Marin Mersenne, Marin Mersennus or le Père Mersenne (September 8, 1588 – September 1, 1648) was a French theologian, philosopher, mathematician and music theorist. September 8 is the 251st day of the year (252nd in leap years). ... 1588 was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. ... September 1 is the 244th day of the year (245th in leap years). ... // Events Peace treaty signed at Westphalia ends the Thirty Years War. ... Theology is reasoned discourse concerning God (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογος, logos, word or reason). It also refers to the study of other religious topics. ... A philosopher is a person devoted to studying and producing results in philosophy. ... A mathematician is a person whose area of study and research is mathematics. ... Music theory is a set of systems for analyzing, classifying, and composing music and the elements of music. ...

Life

Born of peasant parents near Oizé, Maine (present day Sarthe), he was educated at Le Mans and at the Jesuit College of La Flèche, where he was a schoolmate and friend of René Descartes. On July 17, 1611, he joined the Minim Friars, and, after studying theology and Hebrew in Paris received his full holy orders in 1613. Maine is one of the traditional provinces of France. ... Sarthe is a French département, named after the Sarthe River. ... Le Mans is a city in France, located at the Sarthe River. ... The Society of Jesus (Societas Iesu/Jesu (S.J.) in Latin) is a Christian religious order of the Roman Catholic Church in direct service to the Pope. ... La Flèche is a commune of the Sarthe département in France, on the banks of the Loir river. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... July 17 is the 198th day (199th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 167 days remaining. ... Events June 23 - Henry Hudsons crew maroons him, his son and 7 others in a boat November 1 - At Whitehall Palace in London, William Shakespeares romantic comedy The Tempest is presented for the first time. ... The Minims (also called the Minimi or The Order of the Minims) are followers of a religious order founded by Francis of Paola in the fifteenth century in Italy. ... Theology is reasoned discourse concerning God (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογος, logos, word or reason). It also refers to the study of other religious topics. ... Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by 6 million people mainly in Israel, parts of the Palestinian territories, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... Template:Down with Christianity Holy Orders in the modern Roman Catholic Church and in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Assyrian, Old Catholic, and Independent Catholic Churches, includes three degrees: bishop, priest, and deacon. ... Events January - Galileo observes Neptune, but mistakes it for a star and so is not credited with its discovery. ...

For a time, he taught philosophy at Nevers but returned to Paris in 1620 at the convent of L'Annonciade. There, with other kindred spirits such as Descartes, Étienne Pascal, Gilles de Roberval and Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, he studied mathematics and music. He corresponded with Giovanni Doni, Constantijn Huygens and other scholars in Italy, England and Holland. For four years he devoted himself entirely to philosophic and theological writing, and published Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim (1623); L'Impieté des déistes (1624); La Vérité des sciences (1624). It is sometimes incorrectly stated that he was a Jesuit. He was educated by Jesuits, but he never joined the Society of Jesus. He taught theology and philosophy at Nevers and Paris. He visited Italy three times, in 1640, 1641 and 1645. These five broad types of question are called analytical or logical, epistemological, ethical, metaphysical, and aesthetic respectively. ... Nevers is a commune of central France, the préfecture (capital) of the Nièvre département, in the former province of Nivernais. ... Events September 6 - English emigrants on the Mayflower depart from Plymouth, England for the future New England and arrive at the end of the year. ... Étienne Pascal (Clermond, May 2, 1588 - Paris, September 24, 1651) was the father of Blaise Pascal. ... Gilles Personne de Roberval (August 8, 1602 - October 27, 1675), French mathematician, was born at Roberval, near Beauvais, France. ... Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (December 1, 1580 – June 24, 1637) was a French astronomer and savant who maintained a wide correspondence with scientists and was a successful organizer of scientific inquiry, whose own researches were not confined to the matter of determining the difference in longitude of various locations... Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Mathematics Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mathematics Look up Mathematics on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mathematics Bogomolny, Alexander: Interactive Mathematics Miscellany and Puzzles. ... Giovanni Battista Doni ( 1593 - 1647) was an Italian musicologist who made an extensive study of ancient music. ... Constantijn Huygens (September 4, 1596 - March 28, 1687) was a Dutch poet and composer and the father of Christiaan Huygens. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population - Total (mid-2004) - Density Ranked 1st UK 50. ... Holland is a region in the central-western part of the Netherlands. ... Events December 1 - Portugal regains its independence from Spain and João IV of Portugal becomes king. ... Events The Long Parliament passes a series of legislation designed to contain Charles Is absolutist tendencies. ... // Events January 10 - Archbishop Laud executed on Tower Hill, London. ...

