Antoine Gombaud

Who was Antoine Gombaud?

Antoine Gombaud, Chevalier de Méré was a French writer, born in Poitou. Although he was not a nobleman, he adopted the title Chevalier for the character in his dialogues who represented his own views. Later his friends began calling him by that name.

Méré was an important Salon theorist. Like many 17th century liberal thinkers, he distrusted both hereditary power and democracy. He believed that questions are best resolved in open discussions among witty, fashionable, intelligent people.

Méré's most famous essays are L'honnête homme and Discours de la vraie honnêteté, but he is far better known for his contribution to probability theory. He was an amateur mathematician who became interested in a problem that dates to medieval times, if not earlier, the problem of the points. Suppose two players agree to play a certain number of games, say a best-of-seven series, and are interrupted before they can finish. How should the stake be divided among them if, say, one has won three games and the other has won one?

In keeping with his Salon methods, Méré enlisted the Mersenne salon to solve it. Two famous mathematicians, Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat, took up the challenge.