René François Walter de Sluse
René François Walter de Sluse (1622–1685) was a French mathematician, intellectual and clergyman who wrote many books about mathematics and contributed to the development of mathematics.
He studied at a university in Rome, and later moved to Liège. His position in the church prevented him from visiting other mathematicians, but he corresponded with the mathematicians and intellectuals of the day.
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Mathematical work
He studied calculus and his work discusses spirals, tangents, turning points and points of inflection.
There is a family of curves named after him: the curves represented by the following equation with positive integer values of m, n and p:
Other work
He also wrote in the subject areas of life science, physics, history and theology.
See Also
References
- Hofmann, Joseph Ehrenfried (1959). Classical Mathematics. Translated from the German Geschichte der Mathematik by Henrietta O. Midonick. New York: Philosophical Library Inc., p. 34.
- John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson, René François Walter de Sluze, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
- L'évolution des sciences et des techniques en Wallonie (French).