Jakob Hermann

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Another notable Jacob Hermann was the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609).

Jakob Hermann (16 July 1678 - 11 July 1733) was a mathematician who worked on problems in classical mechanics. He appears to have been the first to show that the Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector is a constant of motion for particles acted upon by an inverse-square central force.^[1]^[2]

Hermann received his initial training from Jacob Bernoulli and graduated with a degree in 1695. He became a member of the Berlin Academy in 1701. He was appointed to a chair in mathematics in Padua in 1707, but moved to Frankfurt-an-der-Oder in 1713, and thence to St. Petersburg in 1724. Finally, he returned to Basel in 1731 to take a chair in ethics and natural law.

Hermann was elected to the Académie Royale des Sciences (Paris) in 1733, the year of his death.

Hermann was a distant relative of Leonhard Euler.

[edit] References

^ Hermann, Jakob (1710). "Unknown title". Giornale de Letterati D'Italia 2: 447–467.
^ Hermann, Jakob (1710). "Extrait d'une lettre de M. Herman à M. Bernoulli datée de Padoüe le 12. Juillet 1710". Histoire de l'academie royale des sciences (Paris) 1732: 519–521.