Mathematician:Grégoire de Saint-Vincent

Mathematician

Flemish Jesuit and mathematician, best remembered for his work on quadrature of the hyperbola.

Gave an early account of the summation of geometric series

Resolved Zeno's paradox by showing that the time intervals involved formed a geometric progression and thus had a finite sum.

Nationality

Flemish

History

• Born: 8 September 1584 in Bruges, Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium)
• Died: 27 January 1667 in Ghent, Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium)

Theorems and Definitions

• Gregory's Constant (possibly also named for James Gregory), also known as:

Mercator's Constant, for Nicholas Mercator

the alternating harmonic series

• Newton-Mercator Series, independently of both Nicholas Mercator and Isaac Newton

Definitions of concepts named for Grégoire de Saint-Vincent can be found here.

Publications

• 1619: Theses cometis
• 1620: Theses mechanicae
• 1647: Opus geometricum quadraturae circuli sectionum coni
• 1668: Opus geometricum ad mesolabium

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Grégoire de Saint-Vincent": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive