes de l' harmonie universelle, Paris, 1634, reprint of the Corpus de Philosophie de Langue Française ouevres, Librairie Anthème Fayard, 1985
  • Traité de l' harmonie universelle, Paris, 1627, reprint of the Corpus en Langue Francaise Oeuvres de Philosophie, Librairie Anthème Fayard, 2003
Christiaan Huygens Lunar craters Mersenius (crater) Name Authority File France
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