ProofWiki:Mathematicians/John Wallis
From ProofWiki
English mathematician who made considerable contributions towards the invention of the calculus.
Credited with introducing the symbol $\infty$ for infinity.
One of the first English mathematicians to use the techniques of analytic geometry as defined by Descartes.
Rediscovered a neat proof of Pythagoras' Theorem originally published by Bhāskara II in the 12th century.
Contents |
Nationality
English
History
- Born: November 23, 1616, Ashford, Kent, England
- Died: October 28, 1703, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Theorems and Definitions
Books and Papers
- 1655: Tract on Conic Sections
- 1656: Arithmetica infinitorum (in which Wallis's Product appears)
- 1659: De Cycloide et de Corporibus inde Genitis (which incorporated William Neile's work on the rectification of the semicubical parabola)
- 1685: Treatise on Algebra
Treatise of Angular Sections (unpublished for forty years after it was written)
Restored some ancient Greek texts, for example:
- Ptolemy's Harmonics
- Aristarchus's On the magnitudes and distances of the sun and moon
- Archimedes' Sand-reckoner
Dispute with Hobbes
From 1655 onwards he was involved in an intellectual dispute with Thomas Hobbes, whence various publications with titles like:
- Due Correction for Mr Hobbes, or School Discipline for not saying his Lessons Aright
Non-mathematical
- 1653: Grammatica linguae Anglicanae
- 1687: Institutio logicae
