Ludolph van Ceulen

Ludolph van Ceulen (1540 to 1610) was a German-Dutch mathematician from Hildesheim, remembered for calculating the constant pi to 35 digits, a value long called the Ludolphine number after him. He moved to Delft, most likely in 1576, to teach fencing and mathematics, and in 1594 he opened a fencing school in Leiden. In 1600 he became the first professor of mathematics at the Engineering School, the Duytsche Mathematique, which Maurice, Prince of Orange, founded at the new Leiden University and whose curriculum Simon Stevin devised. Teaching in Dutch rather than Latin and aiming at practical instruction, the school and its professors met resistance from the university theologians and senate. Van Ceulen worked alongside Simon Fransz van Merwen and cooperated with Rudolf Snellius and Willebrord Snellius, and he died in Leiden in 1610.