Maria Gaetana Agnesi

Maria Gaetana Agnesi
Maria Gaetana Agnesi
Born	May 16, 1718
Died	January 9, 1799
Residence	itially
Nationality	Italy
Fields	Mathematics
Notes oldest of 21 children

Maria Gaetana Agnesi (May 16, 1718 - January 9, 1799) was an Italian linguist, mathematician, and philosopher. Events 1204 - Baldwin IX Count of Flanders is crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire. Year 1718 ( MDCCXVIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Events 475 - Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople. Year 1799 ( MDCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and Events 1204 - Baldwin IX Count of Flanders is crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire. Year 1718 ( MDCCXVIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Events 475 - Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople. Year 1799 ( MDCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Agnesi is credited with writing the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus. She was an honorary member of the faculty at the University of Bologna. According to Dirk Jan Struik, Agnesi is "the first important woman mathematician since Hypatia (fifth century A. Dirk Jan Struik ( September 30, 1894 &ndash October 21, 2000) was a Dutch Mathematician and Marxian Hypatia of Alexandria (haɪˈpeɪʃə ( Greek:; born between AD 350 and 370 – 415 was a Greek scholar from Alexandria in Egypt, considered D. )".

1 Early life
2 Contributions to mathematics
- 2.1 Instituzioni analitiche
- 2.2 Witch of Agnesi
3 Later life
4 References
5 Further reading

Early life

Her father, Pietro, was a wealthy man of business who desired to elevate his family into the Milanese nobility. (Some historians have incorrectly identified him as a mathematics professor. )

Maria was recognized as a child prodigy very early; she could speak both French and Italian at five years of age. By her eleventh birthday she had acquired Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, German, Latin, and was referred to as the "Walking Polyglot". She even educated her younger brothers. When she was 9 years old, she composed and delivered an hour-long speech in Latin to an academic gathering. The subject was women's right to be educated. When she was fifteen, her father began to regularly gather in his house a circle of the most learned men in Bologna, before whom she read and maintained a series of theses on the most abstruse philosophical questions. Records of these meetings are given in Charles de Brosses|de Brosses' Lettres sur l'Italie and in the Propositiones Philosophicae, which her father had published in 1738. These displays, being probably not altogether congenial to Maria (who wanted to retire) ceased by her twentieth year because she strongly desired to enter a convent at that time. Although her father refused to grant this wish, he agreed to let her live from that time on in an almost conventual semi-retirement, avoiding all interactions with society and devoting herself entirely to the study of mathematics. During that time, Maria studied both differential and integral calculus. Pietro Agnesi also married twice more after Maria's mother died, so that Maria Agnesi ended up the eldest of 21 children. In addition to her performances and lessons, her responsibility was to teach her siblings. This task kept her from her own goal of entering a convent.

Contributions to mathematics

Instituzioni analitiche

First page of Instituzioni analitiche (1748)

The most valuable result of her labours was the Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventu italiana, a work of great merit, which was published at Milan in 1748 and "was regarded as the best introduction extant to the works of Euler. Milan (Milano Milan (listen) is one of the largest cities in Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. " [1] The first volume treats of the analysis of finite quantities and the second of the analysis of infinitesimals. Infinitesimals (from a 17th century Modern Latin coinage infinitesimus, originally referring to the " Infinite[[ th]]" member of a series have A French translation of the second volume by P. T. d'Antelmy, with additions by Charles Bossut (1730-1814), appeared at Paris in 1775; and an English translation of the whole work by John Colson (1680-1760), the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, "inspected" by John Hellins, was published in 1801 at the expense of Baron Maseres. Charles Bossut ( 11 August 1730 – 14 January 1814) was a French Mathematician and confrère of the Encyclopaedists Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Johnathan 'John' Colson (1680–1760 was a Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. The incumbent of the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, the Lucasian Professor is the holder of a mathematical Professorship at the University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University) located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the This subject should not be confused with John Hellins, 1829–87 Clergyman and entomologist.

