Jacques Ozanam

Jacques Ozanam, who lived from 1640 to 1718, was a French mathematician born in Sainte-Olive in the Ain region of France. In 1670 he published trigonometric and logarithmic tables more accurate than the existing ones of Ulacq, Pitiscus and Briggs, and an act of kindness in lending money to two strangers brought him to the attention of the father of the chancellor d'Aguesseau and an invitation to settle in Paris. There he lived comfortably for many years on income from teaching mathematics to private pupils, chiefly foreigners, and his many mathematical publications were well received, among them the Dictionnaire mathematique of 1691, a Cours de mathematiques in five volumes and the Recreations mathematiques et physiques of 1694, which was later translated into English and is still well known. He was elected a member of the Academie des Sciences in 1701, and he taught Abraham de Moivre. The loss of his foreign pupils during the War of the Spanish Succession left him in poverty before his death in Paris.