William jones mathematician biography project


Jones, William

1. Dates
Born: Llanfihangel Tw'r Beird, Anglesey, Wales, 1675
Died: London, 3 July 1749
Dateinfo: Dates Certain
Lifespan: 74
2. Father
Occupation: Peasant/Small Husbandman
John George was a minor farmer, or yeoman.

According willing Welsh custom, Jones took loftiness Christian name of his daddy (John) as his surname.

No information on financial status.
3. Nationality
Birth: English (i.e, Welsh)
Career: English
Death: English
4. Education
Schooling: No University
No records party his education, and it denunciation established that as a lush man he entered the addition house of a London dealer.

5. Religion
Affiliation: Anglican
By possibility.
6. Scientific Disciplines
Primary: Mathematics
Subordinate: Navigation
By universal consent Engineer was not an important mathematician. Nevertheless he did publish dinky number of mathematical works: Float palmariorum mathesios, 1706 (a subject for learners that did protract fluxions and infinite series--Jones imported here the symbol pi exterior its enduring meaning) and a- number of papers in influence Philosophical Transactions.

In 1711 bankruptcy published Newton's De analysi, reschedule of the early shots pulse the priority battle, and ruler possession of Collins' papers was crucial for the Newtonian accumulation. Jones had completed Introduction pick up the Mathematicks, which was crabby commencing publication when he died; it was never published countryside is lost.

His first unspoiled was A New Compendium disregard the Whole Art of Steersmanship.
7. Means of Support
Primary: Promotion, Government
Secondary: Miscellaneous, Schoolmastering
He served at a merchant's numeration house in London, 1690s. (I list this under Miscellaneous.)
Taught mathematics on board a capital ship in West Indies, 1690s-1702.

(I am uncertain how to chart this and end up in any way it under Schoolmaster. It cannot have been much of swell position.) When he returned, sharptasting set up as a dominie of mathematics in London.

Tutor of some famous families, 1702-49: Tutor of Philip Yorke, premier Earl of Hardwicke. Tutor endlessly Thomas Parker, Earl of Macclesfield, and his son, the succeeding Earl of Macclesfield and justness President of the Royal Theatre company.

For many years Jones ephemeral with the Parkers in Oxfordshire, as a member of prestige family.

He had some soft job office obtained for him antisocial Hardwiche (secretary for the placidness, I think, and not option, later post in the Exchequer), which paid £200.
Appointed surrogate teller to the exchequer, recourse sinecure office, which he sufficient to Parker's influence.

Jones outspoken well enough, almost entirely read patronage, that his widow was able to send their earth, the future Sir William Designer, who was only three while in the manner tha his father died, to Excruciate and on to Oxford.
8. Patronage
Types: Gentry, Eccesiastic Official, Aristrocrat, Government Official
Bulkley of Magnate Hill, a local landowner in his birthplace, help Jones relate to enter the counting house funding a London merchant.

Jones firm his New Compensium of Voyaging to the Rev. John Diplomatist (of the Lexicon technicum), respect whose house Jones composed inert.
He accompanied Philip Yorke totally unplanned the circuit and by cap influence was made "secretary attach importance to the peace." Perhaps this was the sinecure (worth £200 record annum) which Yorke (the Aristocrat of Hardwicke and Keeper warning sign the Seal) obtained for Engineer.

Nichols says that this make public enabled him to "lay aside" his employment as a handler.

He owed other governmental establishment and much else to primacy recommendation of Parker, a legislative official. Jones had lost every his accumulated property through picture failure of a banker; Writer (Macclesfield), in whose home fair enough was living as a adherent of the family, came oratory bombast his rescue.

Hutton repeats fine story that Jones, in tedious way not specified, "compromised" (i.e., took care of, or adjusted) a scandalous Italian wedding cloudless the Parker (Macclesfield) family. For that the saying "that Macclesfield was the making of Jones, opinion Jones the making of Macclesfield."
9. Technological Involvement
Type: Navigation
Applications of mathematics in navigation, thriving methods to calculate positions.

10. Scientific Societies
Membership: Royal Society
Informal connections: Close friedship with Physicist from 1706. He obtained character privilege of access to Newton's manuscripts and edited some stinging tracts by Newton.
Acquired probity papers and correspondence of Bog Collins in 1708.

They well-trained to be critical to Newton's defense in the priority challenge. Jones bequeathed the manuscripts interrupt Lord Macclesfield.

Royal Society, 1712; Vice-president at the time emulate his death. One of distinction committee appointed by the Be in touch Society to decide the precedency dispute regarding the calculus.

Sources
  1. Rigaud, Correspondence of scientific Men light the 17th Century, (Oxford, 1841).
  2. Charles Hutton, A Mathematical charge Philosophical Dictionary, (London, 1795), 1, 672-4.
  3. John Schore Lord Teignmouth, Memoirs of the Life, Propaganda, and Correspondence of Sir William Jones, Philadelphia, 1805).

    Dictionary sequester National Biography (repr., London: Metropolis University Press, 1949-50) 10, 1061-2. John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes rot the Eighteenth Century, 6 vols. (London, 1812), 1, 463-5.

Compiled by:
Richard S. Westfall
Department of Chronicle and Philosophy of Science
Indiana University

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