PARENT (Anthony)

, a respectable French mathematician, was born at Paris in 1666. He shewed an early propensity to the mathematics, eagerly perusing such books in that science as fell in his way. His custom was to write remarks in the margins of the books he read; and in this way he had silled a number of books with a kind of commentary by the time he was 13 years of age.

Soon after this he was put under a master, who taught rhetoric at Chartres. Here he happened to see a dodecaedron, upon every face of which was delineated a sun-dial, except the lowest on which it stood. Struck as it were instantaneously with the curiosity of these dials, he attempted drawing one himself: but having only a book which taught the practical part, without the theory, it was not till after his master came to explain the doctrine of the sphere to him, that he began to understand how the projection of the circles of the sphere formed sun-dials. He then undertook to write a treatise upon gnomonics. To be sure the piece was rude and unpolished enough; however, it was entirely his own, and not borrowed. About the same time he wrote a book of geometry, in the same taste, at Beauvais.

His friends then sent for him to Paris to study the law; and in obedience to them he went through a course in that faculty: which was no sooner finished than, urged by his passion for mathematics, he shut himself up in the college of Dormans, that no avocation might take him from his beloved study: and, with an allowance of less than 200 livres a-year, he lived content in this retreat, from which he never stirred but to the Royal College, to hear the lectures of M. de la Hire or M. de Sauveur. When he thought himself capable of teaching others, he took pupils: and fortification being a branch of study which the war had brought into particular notice, he had often occasion to teach it: but after some time he began to entertain scruples about teaching a subject he had never seen, knowing it only by imagination. He imparted this scruple to M. Sauveur, who recommended him to the Marquis d'Aligre, who luckily at that time wanted to have a mathematician with him. M. Parent made two campaigns with the marquis, by which he instructed himself sufficiently in viewing fortified places; of which he drew a number of plans, though he had never learned the art of drawing.

From this period he spent his time in a continual application to the study of natural philosophy, and mathematics in all its branches, both speculative and practical; to which he joined anatomy, botany, and chemistry:—his genius joined with his indefatigable application overcoming every thing.

M. de Billettes being admitted into the Academy of Sciences at Paris in 1699, with the title of their mechanician, he named M. Parent for his eleve or dif-| ciple, a branch of mathematics in which he chiefly excelled. It was soon discovered in this society, that he engaged in all the different subjects which were brought before them; and indeed that he had a hand in every thing. But this extent of knowledge, joined to a natural warmth and impetuosity of temper, raised a spirit of contradiction in him, which he indulged on all occasions; sometimes to a degree of precipitancy that was highly culpable, and often with but little regard to decency. Indeed the fame behaviour was returned to him, and the papers which he brought to the academy were often treated with much severity. In his productions, he was charged with obscurity; a fault for which he was indeed so notorious, that he perceived it himself, and could not avoid correcting it.

By a regulation of the academy in 1716, the class of eleves was suppressed, as that distinction seemed to put too great an inequality between the members. M. Parent was made an adjunct or assistant member for the class of geometry: though he enjoyed this promotion but a very short time; being cut off by the smallpox the same year, at 50 years of age.

M. Parent, besides leaving many pieces in manuscript, published the following works:

1. Elemens de Mecanique & de Physique; in 12mo, 1700.

2. Recherches de Mathematiques & de Physique; 3 vols. 4to, 1714.

3. Arithmetique theorico-pratique; in 8vo, 1714.

4. A great multitude of papers in the volumes of the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, from the year 1700 to 1714, several papers in almost every volume, upon a variety of branches in the mathematics.

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Entry taken from A Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary, by Charles Hutton, 1796.

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PARALLELOGRAM
PARALLELOPIPED
PARAMETER
PARAPET
PARDIES (Ignatius Gaston)
* PARENT (Anthony)
PARGETING
PARHELION
PART
PARTICLE
PASCAL (Blaise)