Nicolas Chuquet

Nicolas Chuquet (* 1445-1455 in Paris, † 1487 or 1488 in Lyon) was a French mathematician.

Life

Chuqut originated by its own account from Paris and earned a Bachelors degree in medicine there. From about 1480 he appears in the tax lists of Lyon, where it is described as Algoriste ( Reckoner ). He also worked as a copyist and writer. Otherwise, little is known about him. Notes on Italian sources in his works could point to a stay in Italy, but there were also many Italian merchants in Lyon.

His main work Triparty en la science of nombres remained unpublished during his lifetime. It is the earliest French works to algebra. Until the 19th century Estienne de La Roche L' arismetique of 1520 was the first algebra book. In 1841, Michel Chasles made ​​it clear that La Roche's work is a copy of Nicolas Chuquets book in many areas. In the 1870s, the scientist Aristide Marre Nicolas Chuquets discovered manuscript and published it in 1880. In the manuscript, there are also notes de La Roche.

Work

Nicolas Chuquet invented a notation for algebraic concepts and potentiation. In all probability he was the first mathematician who recognized zero and negative numbers as exponents.

On Nicolas Chuquet the long ladder goes back to the long term numbers. He divided large numbers in groups of 6 digits and gave them a series of names: The first 6 digits of the names million, the second group of six the name trillion, followed by trillion and quadrillion. In contrast to the modern name of the intermediate stages not mean billion, but a thousand million.

He worked clearly the computational rules for powers and out in an arrangement of the juxtaposition of an arithmetic and geometric series. The same is also found later in Michael Stifel and other writers of the 16th century, and this reduction of multiplication to addition stands next trigonometric addition formulas at the beginning of the development of logarithms.