Joseph Sauveur

Joseph Sauveur was a French mathematician and physicist, born at La Flèche on 24 March 1653, the son of a provincial notary, and dying on 9 July 1716. Mute until the age of seven because of a hearing and speech impairment, he had a fine education at the Jesuit College of La Flèche, then at seventeen went to Paris to study philosophy and theology, but discovered Euclid and turned to mathematics. By 1680 he was a favourite at court, taught anatomy to courtiers and calculated for them the odds in the game called basset. In 1681 he did the mathematical calculations for a waterworks at Chantilly with Edmé Mariotte, and in 1689 became mathematics teacher to the Duke of Chartres, for whom he wrote manuscripts on the elements of geometry and, with Vauban, on military fortification. He was a professor of mathematics and in 1696 became a member of the French Academy of Sciences.