Isaac Beeckman

Isaac Beeckman (10 December 1588 – 19 May 1637) was a Dutch philosopher and scientist, who, through his studies and contact with leading natural philosophers, may have "virtually given birth to modern atomism".

Biography Beeckman was born in Middelburg, Zeeland,

Teachers, pupils, and Descartes Beeckman's most influential teachers in Leiden probably were Rudolph Snellius and Simon Stevin. He himself was a teacher to Johan de Witt and a teacher and friend of René Descartes. Beeckman had met the young Descartes in November 1618 in Breda, where Beeckman then lived and Descartes was then garrisoned as a soldier. It is said that they met when both were looking at a placard that was set up in the Breda marketplace, detailing a mathematical problem to be solved. Descartes asked Beeckman to translate the problem from Dutch to French. In their following meetings Beeckman interested Descartes in his corpuscularian approach to mechanics, and convinced him to devote his studies to a mathematical approach to nature. However, and despite a few other such fallings-out, they remained in contact until Beeckman's death in 1637.

Work and legacy Beeckman did not publish his ideas, but he had influenced many scientists of his time. Since the beginning of his studies he did keep an extensive journal ("Journaal" in Dutch), from which his brother published posthumous some of his observations in 1644 the treatise Mathematico-physicarum meditationum, quaestionum, solutionum centuria. However, this went basically unnoticed.

The scope of Beeckman's ideas did not come to light until the science historian Cornelis de Waard rediscovered the Journaal in 1905, and published it in volumes between 1939 and 1953.

Rejecting Aristotle, Beeckman developed, independent of Sebastian Basso, the concept that matter is composed of atoms. Beeckman is mentioned to be one of the first persons describing inertia correctly, however he also assumes that a constant circular velocity is conserved.