Talk:Marin Mersenne

Untitled
Could someone suggest a pronunciation for Mersenne's name, please? Thanks! HCBowman 14:35, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

It is mer-SEEN.

The correct pronunciation is not mer-SEEN: it is mayr-SENN. --82.229.209.33 22:13, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

According to http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Printonly/Mersenne.html, he didn't die because of complications arising from surgery, but because of a lung abscess.

Date of Harmonie Universelle
It is given at one point as 1636-7 and at another as 1627. I assume the latter is a misprint and have excised it. --Tdent 20:21, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Why 53-ET
I don't see what is the relation of Mersenne to 53-note equal temperament. I have read the article on 53tet and Mersenne does not appear. --Tdent 20:33, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I might have done that by accident, thinking of Nicholas Mercator instead... Delete it for now. I'll check up on it. - Rainwarrior 21:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I can't find anything to that effect. I think it was a slip on my part. - Rainwarrior 23:53, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Descartes
It's generally regarded as untrue that Mersenne was friends with Descartes when they were going to the Jesuit school in La Fleche, so I removed, "where he was a schoolmate and friend of René Descartes."

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/Links/MathBiog.html

links to:

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Mersenne.html

Also, see Descartes, an Intellectual Biography, by Stephen Gaukroger, page 38. Guywithbadusername 20:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 07:24, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

See also suggestion
mersenne twister and other things named after mersenne 68.144.80.168 (talk) 00:58, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect formula for Mersenne's laws
The quoted formula for frequency is incorrect; it should be:

$$ f=\frac{1}{2L}\sqrt{\frac{T}{\mu}}, $$

Where $$\mu$$ is the mass per unit length. Since $$\mu = \rho \pi r^2$$, where r is the radius of the wire, to give frequency as a function of density the formula could equivalently be:

$$ f=\frac{1}{2Lr}\sqrt{\frac{T}{\rho \pi}}, $$

But this is less clear. I think that this mistake indicates that this article is very much indeed of proper referencing throughout.

--194.66.251.233 (talk) 17:59, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Influence on Political Theory
Mersenne indirectly influenced political theory by influencing Thomas Hobbes' view of politics. Hobbes wrote in his verse autobiography that Mersenne was "the axis around which every star in the world of science revolved." His communication with Mersenne brought him to focus his attention on the phenomenon of motion in ways which was later formative of his understanding of politics in his most well known works, De Cive and Leviathan.

Source: Skinner, Quentin. 2008. Hobbes and Republican Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 14ff. ISBN 978-0-521-886765. Politheory1983 (talk) 20:47, 29 November 2015 (UTC)