Andrea Tacquet

Andrea Tacquet was educated at the Jesuit College in Antwerp, entering the Jesuit Order in 1629, then studied mathematics, logic and physics at Louvain from 1631 until 1635. During the last two of these years he was a student of Gregory of Saint-Vincent. After this Tacquet spent a while teaching Greek and poetry at Bruges.

From 1640 Tacquet studied theology at Louvain while at the same time he taught mathematics there. From 1644 he taught mathematics at the college of Louvain, then at Antwerp from 1645 until 1649 and from 1655 until 1660, spending the years 1649 to 1655 back at Louvain. He had been ordained in 1646.

Tacquet's most important work Cylindricorum et Annularium, on cylinders and rings, followed the approach of Valerio.

Tacquet wrote many good elementary texts written as mathematics textbooks for Jesuit colleges. His Elementa geometriae was his most popular teaching work. He also wrote the textbook Astronomia. His books had a considerable effect on Pascal.

Tacquet's work was sent to Huygens and a correspondence between the two resulted. He also corresponded with Frans van Schooten.

Texto original por: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson

JOC/EFR December 1996	School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland
The URL of this page is: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Tacquet.htm