Alexis Fontaine des Bertins


Alexis Fontaine, known as Alexis Fontaine des Bertins was a French mathematician. He was a patron and teacher of Jean-Jacques de Marguerie.

Life

Fontaine was born in Claveyson, Dauphiné. He first got a taste for maths by reading the Géométrie de l'infini of Fontenelle and gave solutions to the problems of the tautochrone curve, the brachistochrone curve and orthogonal trajectories.
He was elected a member of the Académie des sciences in 1733. He died, aged 67, in Cuiseaux.

Publications

  • Mémoires donnés à l'Académie royale des sciences, non imprimés dans leur temps
  • ''Traité de calcul différentiel et intégral, par M. Fontaine, de l'Académie royale des sciences, pour servir de suite aux mémoires de la même Académie''