No label defined (Q3282908)

The author, in this modified version of his doctoral thesis, discusses the life and writings of the French mathematician Roberval, who during his tenancy (1632--1675) of the chair of mathematics at the Collège de France in Paris made contributions of varying worth to many of the mathematical and some of the scientific problems of his day. Beginning with a short Aperçu of his life we are taken rapidly through his mathematical interests infinitesimal integration, researches on the cycloid, the geometrical resolution of algebraic equations, his celebrated discussion of tangents by ``composing'' motions and unsuccessful intervention in the dispute between Fermat and Descartes on tangent-methods. There follows a summary of Roberval's relatively unknown work in mechanics and on the vacuum, together with an exposition of his ideas on astronomy and scientific method. To complement these technical aspects some account is given of his career and teaching success at the Collège de France, of his contact with the Mersenne circle and later membership of the Académie des Sciences, and finally of bis personal relationships with bis contemporaries. In appendix are set two hitherto unpublished papers (on weight and on the balance) read to the Académie in 1669, along with an inventory of Roberval's papers made at his death. A short conclusion is followed by an index of names and a Table des matières. This first attempt at an organized evaluation of Roberval's scientific importance is very welcome but not wholly successful. The author is fairly accurate in summarizing individual results and makes some interesting new points (in particular, in his account on p. 79 of Roberval's ideas on gravitational attraction). However, he would (p. 49) seem seriously to underestimate the power of Roberval's rectification of the cycloid, while (p. 63) his strictures, following Duhamel, on the method of motion-composition are at odds with the correctness of Roberval's construction of the tangent to the quadratrix in bis 1636 tract. No adequate attempt is made to assess Roberval's importance in comparison with his contemporaries, especially Fermat and Descartes, and the work as a whole is too popular to excite the scholar, who will miss technical detail and whose attention, at crucial points, is diverted to the author's unpublished thesis. Let us hope that the author may soon be persuaded to develop his ideas with full documentation in a long overdue and badly needed Oeuvres complètes de Roberval.