1759-1803

French mathematician who achieved renown as a historian of mathematics and for his work on the philosophy of mathematics. Arbogast collected the papers of Martin Mersenne, Pierre de Fermat, René Descartes, Guillaume-François-Antoine de l'Hospital, and other influential mathematicians of his day, which now form the backbone of important collections in both Paris and Florence. In addition, Arbogast was among the first to investigate the calculus of operators (symbols that represent entire sets of mathematical operations), and helped make communication between mathematicians more effective.