Joseph Bayma (November, 1816 in
Piedmont
Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...
,
Kingdom of Sardinia
The Kingdom of Sardinia, also referred to as the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica among other names, was a State (polity), country in Southern Europe from the late 13th until the mid-19th century, and from 1297 to 1768 for the Corsican part of ...
– February 7, 1892, in
Santa Clara, California
Santa Clara ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Clare of Assisi, Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities and towns i ...
) was a mathematician, philosopher, and scientist. He is known for work relating to
stereochemistry
Stereochemistry, a subdiscipline of chemistry, studies the spatial arrangement of atoms that form the structure of molecules and their manipulation. The study of stereochemistry focuses on the relationships between stereoisomers, which are defined ...
and mathematics.
Life
He entered the
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...
on February 5, 1832. He was in charge of the episcopal seminary of Bertinoro when political troubles in 1860 led to his move to England. At
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College or Stonyhurst is a co-educational Catholic Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing education for boarding school, boarding and day school, day pupils, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition. It is ...
he took up philosophy and taught it for some seven years. This led to his producing three volumes of "Realis Philosophia." These were for private presses, and the volumes are not reliable as evidence of his mature opinions.
In 1868, he left England for California. He believed technology could be abused but could improve society.
In California, he would be Rector of Saint Ignatius' College, San Francisco, for three years, and he is listed as a past president of the
University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco (USF) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit university in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1855, it has nearly 9,000 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees ...
. He resided in Santa Clara, teaching elementary mathematics there. He would work in Santa Clara until his death.
Works
Bayma published a number of elementary works on mathematics:
[
* "Algebra" (1890),
* "Geometry" (1895)
* "Analytical Geometry" (1887)
* "Plane and Spherical Trigonometry" (1886)
* "Infinitesimal Calculus" (1889)
His other published works are:
* "Molecular Mechanics" (Cambridge, 1866)
* "The Love of Religious Perfection", originally in Italian, in the style of "The Imitation of Christ" (published in English, Dublin, 1863)
* articles in "The Catholic World", XVII–XXI (1873–75), the best printed account of his philosophy
* two articles in the "Am. Cath. Q. Rev.", II (1877)
* "A Discussion with an Infidel", being a review of Büchner's "Force and Matter" (New York, London, and Leamington, 1901).
At Bayma's death, he left behind, in manuscript, an elaborate new edition of the "Realis Philosophia", which never saw the light.
To posterity, he must be known for his "Molecular Mechanics", a ]metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...
and mathematical work treating the constitution of matter. With Roger Joseph Boscovich
Roger Joseph Boscovich (, ; ; ; 18 May 1711 – 13 February 1787) was a Croatian physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, theologian, Jesuit priest, and a polymath from the Republic of Ragusa.[Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...]
, and at Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Univ ...
. The author was advised to test his theories through ten years of experiments in chemistry and electricity.[ This did not occur in reality due to his death.
]
See also
*List of Jesuit scientists
This is a list of Catholic clergy throughout history who have made contributions to science. These churchmen-scientists include Nicolaus Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, Georges Lemaître, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, Roger Joseph B ...
*List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bayma, Joseph
1816 births
1892 deaths
19th-century Italian mathematicians
Catholic clergy scientists
19th-century Italian Jesuits
Italian emigrants to the United States
Presidents of the University of San Francisco
Jesuit scientists