He died through complications arising from surgery. A typical modern surgery operation For other meanings of the word, see Surgery (disambiguation) Surgery (from the Greek cheirourgia - lit. ...

Work

Mersenne is remembered today thanks to his association with the Mersenne primes. However, he was not primarily a mathematician; he wrote about music theory and other subjects. He edited works of Euclid, Archimedes, and other Greek mathematicians. But his perhaps most important contribution to the advance of learning was his extensive correspondence (in Latin, of course) with mathematicians and other scientists in many countries. At a time when the scientific journal had not yet come into being, Mersenne was the center of a network for exchange of information. In mathematics, a Mersenne prime is a prime number that is one less than a power of two. ... Music theory is a field of study that describes the elements of music and includes the development and application of methods for analyzing and composing music, and the interrelationship between the notation of music and performance practice. ... Euclid Euclid of Alexandria (Greek: ) (ca. ... Archimedes of Syracuse. ... Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Nature. ...

His philosophical works are characterized by wide scholarship and the narrowest theological orthodoxy. His greatest service to philosophy was his enthusiastic defence of Descartes, whose agent he was in Paris and whom he visited in exile in the Netherlands. He submitted to various eminent Parisian thinkers a manuscript copy of the Meditations, and defended its orthodoxy against numerous clerical critics. In later life, he gave up speculative thought and turned to scientific research, especially in mathematics, physics and astronomy. Of his works in this connection the best known is L'Harmonie universelle (1636) dealing with the theory of music and musical instruments. Meditations on First Philosophy (subtitled In which the existence of God and the real distinction of mind and body, are demonstrated), written by René Descartes (1596 - 1650) and first published in 1641, expands upon Descartes philosophical system, which he first introduced in his Discourse on Method (1637). ... Music theory is a field of study that describes the elements of music and includes the development and application of methods for analyzing and composing music, and the interrelationship between the notation of music and performance practice. ... A musical instrument is a device that has been constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ...

One of his major contributions to musical tuning theory was the suggestion of as the ratio for a semitone. It was more accurate (0.44 cents sharp) than Vincenzo Galilei's 18/17 (1.05 cents flat), and could be constructed with straightedge and compass. Mersenne's description in the 1636 Harmonie universelle of the first absolute determination of the frequency of an audible tone (at 84 Hz) implies that he had already demonstrated that the absolute-frequency ratio of two vibrating strings, radiating a musical tone and its octave, is as 1 : 2. The perceived harmony (consonance) of two such notes would be explained if the ratio of the air oscillation frequencies is also 1 : 2, which in turn is consistent with the source-air-motion-frequency-equivalence hypothesis. This page is about musical systems of tuning, for the musical process of tuning see tuning. ... The musical interval of a half step, semitone, or minor second is the relationship between the leading tone and the first note (the root or tonic) in a major scale. ... Vincenzo Galilei (1520 – July 2, 1591) was an Italian lutenist, composer, and music theorist, and the father of the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei. ... In music, an octave (sometimes abbreviated 8ve or 8va) is the interval between one musical note and another with half or double the frequency. ...

His Traité de l'harmonie universelle (1627) is regarded as a source of information on 17th century music, especially French music and musicians, to rival even the works of Pietro Cerone. Events A Dutch ship makes the first recorded sighting of the coast of South Australia. ... (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... A musician is a person who plays or composes music. ... Pietro Cerone (1566–1625) was an Italian music theorist, singer and priest of the late Renaissance. ...

Bibliography

Works by Mersenne

• Euclidis elementorum libri, etc. (Paris, 1626)
• Les Mécaniques de Galilée (Paris, 1634)
• Questions inouies ou recreations des savants (1634)
• Questions théologiques, physiques, etc. (1634)
• Nouvelles découvertes de Galilée (1639)
• Cogitata physico-mathematica (1644)
• Universae geometriae synopsis (1644)

Works about Mersenne

• Adrien Baillet, Vie de Descartes (1691)
• Poté, Éloge de Mersenne (1816)
• Gehring, F. (1922) "Mersennus, Marin (le Père Mersenne)", Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (ed. J.A. Fuller Maitland)

Adrien Baillet Adrien Baillet (June 13, 1649 — January 21, 1706) was a French scholar and critic Born in the village of Neuville near Beauvais, in Picardie. ... The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is a dictionary of music and musicians, generally considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. ...

External links

• Biography at the MacTutor archive

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain. BITCH!111 ... Supporters contend that the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1910-1911) represents the sum of human knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century; indeed, it was advertised as such. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...