Mathematician:Pietro Mengoli

Mathematician

Italian mathematician who spent most of his working life as a professor at the University of Bologna.

Also ordained into the Priesthood.

Occupies the philosophical transitional ground between the work of Bonaventura Francesco Cavalieri and that of Isaac Newton and Gottfried von Leibniz.

Nationality

Italian

History

• Born: 1626 in Bologna, Italy
• 1648: Appointed Professor of Arithmetic at the University of Bologna
• 1649: Appointed Professor of Mechanics at the University of Bologna
• 1650: Awarded a doctorate in philosophy by the University of Bologna
• 1653: Awarded a doctorate in civil and canon law by the University of Bologna
• 1660: Appointed a priest in the parish of Santa Maria Maddelena in Bologna
• 1668: Appointed Professor of Mathematics at the University of Bologna
• Died: 7 June 1686 in Bologna, Italy

Theorems and Definitions

• Posed the Basel Problem in 1644
• Proved that the sum of the alternating harmonic series is equal to the natural logarithm of $2$ in 1650
• Rediscovered the proof that the Harmonic Series is Divergent

Publications

• 1650: Novae quadraturae arithmeticae, seu de additione fractionum
• 1659: Geometriae speciosae elementa
• 1670: Speculazioni musicali
• 1672: Circolo

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Pietro Mengoli": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Mengoli, Pietro (1626-82)
• 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Mengoli, Pietro (1626-82)

but note the erroneous year of death