John Wallis and the French: his quarrels with Fermat, Pascal, Dulaurens, and Descartes (Q452110)

The article carefully analyzes the correspondence between John Wallis, Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, and some French mathematicians in the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, as the author remarks in her abstract, she ``examines not only the mathematical content of the arguments but also Wallis's various strategies of response''. She follows a chronologic account beginning in 1657 and finishing in 1685. She divides the article into three sections, each one devoted to a correspondence with a different French mathematician: Fermat, Pascal and Dulaurens, respectively, and a fourth section where she describes how Wallis attacks Descartes' work and proclaims the contributions of English mathematicians in his \textit{Treatise of Algebra} (1685). Furthermore, in Section 1, the author analyzes the exchanges with Fermat in 1657--1658, focussing on Wallis's role in it. In fact, Wallis's international readership begins with the publication in 1656 of his \textit{Arithmetica Infinitorum}. The author explains that Fermat knew Wallis's \textit{Arithmetica Infinitorum} thanks to a copy sent by Digby in 1656. Then in 1657 a challenge for D. Wallis from M. Fermat arrived in England. However, the problem dealt with questions which we now call the theory of numbers. Wallis sent Brouncker's solutions to the first and the second challenge and also replied to criticisms made by Fermat on Wallis's \textit{Aritmetica Infinitorum}. Finally, in 1658, Wallis, who no longer wanted to have anything to do with Fermat, published the entire correspondence in his \textit{Commercium Epistolicum}, in which he presented himself as a triumphant figure in comparison with French mathematicians. Section 2 details the quarrel between Wallis and Pascal concerning the cycloid problems in 1658--1659. In this case Wallis also published his own version in \textit{Tractatus duo} in which he failed to recognize his own errors and presented ``himself favourably to his contemporaries''. This quarrel with Pascal is more familiar to historians, but the quarrel between Wallis and Dulaurens, analyzed in Section 3, has not been explained before. The author explains that the quarrel with Dulaurens began with a problem concerning an ellipse that had been posed to English mathematicians by Jean de Monfert. Wallis sent his own solution to Brouncker in 1658, and later Dulaurens added his own solution at the end of his \textit{Specimina Mathematica} (1667), saying that this problem had been proposed by Wallis to mathematicians throughout Europe. Wallis answered in a lengthy letter in 1668 in Philosophical Transactions. After criticising Dulaurens' work, Wallis stated that he had never propounded the ellipse problem. The author then explains how the quarrel continues; Dulaurens wrote ``Responsio'' and Wallis answered in ``Animadversio'', both published by Oldenburg in Philosophical Transactions. Wallis accused Dulaurens of copying in his \textit{Specimina} and Dulaurens defended himself; however, Wallis came out on top in this quarrel. Section 4 describes the defence of Harriot's algebra against Descartes' algebra in Wallis's \textit{Treatise of Algebra} (1685). The author clarifies Wallis's misunderstanding when attributing the Rule of Signs to Harriot. She gives an example and also remarks that later, when reviewing Wallis's \textit{Treatise of Algebra} in 1696, Leibniz affirms erroneously that Harriot was the first to observe this rule. Finally, in the conclusion, the author emphasizes that this correspondence reveals Wallis's temperament and how he succeeded in presenting himself ``as an honourable participant who had fallen foul of the dishonourable French for no obvious reason''. The contribution of the author's article, while focusing on just a few years, is extremely useful and instructive. It is very helpful and clarifying for historians who wish to understand the process of algebraization that took place in the seventeenth century, because it presents the relations between some of the principal figures such as Descartes, Fermat, Pascal and Wallis.