James Gregory (November 1638 – October 1675), was a Scottish mathematician and astronomer. It has been said that "Of the British mathematicians of the seventeenth century, Gregory was only excelled by Newton."
James Gregory was born at Drumoak, Aberdeenshire, and died at Edinburgh. He was successively professor at the University of St Andrews and the University of Edinburgh.
In the Optica Promota Gregory described his design for a reflecting tele...
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James Gregory (November 1638 – October 1675), was a Scottish mathematician and astronomer. It has been said that "Of the British mathematicians of the seventeenth century, Gregory was only excelled by Newton."
James Gregory was born at Drumoak, Aberdeenshire, and died at Edinburgh. He was successively professor at the University of St Andrews and the University of Edinburgh.
In the Optica Promota Gregory described his design for a reflecting telescope, the "Gregorian telescope". He also described the method for using the transit of Venus to measure the distance of the Earth from the Sun, which was later advocated by Edmund Halley and adopted as the basis of the first effective measurement of the Astronomical Unit.
In 1667, Gregory issued his Vera Circuli et Hyperbolae Quadratura, in which he showed how the areas of the circle and hyperbola could be obtained in the form of infinite convergent series. This work contains a remarkable geometrical proposition to the effect that the ratio...
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