Mathematician:Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac

Mathematician

First to discuss the solution of indeterminate equations by means of continued fractions.

First member to hold Seat 13 of the Académie Française.

Nationality

French

History

• Born: 9 October 1581 in Bourg-en-Bresse, Savoy (now France)
• Died: 26 February 1638 in Bourg-en-Bresse

Theorems and Definitions

Believed to have provided a proof of what is now known as Bézout's Identity.

Publications

• 1612: Problèmes Plaisans et Delectables qui se font par les Nombres ("Pleasant and Delectable Problems that are done by Numbers")
  • 1624: Problèmes Plaisans et Delectables qui se font par les Nombres, 2nd ed.

• 1621: Diophanti Alexandrini Arithmeticorum: A translation from Greek to Latin of the Arithmetica of Diophantus. It was in the margin of this edition that Fermat stated his famous "last" theorem

Les Éléments Arithmétiques, which exists in manuscript form

Also known as

Also known as Claude Bachet or Claude-Gaspar Bachet, with or without the hyphen.

Appears as Claudio Gaspare Bacheto on the byline of his Diophanti Alexandrini Arithmeticorum of $1621$.

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 1986: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers ... (previous) ... (next): A List of Mathematicians in Chronological Sequence
• 1992: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Puzzles ... (previous) ... (next): Bachet
• 1997: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): A List of Mathematicians in Chronological Sequence