Mathematician:William Jones
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Mathematician
Welsh mathematician who has recently come to notice for being the first to use the symbol $\pi$ (pi) in print to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.
Close friend of Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley.
On his death, left behind him a library of about $15 \, 000$ books, which was probably the most valuable library of mathematics in England. This has only recently been fully dispersed.
Nationality
Welsh
History
- Born: 1675 in Llanfihangel Tre'r Beirdd, Isle of Anglesey
- 1695 -- 1702: Served at sea, teaching mathematics on board Navy ships
- 1702: Started a career lecturing on mathematics in coffee-houses
- November 1711: Became a Fellow of the Royal Society, later its president
- Died: 3 July 1749 in London, England
Inventions
- The symbol $\pi$ (pi) for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter
Publications
- 1702: A New Compendium of the Whole Art of Navigation
- 1706: Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos in which $\pi$ (pi) first appeared in print
- 1711: Analysis per quantitatum series, fluxiones ac differentias
- 1731: Discourses of the Natural Philosophy of the Elements