Gilles Personne de Roberval (August 8, 1602 - October 27, 1675), French mathematician, was born at Roberval, near Beauvais, France. His name was originally Gilles Personne or Gilles Personier, that of Roberval, by which he is known, being taken from the place of his birth. August 8 is the 220th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (221st in leap years), with 145 days remaining. ... This page is about the year. ... October 27 is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 65 days remaining. ... Events January 5 - The Battle of Turckeim June 18 - Battle of Fehrbellin August 10 - King Charles II of England places the foundation stone of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London - construction begins November 11 - Guru Gobind Singh becomes the Tenth Guru of the Sikhs. ... Leonhard Euler is considered by many people to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all time A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is mathematics. ... Beauvais is a city and commune of northern France, préfecture (capital) of the Oise département. ...

Like René Descartes, he was present at the siege of La Rochelle in 1627. In the same year he went to Paris, where he was appointed to the chair of philosophy in the Gervais College in 1631, and two years later to the chair of mathematics in the Royal College of France. A condition of tenure attached to this chair was that the holder should propose mathematical questions for solution, and should resign in favour of any person who solved them better than himself; but, notwithstanding this, Roberval was able to keep the chair till his death, which occurred at Paris on the 27th of October 1675. For other things named Descartes, see Descartes (disambiguation). ... La Rochelle is a town and commune of western France, and a seaport on the Atlantic Ocean (population 76,584 in 1999). ... Events A Dutch ship makes the first recorded sighting of the coast of South Australia. ... The Eiffel Tower, the international symbol of the city For other uses, see Paris (disambiguation). ... // Events February 5 - Roger Williams emigrates to Boston. ... The Collège de France is a higher education teaching and research establishment located in Paris, France. ...

Roberval was one of those mathematicians who, just before the invention of the infinitesimal calculus, occupied their attention with problems which are only soluble, or can be most easily solved, by some method involving limits or infinitesimals, and in the solution of which accordingly the calculus is always now employed. Thus he devoted some attention to the quadrature of surfaces and the cubature of solids, which he accomplished, in some of the simpler cases, by an original method which he called the ”Method of Indivisibles“; but he lost much of the credit of the discovery as he kept his method for his own use, while Bonaventura Cavalieri published a similar method which he himself had invented. 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. ... In mathematics, the concept of a limit is used to describe the behavior of a function as its argument either gets close to some point, or as it becomes larger and larger; or the behavior of a sequences elements, as their index becomes larger and larger. ... In mathematics, an infinitesimal, or infinitely small number, is a number that is smaller in absolute value than any positive real number. ... In numerical analysis, numerical integration constitutes a broad family of algorithms for calculating the numerical value of a definite integral, and by extension, the term is also sometimes used to describe numerical algorithms for solving differential equations. ... Numerical Integration with the Monte Carlo method: Nodes are random equally distributed. ... Coins illustrating Cavalieris principle Bonaventura Francesco Cavalieri (in Latin, Cavalerius) (1598–November 30, 1647) was an Italian mathematician best known today for Cavalieris principle, which states that the volumes of two objects are equal if the areas of corresponding cross-sections are in all cases equal. ...

Another of Roberval’s discoveries was a very general method of drawing tangents, by considering a curve as described by a moving point whose motion is the resultant of several simpler motions. He also discovered a method of deriving one curve from another, by means of which finite areas can be obtained equal to the areas between certain curves and their asymptotes. To these curves, which were also applied to effect some quadratures, Evangelista Torricelli gave the name of “Robervallian lines”. In mathematics, the word tangent has two distinct, but etymologically-related meanings: one in geometry, and one in trigonometry. ... In mathematics, the concept of a curve tries to capture the intuitive idea of a geometrical one-dimensional and continuous object. ... An asymptote is a straight or curved line which a curve will approach arbitrarily closely, but never touch. ... Evangelista Torricelli, portrait by an unknown artist. ...

Between Roberval and Descartes there existed a feeling of ill-will, owing to the jealousy aroused in the mind of the former by the criticism which Descartes offered to some of the methods employed by him and by Pierre de Fermat; and this led him to criticize and oppose the analytical methods which Descartes introduced into geometry about this time. Pierre de Fermat Pierre de Fermat (August 17, 1601 – January 12, 1665) was a French lawyer at the Parlement of Toulouse, southwestern France, and a mathematician who is given credit for his contribution towards the development of modern calculus. ...

As results of Roberval’s labours outside the department of pure mathematics may be noted a work on the system of the universe, in which he supports the Copernican heliocentric system and attributes a mutual attraction to all particles of matter and also the invention of a special kind of balance, the Roberval Balance. Nicolaus Copernicus (in Latin; Polish Mikołaj Kopernik, German Nikolaus Kopernikus - February 19, 1473 – May 24, 1543) was a Polish astronomer, mathematician and economist who developed a heliocentric (Sun-centered) theory of the solar system in a form detailed enough to make it scientifically useful. ... For other meanings of the word balance, see: propaganda equilibrium (disambiguation page) sense of balance weighing scale analytical balance (a precise weighing scale) balance beam in gymnastics Balance (song) homeostasis, the biological balance within a human or other animals body When the weights on the plates of this balance... This sketch shows a Roberval balance with balanced masses. ...