Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:01:59.770Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Henry Briggs: The Trigonometria Britannica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Ian Bruce
Ian Bruce*
Affiliation:
Dept of Physics & Mathematical Physics, University of Adelaide, S. Australia. P.C.5005, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1632, Henry Gellibrand, then the Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, London, arranged for the publishing of the Trigonometria Britannica (T. B.) by Adrian Vlacq in Gouda the following year: the work consisted of two Books, and sets of tables of natural sines in steps of one hundredth of a degree to 15 places, as well as tables of tangents & secants to 10 places, together with their logarithms. The explanatory Book I was the last work of Henry Briggs (1559-1631), Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, and was devoted mainly to the construction of his table of sines; while Book II, written by the youthful Gellibrand on the instigation of the dying Briggs, his mentor, contained instructions and examples on the use of logarithms in solving trigonometrical problems.

Type
Articles
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 88 , Issue 513 , November 2004 , pp. 457 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Briggs, Henry, Arithmetica Logarithmica, etc., London (1624). A microfilm of a copy of Briggs’ book in the Bodlean Library is available, produced by University Microfilms International, Ann Arbour, Michigan 48106.Google Scholar
Briggs, Henry and Gellibrand, Henry, Trigonometria Britannica, in two books. The present writer obtained a photocopy of the one held by the Rare Books Department at Cambridge University Library, for which he is duly grateful. See also:Google Scholar
Bruce, Ian, The agony and the ecstasy. Math. Gaz. 86 (July 2002) pp. 216–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. A good summary of Briggs’ achievements is given by Charles Hutton in the extensive preamble to the earlier editions of his Mathematical Tables, London (1811 edition) pp. 75–84.Google Scholar
3. Viète, François, Opera Mathematica, Schooien, Olms (1970).Google Scholar
De Numerosa Potestatum Purarum Resolutione, pp. 163–172.Google Scholar
De Numerosa Potestatum Adfectarum Resolutione, pp. 173–228.Google Scholar
Ad Angulares Sectiones, pp. 287–404.Google Scholar
A good introduction to Viète, and his relation to the ancients, can be found in:Google Scholar
Klein, Jacob. Greek mathematical thought and the origin of algebra. Dover, N.Y. (1968).Google Scholar
4. Witmer, T. Richard, The Analytic Art, Kent State University (1983) pp. 311–370.Google Scholar
5. Harriot, Thomas, Artis analyticae praxis, ad aequationes algebraicas nova methodo resolvendos, London (1631). Available on microfilm from University Microfilms, Inc. Ann Arbour, Michigan.Google Scholar
For a biography of Harriot, see:Google Scholar
Shirley, John W., Thomas Harriot; a biography. Clarendon Press, Oxford (1983).Google Scholar
The friendship between Viète and Harriot is mentioned on p. 3 of this book, the original reference being:Google Scholar
Pepper, Jon V., ‘A letter from Nathanial Torporley to Thomas Harriot’. Brit. J. Hist. Sc., 3 (1967), pp. 285–290.Google Scholar
6. Oughtred, William, The Key of the Mathematics New Filed, London (1655) p. 121 onwards. Also on microfilm as above.Google Scholar
7. Rashed, Roshdi, Resolution des Equation Numeriques et Algebre: Saraf-al-Din al-Tusi, Viète. Archive for history of exact sciences (1974) 12, pp. 244–290.Google Scholar
Also by Rashed, : The Development of Arabic Mathematics: Between Arithmetic and Algebra, Kluwer, Boston (1996).Google Scholar
8. Hooper, Alfred, Makers of Mathematics, Faber & Faber (1961) p. 127.Google Scholar
This author has an interesting explanation that hinges on the misinterpretation into Latin by a medieval translator of a Hindu word for ‘half-chord’ present in an Arabic manuscript.Google Scholar
9. Ptolemy, Britannica Great Books, Vol. 16 (1975) pp. 14–21.Google Scholar
10. Goldstine, Herman H., A History of Numerical Analysis, Springer-Verlag N.Y. (1978) p. 33.Google Scholar
11. Whiteside, D. T. (ed.), The mathematical papers of Isaac Newton, Cambridge (1967), Vol. 1, Ch.2; Vol. 2. pp. 221–222.Google Scholar
12. Ypma, T. J., Historical Development of the Newton-Raphson Method, Siam Review, Vol. 37,4 (1995) pp. 531–551.Google Scholar