Mersenne

La vasta rete di scambi e di diffusione di novità, esperienze, conoscenze che coinvolge nel Seicento eruditi e 'savants' dei diversi paesi europei passa attraverso i corrieri. Ne dà conferma il carteggio Descartes, Beeckman, Mersenne. Il filosofo, il 'savant' calvinista, il Minimo erudito, personalità del tutto e in tutto differenti, sono legate dal 'commercium artium et scientiarum'. Il promotore dello scambio epistolare è l'infaticabile Marin Mersenne, il "curioso" che vuole penetrare tutti i segreti della natura e "portare a perfezione tutte le scienze". Le questioni di cui discutono il gentiluomo del Poitou, il magister calvinista nederlandese e il monaco parigino coprono grande parte delle scienze del tempo e sono altrettante stimolanti provocazioni nelle prospettive che propongono e nelle nuove teorie che tratteggiano.

To many laymen, mathematicians appear to be problem solvers, people who do "hard sums". Even inside the profession we dassify ourselves as either theorists or problem solvers. Mathematics is kept alive, much more than by the activities of either dass, by the appearance of a succession of unsolved problems, both from within mathematics-itself and from the in­ creasing number of disciplines where it is applied.

Mathematics is kept alive by the appearance of new unsolved problems, problems posed from within mathematics itself, and also from the increasing number of disciplines where mathematics is applied. This book provides a steady supply of easily understood, if not easily solved, problems which can be considered in varying depths by mathematicians at all levels of mathematical maturity.

In seventeenth-century France, every aspect of fashionable society was governed by the laws of galanterie, which behind the règles de bienséance et de politesse hid their only purpose: seduction. Music, too, was part of this, with all the seductive power that it possesses, in the social rituals in the salons, the temples of vivre galant; it, too, adapted so much to the styles of salon conversation, that already Marine Mersenne (Harmonie universelle, 1637) spoke of musical interpretation (in reference to singing) as the Art de l’Orateur Harmonique, which must “know all the nuances, the tempi, the movements and the accents to arouse everything he desires in those who listen”. In effect, also this is the art of seduction, which the human voice is able to practise better than any other instrument.