Marin Mersenne, Marin Mersennus or le Père Mersenne (8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French theologian, philosopher, mathematician and music theorist, often referred to as the "father of acoustics". Mersenne, an ordained priest, had many contacts in the scientific world and has been called "the center of the world of science and mathematics during the first half of the 1600s."