René François Walter de Sluse

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René François Walter de Sluse (1622–1685) was a French mathematician, intellectual and clergyman who wrote many books about mathematics and contributed to the development of mathematics.

He studied at a university in Rome, and later moved to Liège. His position in the church prevented him from visiting other mathematicians, but he corresponded with the mathematicians and intellectuals of the day.

[edit] Mathematical work

He studied calculus and his work discusses spirals, tangents, turning points and points of inflection.

There is a family of curves named after him: the curves represented by the following equation with positive integer values of m, n and p:

y n = k (a - x) p x m

[edit] Other work

He also wrote in the subject areas of life science, physics, history and theology.

[edit] References

Hofmann, Joseph Ehrenfried (1959). Classical Mathematics. Translated from the German Geschichte der Mathematik by Henrietta O. Midonick. New York: Philosophical Library Inc., p. 34.
John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson, René François Walter de Sluze, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
L'évolution des sciences et des techniques en Wallonie (French).