Person: Bachet, Claude Gaspar
Claude Bachet was a French mathematician who wrote books on mathematical puzzles which formed the basis for almost all later books on mathematical recreations.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Since the links between Savoy and other regions had a strong influence on Bachet's life we will examine the background.
- Twenty years before Bachet was born, Emmanuel Philibert duke of Savoy moved the capital of Savoy to Turin and made Italian the official language (before this it had been Latin).
- For most of his life Bachet lived in comparative leisure on his estate at Bourg-en-Bresse.
- We should say a little about one of Bachet's friends, Claude Favre Vaugelas.
- Vaugelas was an important literary figure and he composed Italian verse with Bachet.
- Bachet, like his friend Vaugelas, had a great interest in composing literary works.
- By the 1630s Bachet was suffering rather severe health problems, particularly with rheumatism and gout, and was too ill to attend the ceremony when Richelieu created the Académie Française in 1634.
- The reason that Bachet is included in this archive is because he was a writer of books on mathematical puzzles and tricks which formed the basis for almost all later books on mathematical recreations.
- Bachet wrote Problèmes plaisans et delectables qui se font par les nombres Ⓣ(Pleasant and delectable problems that are done by numbers) (1612), of which there were at least five editions, the last as late as 1959.
- Finally, we mentioned above that Bachet gave the Josephus problem.
- Bachet also worked on number theory.
- The work contains relatively little original material by Bachet who based his text on the problems of Diophantus which appeared in Bombelli's Algebra and on a complete Latin translation by Wilhelm Holzmann (also known as Xylander) in 1575.
Born 9 October 1581, Bourg-en-Bresse, France. Died 26 February 1638, Bourg-en-Bresse, France.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Algebra, Puzzles And Problems
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
