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Originally entering Padua to read law, Jacopo Riccati became friends with Angeli who encouraged him to study mathematics. He soon attained fame and turned down offers from Peter the Great to become President of the St Petersburg Acanemy of Science, and other offers, to remain in Italy.
His work in hydraulics was useful to the city of Venice and he helped construct dikes along the canals. In the study of differential equations his methods of lowering the order of an equation and separating variables were important. He considered many general classes of differential equations and found methods of solution which were widely adopted.
He is chiefly known for the Riccati differential equation of which he made elaborate study and gave solutions for certain special cases. The equation had already been studied by Jacob Bernoulli, and was discussed by Riccati in a paper of 1724.
He corresponded with a large number of mathematicians throughout Europe and had a wide influence on Daniel Bernoulli, Euler. He also worked on cycloidal pendulums, the laws of resistance in a fluid and differential geometry.
Texto original por: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
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| List of References (15 books/articles)
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| A Poster of Jacopo Riccati | Mathematicians born in the same country
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| Other references in MacTutor | Chronology: 1720 to 1740 |
| Other Web sites | The
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| JOC/EFR December 1996 | School of
Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland | 
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