André Tacquet (June 23, 1612-December 22, 1660) was a Belgian mathematician. His work prepared ground for the eventual discovery of the calculus. June 23 is the 174th day of the year (175th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 191 days remaining. ... Events January 20 - Mathias becomes Holy Roman Emperor. ... December 22 is the 356th day of the year (357th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Events Expulsion of the Carib indigenous people from Martinique by French occupying forces. ... A mathematician is a person whose area of study and research is mathematics. ... For other uses of the term calculus see calculus (disambiguation) Calculus is a central branch of mathematics, developed from algebra and geometry, and built on two major complementary ideas. ...

He was born in Antwerp, and entered the Jesuit Order in 1629. From 1631 to 1635, he studied mathematics, physics and logic at Leuven. Two of his teachers were Gregorius Saint-Vincent and Francois d'Aguilon. The Cathedral of our Lady (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, Antwerp)in the Handschoenmarkt, in the old part of Antwerp is the largest cathedral in the Low Countries and is home to a number of triptychs by the Belgian painter, Rubens. ... The Society of Jesus (Latin: Societas Iesu), commonly known as the Jesuits, is a Roman Catholic religious order. ... Events March 4 - Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter. ... Events February 5 - Roger Williams emigrates to Boston. ... Events February 10 - The Académie française in Paris is expanded to become a national academy for the artistic elite. ... History Main article: History of mathematics In addition to recognizing how to count concrete objects, prehistoric peoples also recognized how to count abstract quantities, like time -- days, seasons, years. ... Physics (from the Greek, φυσικός (phusikos), natural, and φύσις (phusis), nature) is the science of nature in the broadest sense. ... Logic (from ancient Greek λόγος (logos), originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, but coming to mean thought or reason) is the study of arguments. ... Leuven in 2004 Leuven (Louvain in French, Löwen in German) is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Flemish Brabant, of which it is the capital. ...

Tacquet became a brilliant mathematician of international fame and his works were often reprinted and translated (into Italian and English). He helped articulate some of the preliminary concepts necessary for Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz to recognize the inverse nature of the quadrature and the tangent. He was one of the precursors of the infinitesimal calculus, developed by John Wallis. His most famous work, which influenced the thinking of Blaise Pascal and his contemporaries, is Cylindricorum et annularium (1651). In this book Tacquet presented how a moving point could generate a curve and the theories of area and volume. Sir Isaac Newton in Knellers 1689 portrait Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727 by the Julian calendar in use in England at the time; or 4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727 by the Gregorian calendar) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and alchemist who wrote... Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (also Leibnitz) (Leipzig July 1, 1646 – November 14, 1716 in Hannover) was a German philosopher, scientist, mathematician, diplomat, librarian, and lawyer of Sorb descent. ... Quadrature, derived from Latin quadrare, is a term with various meanings: in astronomy, the line tangent to an objects orbit defines the objects quadrature. ... In mathematics, the word tangent has two distinct, but etymologically related meanings: one in geometry, and one in trigonometry. ... Infinitesimal calculus is an area of mathematics pioneered by Gottfried Leibniz based on the concept of infinitesimals, as opposed to the calculus of Isaac Newton, which is based upon the concept of the limit. ... John Wallis John Wallis (November 22, 1616 - October 28, 1703) was an English mathematician who is given partial credit for the development of modern calculus. ... Blaise Pascal (June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. ... Events January 1 - Charles II crowned King of Scotland in Scone. ... In mathematics, the concept of a curve tries to capture the intuitive idea of a geometrical one-dimensional and continuous object. ... This article explains the meaning of area as a physical quantity. ... Volume (also called capacity) is a quantification of how much space an object occupies. ...

He died in Antwerp.

References

• The Mac Tutor History of Mathematics  (http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Tacquet.html)
• André Tacquet, S.J. (1612 - 1660) and his treatment of infinitesimals (http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/jmac/sj/scientists/tacquet.htm)