Marin Mersenne 1588 – 1648

Marin Mersenne was a French Minim friar, mathematician, and philosopher and the central node of the European scientific correspondence of the first half of the seventeenth century. From his cell at the Place Royale in Paris, he carried on a vast exchange of letters with Descartes, Galileo, Hobbes, Pascal, Fermat, Huygens, and most of the other leading natural philosophers of his day, circulating ideas, problems, and replies across national and confessional lines. His own writings, including the Quaestiones in Genesim, the Harmonie Universelle, and the Cogitata Physico-Mathematica, defended a mechanical philosophy compatible with Catholic orthodoxy and pioneered the study of musical acoustics.