Jean Prestet
Who was Jean Prestet?
French priest and mathematician
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Jean Prestet (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Jean Prestet (1648–1690) was a French Oratorian priest and mathematician from Chalon-sur-Saône. He made significant contributions to combinatorics and number theory in the late seventeenth century, a time of rapid growth in European mathematics. Despite a modest background, Prestet became an important figure in French mathematics education due to his connection with the Oratory of Jesus and the support of philosopher Nicolas Malebranche.
Growing up in poverty, Prestet worked as a servant for the Oratory of Jesus in Paris during his teens. Being around the Oratorian intellectual community changed his life. He caught the attention of Nicolas Malebranche, a leading Cartesian philosopher, who hired him as a secretary and introduced him to mathematics. With Malebranche's guidance, Prestet began writing what would become his main work, the Elémens des Mathématiques, in 1670.
Published in 1675 by the Oratorian order, the Elémens was an unusual textbook for its focus solely on algebra, leaving out geometry. Prestet believed algebra was the core of mathematics and that geometry was just an application of algebraic ideas. This view fit well with the rising Cartesian movement in France. Historian Gert Schubring pointed out that Prestet's belief in the superiority of modern methods showed a bold and progressive attitude that helped spread Cartesian ideas and paved the way for French rationalism. The book included a proof of Descartes' rule of signs, which Prestet later found incomplete, and a generalization of Euclid's lemma to non-prime divisors.
The release of Elémens boosted Prestet's reputation as a math teacher, leading to his appointment in 1681 as the mathematics chair at the University of Angers, where he taught until his death. In 1689, he put out a revised and expanded edition called Nouveaux Elémens des mathématiques. This edition contained early work related to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, showing that Prestet continued to develop his mathematical ideas after his initial publication. He died in Marines in 1690, one year after this second edition came out.
Prestet's work was part of a larger Oratorian initiative to create an educational alternative to the Jesuit colleges that dominated French Catholic schools. The order had been setting up colleges in smaller cities since the early seventeenth century and commissioned textbooks from its skilled mathematicians, like Bernard Lamy, to support this curriculum. Prestet's Elémens was one of the most prominent of these texts. Its influence reached beyond the Oratorian network, with mathematician Abraham de Moivre attempting to teach himself mathematics with the book, though initially without success.
Before Fame
Jean Prestet was born in 1648 in Chalon-sur-Saône into a poor family. There's not much info about his family or early education, but as a teenager, he worked as a servant at the Oratory of Jesus in Paris. This religious group, started in the early seventeenth century, was a key spot for intellectual and educational activity in France, offering a place where a sharp young man could engage with serious scholarship.
His rise to fame was closely tied to Nicolas Malebranche, a leading philosopher of the time. Prestet became Malebranche's secretary, a role that gave him access to mathematics education he likely wouldn't have had otherwise. Malebranche's Cartesian views heavily influenced Prestet's approach to mathematics, making him focus on algebra, which became central to his published work and teaching career.
Key Achievements
- Authored Elémens des Mathématiques (1675), an influential algebra textbook adopted across Oratorian colleges in France
- Appointed to the mathematical chair at the University of Angers in 1681
- Published Nouveaux Elémens des mathématiques (1689), which included early contributions to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic
- Generalized Euclid's lemma to non-prime divisors in his Elémens
- Advanced the dissemination of Cartesian mathematical principles in French education through his algebraic approach to mathematics
Did You Know?
- 01.Abraham de Moivre, who later became a celebrated mathematician known for his work on probability and complex numbers, used Prestet's Elémens des Mathématiques in an early but initially unsuccessful attempt to teach himself mathematics.
- 02.Prestet published a proof of Descartes' rule of signs in the 1675 Elémens but later admitted himself that the proof was incomplete, a candid acknowledgment unusual in the mathematical literature of the period.
- 03.The Elémens des Mathématiques was remarkable for entirely omitting geometry at a time when the subject was considered the foundation of rigorous mathematical reasoning, reflecting Prestet's insistence that algebra was more fundamental.
- 04.Prestet's Elémens included a generalization of Euclid's lemma extended beyond prime divisors to non-prime divisors, a result that went beyond the standard ancient formulation.
- 05.Prestet began writing the Elémens in 1670, five years before it was published, meaning the work was composed when he was still in his early twenties and working directly under Malebranche's supervision.