Johannes Hudde

Johannes van Waveren Hudde, who lived from 1628 to 1704, was a mathematician, burgomaster or mayor of Amsterdam from 1672 to 1703 and governor of the Dutch East India Company. He first studied law at the University of Leiden and then turned to mathematics under the influence of his teacher Frans van Schooten, with whom he worked from 1654 to 1663. In the Latin translation of Descartes' La Geometrie that van Schooten and his students published in 1659 he added two papers, one on the reduction of equations and one on maxima and minima, describing an algorithm for simplifying the calculations needed to find a double root of a polynomial equation and the two properties of roots known as Hudde's rules. With René-François de Sluse he provided general algorithms for constructing tangents to curves, and he corresponded with Spinoza, Huygens, Johann Bernoulli, Newton and Leibniz, who used some of his ideas in their work on infinitesimal calculus. As mayor he had the canals flushed and promoted hygiene in the town's water supply.