Jean-Charles de la Faille
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jean-Charles de la Faille or Jan-Karel della Faille (March 1, 1597 - November 4, 1652) was a Belgian Jesuit mathematician.
He was born in Antwerp, where he was educated by the Jesuits, which order he joined in 1613. He then went to a Jesuit college in Mechelen for two years. Afterwards, he came back to Antwerp where he became a disciple of Gregorius Saint-Vincent. In 1620, he went to Dole, France to teach mathematics and learn theology.
From 1626 to 1628, he taught mathematics at the Jesuit college of Leuven, before being appointed to the Imperial College in Madrid. He there advised Philip IV, king of Spain, on military questions, and taught mathematics as well.
His most famous book is Theoremata de centro gravitatis partium circuli et ellipsis (1632) in which he determined the centre of gravity of the sector of a circle, for the first time. At the request of della Faille's family, the Belgian painter Anthony van Dyck painted a portrait of the mathematician in 1629. The portrait shows the mathematician in his Jesuit outfit with a set of tools (including a compass, a t-square and a globe).
He died in Barcelona, aged 55.
[edit] References
 |
This article about a European mathematician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
