WORD OF THE DAY
geometry
His life was devoted to the study of higher geometry and reforming the more advanced mathematical teaching of Italy.
The geometry of the rectangular hyperbola is simplified by the fact that its principal axes are equal.
The "axioms" of geometry are the fixed conditions which occur in the hypotheses of the geometrical propositions.
He was elected fellow of Balliol in 1850 and Savilian professor of geometry in 1861, and in 1874 was appointed keeper of the university museum.
The Canonis Descriptio on its publication in 1614, at once attracted the attention of Edward Wright, whose name is known in connexion with improvements in navigation, and Henry Briggs, then professor of geometry at Gresham College, London.
The Greeks created the sciences of geometry and of number as applied to the measurement of continuous quantities.
Thus Descartes gave to modern geometry that abstract and general character in which consists its superiority to the geometry of the ancients.
However, the braille worked well enough in the languages; but when it came to Geometry and Algebra, it was different.
In fact, the whole theory of measurement in geometry arises at a comparatively late stage as the result of a variety of complicated considerations.
In fact, the whole theory of measurement in geometry arises at a comparatively late stage as the result of a variety of complicated considerations.
Fortunately, however, Robert Napier had transcribed his father's manuscript De Arte Logistica, and the copy escaped the fate of the originals in the manner explained in the following note, written in the volume containing them by Francis, seventh Lord Napier: "John Napier of Merchiston, inventor of the logarithms, left his manuscripts to his son Robert, who appears to have caused the following pages to have been written out fair from his father's notes, for Mr Briggs, professor of geometry at Oxford.
The book will contain four essays, all in French, with the general title of Project of a Universal science, capable of raising our nature to its highest perfection; also Dioptrics, Meteors and Geometry, wherein the most curious matters which the author could select as a proof of the universal science which he proposes are explained in such a way that even the unlearned may understand them.'
In mathematics, he was the first to draw up a methodical treatment of mechanics with the aid of geometry; he first distinguished harmonic progression from arithmetical and geometrical progressions.
During this period logarithms were invented, trigonometry and algebra developed, analytical geometry invented, dynamics put upon a sound basis, and the period closed with the magnificent invention of (or at least the perfecting of) the differential calculus by Newton and Leibnitz and the discovery of gravitation.
In 1664 Sir John Cutler instituted for his benefit a mechanical lectureship of £50 a year, and in the following year he was nominated professor of geometry in Gresham College, where he subsequently resided.