Early Life and Education
He was born at Vire, Normandy (now in the department of Calvados), the son of Vire lawyer Nicolas Du Hamel. The family also included two other brothers, Georges, who would become a lawyer like his father and go onto great success as a member of the Grand Conseil in Paris, and Guillaume, who became a priest and served in the court of the King of France. He began his formal studies at Caen, moving to Paris in 1642. Du Hamel demonstrated an early aptitude for scholarly work, and at the age of eighteen published an explanation of the work of Theodosius of Bithynia called Sphériques de Théodose, to which he added a treatise on trigonometry. He also showed an interest in a religious career, entering the Congregation of the Oratory in 1643, choosing them over other sects due to their focus on service and scholarship. He then moved to Angers to teach philosophy, and was formally ordained a priest while there in 1649. While in Angers, he not only focused his attention on theology, but also on the study of mathematics, astronomy, and science. He was then transferred back to Paris as an instructor at an Oratorian school on the Rue Saint Honoré. It is while in Paris that he published two of his works, the Astronomia Physica and De Meteoris et Fossibilus in 1660, both of which analyze and compare ancient theories with Cartesianism. This combination of theoretical and scientific analysis made many of Du Hamel's contemporaries see him and his work as a link between theology and the new ideas of science.
Read more about this topic: Jean-Baptiste Du Hamel
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“[The sceptic] must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge any thing, that all human life must perish, were his principles to prevail. All discourse, all action would immediately cease, and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“It is hardly surprising that children should enthusiastically start their education at an early age with the Absolute Knowledge of computer science; while they are unable to read, for reading demands making judgments at every line.... Conversation is almost dead, and soon so too will be those who knew how to speak.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)