Marin Mersenne

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Born: 8 Sept 1588 in Oize in Maine, France
Died: 1 Sept 1648 in Paris, France

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Mersenne joined the religious order of the Minims in 1611. The name of the order comes since the Minims regard themselves as the least (minimi) of all the religious; they devote themselves to prayer, study and scholarship. Mersenne continued his education within the order at Nigeon and then at Meaux. He returned to Paris where in 1612 he became a priest at the Place Royale.

He taught philosophy at the Minim convent at Nevers from 1614 to 1618. In 1619 he returned again to Paris to the Minims de l'Annociade near Place Royale. His cell in Paris became a meeting place for Fermat, Pascal, Gassendi, Roberval, Beaugrand and others who later became the core of the French Academy. Mersenne corresponded with other eminent mathematicians and he played a major role in communicating mathematical knowledge throughout Europe at a time when there were no scientific journals.

Mersenne investigated prime numbers and he tried to find a formula that would represent all primes. Although he failed in this, his work on numbers of the form

2^p - 1, p prime

It is easy to prove that if the number n = 2^p-1 is prime then p must be a prime. In 1644 Mersenne claimed that n is prime if p = 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 31, 67, 127 and 257 but composite for the other 44 primes smaller than 257.

Over the years it has been found that Mersenne was wrong about 5 of the primes less than or equal to 257 (he claimed two that did not lead to a prime (67 and 257) and missed 3 that did: 61, 89, 107).

Mersenne defended Descartes and Galileo against theological criticism and struggled to expose the pseudo sciences of alchemy and astrology. He continued some of Galileo's work in acoustics and stimulated some of Galileo's own later discoveries. He proposed the use of the pendulum as a timing device to Huygens, thus inspiring the first pendulum clock.

In 1633 Mersenne published Traité des mouvements, and in 1634 he published Les Méchanique de Galilée which was a version of Galileo's lectures on mechanics. He translated parts of Galileo's Dialogo into French and in 1639 he published a transation of Galileo's Discorsi. It is through Mersenne that Galileo's work became known outside Italy.

Two important publications in mathematical physics were L'Harmonie Universelle (1636) and Cogitata Physico-Mathematica (1644).

Mersenne also wrote Traité d'harmonie universelle (1627), a work on music, musical instruments and acoustics.

After his death letters in his cell were found from 78 different correspondents including Fermat, Huygens, Pell, Galileo and Torricelli.

Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson

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JOC/EFR December 1996 The URL of this page is:	School_of_Mathematics_and_Statistics University_of_St_Andrews,_Scotland
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