Marin Mersenne

:For the primes named after Marin Mersenne, see Mersenne prime.

Work

Mersenne is remembered today thanks to his association with the Mersenne primes. However, he was not primarily a mathematician; he wrote about music theory and other subjects. He edited works of Euclid, Archimedes, and other Greek mathematicians. But his perhaps most important contribution to the advance of learning was his extensive correspondence (in Latin, of course) with mathematicians and other scientists in many countries. At a time when the scientific journal had not yet come into being, Mersenne was the center of a network for exchange of information.

Related Topics:
Mersenne prime - Music theory - Euclid - Archimedes - Latin - Scientific journal

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His philosophical works are characterized by wide scholarship and the narrowest theological orthodoxy. His greatest service to philosophy was his enthusiastic defence of Descartes, whose agent he was in Paris and whom he visited in exile in the Netherlands. He submitted to various eminent Parisian thinkers a manuscript copy of the Meditations, and defended its orthodoxy against numerous clerical critics. In later life, he gave up speculative thought and turned to scientific research, especially in mathematics, physics and astronomy. Of his works in this connection the best known is L'Harmonie universelle (1636) dealing with the theory of music and musical instruments.

Related Topics:
Netherlands - Meditations - Theory of music - Musical instrument

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One of his major contributions to musical tuning theory was the suggestion of sqrtsqrt{2over3-sqrt2} as the ratio for a semitone. It was more accurate than Vincenzo Galilei's 18/17, and could be constructed with straightedge and compass. Mersenne's description in the 1636 Harmonic universelle of the first absolute determination of the frequency of an audible tone (at 84 Hz) implies that he had already demonstrated that the absolute-frequency ratio of two vibrating strings, radiating a musical tone and its octave, is as 1 : 2. The perceived harmony (consonance) of two such notes would be explained if the ratio of the air oscillation frequencies is also 1 : 2, which in turn is consistent with the source-air-motion-frequency-equivalence hypothesis.

Related Topics:
Musical tuning - Semitone - Vincenzo Galilei - Octave

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His Traité de l'harmonie universelle (1627) is regarded as a source of information on 17th century music, especially French music and musicians, to rival even the works of Pietro Cerone.

Related Topics:
1627 - 17th century - Musician - Pietro Cerone

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