Jakub Nakcjanowicz or Nakcyanowicz ( Lithuanian: ''Jokūbas Nakcijonavičius''; 1 May 1725 – 1777) was a

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest, mathematician, and astronomer of the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

. He was the second director of the Vilnius University Astronomical Observatory (1758–1764).

Biography

Jakob Nakcyanowicz was born on 1 May 1725 in

Grodno Grodno, or Hrodna, is a city in western Belarus. It is one of the oldest cities in Belarus. The city is located on the Neman, Neman River, from Minsk, about from the Belarus–Poland border, border with Poland, and from the Belarus–Lithua ...

, present-day

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

. He joined the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

in 1742. From 1744 to 1746 he taught in present-day

Ilūkste Ilūkste (; ; ) is a town in Augšdaugava Municipality in the Selonia region of Latvia. The population in 2020 was 2,216. History The territory of modern Ilūkste was inhabited by the Selonians, an ancient Baltic peoples, Baltic tribe. As a set ...

. From 1746 to 1749 Nakcyanowicz studied philosophy at the Jesuit College in Polotsk. He returned to lecture in Ilūkste from 1749 to 1750. From 1750 to 1751 he lectured

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

and grammar in

Pašiaušė Pašiaušė is a village in Lithuania, between Šiauliai and Panevėžys. According to census of 2001, it had 191 residents. Notable people * Jan Prosper Witkiewicz - a 19th-century Polish–Lithuanian orientalist, explorer and diplomat in Rus ...

. From 1751 to 1755 he studied theology at

Vilnius University Vilnius University ( Lithuanian: ''Vilniaus universitetas'') is a public research university, which is the first and largest university in Lithuania, as well as one of the oldest and most prominent higher education institutions in Central and Ea ...

. He was ordained as a priest in 1754. Nakcyanowicz was prefect of the Diocesan Seminary in Vilnius. Nakcyanowicz once again returned to Ilūkste to lecture on mathematics from 1754 to 1758. In 1758 he became the director of the Vilnius University Astronomical Observatory, a position preceded by the observatory's founder Thomas Zebrowski, holding that title until 1764. Nakcyanowicz was Zebrowski's student. In the university itself, Nakcyanowicz lectured on mathematics, geodesics, philosophy, and experimental physics. From 1764 he taught at various schools at Grodno. From 1766 to 1768 he taught mathematics at

Navahrudak Novogrudok or Navahrudak (; ; , ; ) is a town in Grodno Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Novogrudok District. As of 2025, it has a population of 27,624. In the Middle Ages, the city was ruled by King Mindaugas' son ...

. In 1773 he was dean of the faculty of philosophy of Vilnius University. As a scientist, Nakcyanowicz was mostly interested in the works of Christian Wolff. Nakcyanowicz developed a mathematics textbook entitled ''Exercitationes in analysi cum finitorum tum infinitorum mathematicae'', which was published in 1758. The textbook concerned the

binomial theorem In elementary algebra, the binomial theorem (or binomial expansion) describes the algebraic expansion of powers of a binomial. According to the theorem, the power expands into a polynomial with terms of the form , where the exponents and a ...

, progressions,

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

, and

trigonometry Trigonometry () is a branch of mathematics concerned with relationships between angles and side lengths of triangles. In particular, the trigonometric functions relate the angles of a right triangle with ratios of its side lengths. The fiel ...

. He wrote another textbook entitled ''Praelectiones mathematicae ex Wolfianis elementis adornatae'' in 1759–1761, which concerned the basic principles of mathematics,

arithmetic Arithmetic is an elementary branch of mathematics that deals with numerical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In a wider sense, it also includes exponentiation, extraction of roots, and taking logarithms. ...

, geometry, trigonometry, and some algebra. In 1762 published a work on

conic sections A conic section, conic or a quadratic curve is a curve obtained from a Conical surface, cone's surface intersecting a plane (mathematics), plane. The three types of conic section are the hyperbola, the parabola, and the ellipse; the circle is ...

and other algebraic and transcendental curves.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nakcyanowicz, Jakob 1725 births 1777 deaths Catholic priests People from Grodno