Pierre Gassendi Biography

Emily Gaubatz

Mr. Percival

Astronomy

14 October 2011

Pierre Gassendi

            Pierre Gassendi is a French philosopher, mathematician, writer and astronomer. He was born in 1592 in Camptercier, the Provencal area of France. He studied arithmetic, Latin, philosophy and theology. He later taught philosophy, lecturing in contradiction to the Aristotelian doctrines which contradicting the thoughts of most of 17^th century society. In 1625 Gassendi was forced to leave his teaching job and moved to Paris where he met Pére Marin Mersenne, peaking his interest in Astronomy.

            Although Pierre is most renowned for writing his books in philosophy and political issues, he also made a few large contributions to astronomy. He was the first to observe the transit of Mercury and then Venus using Kepler’s predictions. He also named the northern lights, Aurora Borealis. Another major contribution was the publication of his biographies of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. Copernicus and Brahe are two of the top astronomers during Pierre’s time, by doing biographies of them both he helped keep their findings solidified in history. A crater on the moon was also names Gassendi. The crater was one of two potential landing spots for Apollo 17.

In 1625 Gassendi met his teacher Pére Marin Mersenne who had introduced him to astronomy. He had made connections to Galileo and Elie Diodati at that time which really stimulated his interest in observational astronomy. This was also the back bone to his philosophical skeptism. Had Mersenne not died so soon in 1637 then perhaps Gassendi would have followed astronomy further.

            In the 1640’s Gassendi wrote a series of writing retorting the views of Descartes creating a publishing duel between the two philosophers. He also debated with Jean-Baptiste Morin, who thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. This spurred Gassendi into further examination of Galileo and Copernicus’s work. He then published Insitutio Astronomica in 1647. After this publication Gassendi fell to bad health. For the next few years he mostly spent producing philosophical publications including, Animadversiones in Decimum Librum Diogenes Laertii, one of his most extensive publications. It was in 1653 that Gassendi wrote several biographies of astronomers, including the ones about Tycho Brahe and Copernicus.

Throughout Gassendi’s life he faced many spurts of sickness which gave him the time to publish so many pieces. Gassendi made many contributions in philosophy and astronomy. On October 24, 1655 Gassendi died in Paris.