Witch of Agnesi

Main article: Witch of Agnesi

Madame Agnesi also wrote a commentary on the Traite analytique des sections coniques of the marquis de l'Hôpital, which, though highly praised by those who saw it in manuscript, was never published. In Mathematics, the witch of Agnesi (pronounced 'Anyesi' sometimes called the witch of Maria Agnesi (named for Maria Agnesi) is the curve defined as follows She discussed the curve known as the "witch of Agnesi" or "versiera" as she named it in 1748. (Italian for the rope that turns a sail, taken from the Latin "versoria," meaning "to turn," which was the term used by Luigi Grandi before her. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Guido Grandi may refer to Luigi Guido Grandi (1671–1742 Italian priest and mathematician Guido Grandi (entomologist (1886–1970 " Colson, who translated Agnesi's text to English, perhaps confused "la versiera" with "l'avversiera", and so mistranslated it as "she-devil" or "the witch", with the result that English-speakers and, for some reason, Spanish speakers from Mexico, Cuba, and Spain, know the curve as the "Witch of Agnesi" (La Bruja de Agnesi). The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. The Republic of Cuba (ˈkjuːbə or) consists of the island of Cuba (the largest and second-most populous island of the Greater Antilles) Isla de la Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. ). Struik mentions that:

The word [versiera] is derived from Latin vertere, to turn, but is also an abbreviation of Italian avversiera, female devil. Dirk Jan Struik ( September 30, 1894 &ndash October 21, 2000) was a Dutch Mathematician and Marxian Some wit in England once translated it 'witch', and the silly pun is still lovingly preserved in most of our textbooks in English language. . . . The curve had already appeared in the writings of Fermat (Oeuvres, I, 279-280; III, 233-234) and of others; the name versiera is from Guido Grandi (Quadratura circuli et hyperbolae, Pisa, 1703). Pierre de Fermat pjɛːʁ dəfɛʁ'ma ( 17 August 1601 or 1607/8 &ndash 12 January 1665) was a French Lawyer at the Guido Grandi may refer to Luigi Guido Grandi (1671–1742 Italian priest and mathematician Guido Grandi (entomologist (1886–1970 The curve is type 63 in Newton's classification. Sir Isaac Newton, FRS (ˈnjuːtən 4 January 1643 31 March 1727) Biography Early years See also Isaac Newton's early life and achievements . . . The first to use the term 'witch' in this sense may have been B. Williamson, Integral calculus, 7 (1875), 173;^[1] see Oxford English Dictionary.

^ "173 Find the area between the witch of Agnesi $x y 2 = 4 a 2 (2 a - x)$ and its asymptote. " (Oxford English Dictionary)

Agnesi's diploma from Università di Bologna

Examples of the curve are those given by the equations

$y = \frac{8a^3}{x^2+4a^2}$

where a is any non-zero constant. The equation

$y = \frac{1}{x^2 + 1}$

is the simplest among these.

Later life

In 1750, on the illness of her father, she was appointed by Pope Benedict XIV to the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy at Bologna. Pope Benedict XIV ( March 31, 1675 &ndash May 3, 1758) born Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, was Pope from August 17 For the current in the 19th century German idealism see Naturphilosophie Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature (from Bologna (boloɲa from Latin Bononia, Bulåggna in Bolognese dialect is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy She was the second woman to be appointed professor at a university. After the death of her father in 1752 she carried out a long-cherished purpose by giving herself to the study of theology, and especially of the Fathers and devoted herself to the poor, homeless, and sick. Theology is the study of a god or the gods from a religious perspective The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, or Fathers of the Church are the early and influential theologians and writers in the Christian Church After holding for some years the office of directress of the Hospice Trivulzio for Blue Nuns at Milan, she herself joined the sisterhood, and in this austere order ended her days, but no one knows how she died. A crater on Venus is named in her honor.

References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911 is a 29-volume reference work that marked the beginning of the Encyclopædia Britannica The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone
Larson, Ron; Hostetler, Robert P. ; and Edwards, Bruce H. (2003). Calculus of a Single Variable: Early Transcendental Functions (3rd edition). Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-22307-X.
Mathematics History archive entry for Maria Gaetana Agnesi at the University of Andrews, Scotland
EUROPEAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY,NEWSLETTER No. 31,March 1999, S. 18
D. J. Struik, editor, A source book in mathematics, 1200-1800 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1986), pp. 178-180. ISBN 0-691-08404-1, ISBN 0-691-02397-2 (pbk).

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