Adriaan Anthonisz

Adriaan Anthonisz (also known as Adriaen Anthonisz of Alcmaer) (1527–1607)[1][2][3] was a Dutch mathematician, surveyor, cartographer, and military engineer who specialized in the design of fortifications. As a mathematician Anthonisz calculated in 1585 the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, which would later be called pi.[2]

Statue of Adriaen Anthonisz by John Bier

Life

Anthonisz served as burgomaster (mayor) of Alkmaar in the Netherlands from 1582.[4]

Adriaan fathered two sons, and named them both Metius (from the Dutch word meten, meaning 'measuring', 'measurer', or surveyor). They each became prominent members of society.[5] Adriaan Metius (9 Dec 1571 – 6 Sep 1635) was a Dutch geometer and astronomer. Jacob Metius worked as an instrument-maker and a specialist in grinding lenses and applied for patent rights for the telescope a few weeks after Middelburg spectacle-maker Hans Lippershey tried to patent the same device.[6]

Career

In 1585 Anthonisz discovered that the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, later called pi, approximated the fractional value of 355/113. His son Adriaan Metius later published his father's results, and the value 355/113 is traditionally referred to as Metius' number'.[7][8]

He is regarded as one of the first military engineers to apply the principles of the Dutch fortification system.[9]

Some of his professional accomplishments included mapping the Berger lake and expanding and fortifying Naarden and Muiden.[10]

References
  1. Charles Joseph Singer (1921). Studies in the History and Method of Science: Singer, Charles. Greek biology and its relation to the rise of modern biology. Clarendon Press.
  2. J.L. Berggren; Jonathan Borwein; Peter Borwein (13 January 2014). Pi: A Source Book. Springer. pp. 291–. ISBN 978-1-4757-4217-6.
  3. Mathematics Magazine. Mathematical Association of America. 1949.
  4. Christopher Duffy (15 April 2013). Siege Warfare: The Fortress in the Early Modern World 1494-1660. Routledge. pp. 82–. ISBN 978-1-136-60786-8.
  5. Harold John Cook; Sven Dupré (2012). Translating Knowledge in the Early Modern Low Countries. LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 273–. ISBN 978-3-643-90246-7.
  6. "Non-Existent Domain". onthisday.org. Retrieved 2016-04-20.
  7. "M41". Archived from the original on November 1, 2005. Retrieved August 30, 2005.
  8. Royal Institution of Great Britain (1831). The Journal of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. John Murray. pp. 320–.
  9. Koster, Fortificate – Ideaal en Werkelijkheid (PDF), Dissertations.ub.rug.nl, pp. 217–218, archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-11-18, retrieved 2016-04-11
  10. "The Galileo Project". Rice University. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
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