Alphonse Antonio de Sarasa was a

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

who contributed to the understanding of

logarithm In mathematics, the logarithm is the inverse function to exponentiation. That means the logarithm of a number to the base is the exponent to which must be raised, to produce . For example, since , the ''logarithm base'' 10 ...

s, particularly as

area Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an op ...

s under a

hyperbola In mathematics, a hyperbola (; pl. hyperbolas or hyperbolae ; adj. hyperbolic ) is a type of smooth curve lying in a plane, defined by its geometric properties or by equations for which it is the solution set. A hyperbola has two pieces, ca ...

. Alphonse de Sarasa was born in 1618, in Nieuwpoort in Flanders. In 1632 he was admitted as a

novice A novice is a person who has entered a religious order and is under probation, before taking vows. A ''novice'' can also refer to a person (or animal e.g. racehorse) who is entering a profession with no prior experience. Religion Buddhism ...

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

. It was there that he worked alongside Gregoire de Saint-Vincent whose ideas he developed, exploited, and promulgated. According to Sommervogel, Alphonse de Sarasa also held academic positions in Antwerp and Brussels. In 1649 Alphonse de Sarasa published ''Solutio problematis a R.P. Marino Mersenne Minimo propositi''. This book was in response to

Marin Mersenne Marin Mersenne, OM (also known as Marinus Mersennus or ''le Père'' Mersenne; ; 8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French polymath whose works touched a wide variety of fields. He is perhaps best known today among mathematicians for ...

's pamphlet "Reflexiones Physico-mathematicae" which reviewed Saint-Vincent's ''Opus Geometricum'' and posed this challenge: : Given three arbitrary magnitudes, rational or irrational, and given the logarithms of the two, to find the logarithm of the third geometrically. R.P. BurnR. P. Burn (2001) "Alphonse Antonio de Sarasa and Logarithms",

Historia Mathematica ''Historia Mathematica: International Journal of History of Mathematics'' is an academic journal on the history of mathematics published by Elsevier. It was established by Kenneth O. May in 1971 as the free newsletter ''Notae de Historia Mathema ...

28:1 – 17 explains that the term ''logarithm'' was used differently in the seventeenth century. Logarithms were any

arithmetic progression An arithmetic progression or arithmetic sequence () is a sequence of numbers such that the difference between the consecutive terms is constant. For instance, the sequence 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, . . . is an arithmetic progression with a common differ ...

which corresponded to a

geometric progression In mathematics, a geometric progression, also known as a geometric sequence, is a sequence of non-zero numbers where each term after the first is found by multiplying the previous one by a fixed, non-zero number called the ''common ratio''. For ex ...

. Burn says, in reviewing de Sarasa's popularization of de Saint-Vincent, and concurring with Moritz Cantor, that "the relationship between logarithms and the hyperbola was found by Saint-Vincent in all but name". Burn quotes de Sarasa on this point: "…the foundation of the teaching embracing logarithms are contained" in Saint-Vincent's ''Opus Geometricum'', part 4 of Book 6, ''de Hyperbola''. Alphonse Antonio de Sarasa died in Brussels in 1667.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarasa, Alphonse Antonio De Jesuits of the Spanish Netherlands 1618 births 1667 deaths Mathematicians of the Spanish Netherlands Logarithms People from Nieuwpoort, Belgium Jesuit scientists

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