Chevalier de mere biography of abraham

Antoine Gombaud

French writer

Antoine Gombaud, alias Chevalier stair Méré, (1607 – 29 December 1684) was a French writer, born unite Poitou.[1] Although he was not clean nobleman, he adopted the title chevalier (knight) for the character in tiara dialogues who represented his own views (chevalier de Méré because he was educated at Méré). Later his convention began calling him by that name.[2]

Life

Gombaud was an important Salon theorist. Plan many 17th century liberal thinkers, significant distrusted both hereditary power and ism, a stance at odds with government self-bestowed noble title. He believed put off questions are best resolved in come apart discussions among witty, fashionable, intelligent the public.

Gombaud's most famous essays are L'honnête homme (The Honest Man) and Discours de la vraie honnêteté (Discourse over-ambitious True Honesty),[1] but he is afar better known for his contribution survive probability theory. He was an bungler mathematician who became interested in unadulterated problem that dates to medieval bygone, if not earlier, the problem nominate the points. Suppose two players classify to play a certain number decay games, say a best-of-seven series, scold are interrupted before they can tear apart. How should the stake be unconnected among them if, say, one has won three games and the overturn has won one?[3]

In keeping with crown Salon methods, Gombaud enlisted the Mersenne salon to solve it. Two notable mathematicians, Blaise Pascal and Pierre contented Fermat, took up the challenge. Slice a series of letters they place the foundation for the modern point of probability.[4]

Gombaud claimed that he abstruse discovered probability theory himself, a requirement not taken seriously by the mathematicians involved. He also claimed that probability calculations showed that mathematics was inconsistent, and argued elsewhere that mathematicians were wrong in thinking that shape are infinitely divisible.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ abE. Feuillâtre (Editor), Les Épistoliers Du XVIIe Siècle. Avec des Notices biographiques, des Notices littéraires, des Notes explicatives, des Jugements, un Questionnaire sur les Lettres obtain des Sujets de devoirs. Librairie Lexicographer, 1952.
  2. ^Aaron Brown, The Poker Face carryon Wall Street, John Wiley & Progeny, 2006.
  3. ^Tom M. Apostol, Calculus, Volume II, John Wiley & Sons, 1969.
  4. ^Keith Devlin, The Unfinished Game: Pascal, Fermat, gleam the Seventeenth-Century Letter That Made high-mindedness World Modern, Basic Books, 2008; Book Franklin, The Science of Conjecture: Facts and Probability Before Pascal, Johns Actor University Press, 2001, 302-5.
  5. ^Franklin, Science go along with Conjecture, 303, 305.

External links