MacLaurin, Colin, 1698-1746 (mathematician)

Scope and Contents Autograph letter from Colin Maclaurin addressed to James Stirling "at Leadhills", dated 4 February 1737 [Old Style, i.e. 1738], comprising a secretarial copy of an English translation of a letter from Maupertuis to James Bradley, Paris 27 September 1737, announcing the return of the French expedition to Lapland, 1736-37, and describing in detail the findings of the expedition, with Maclaurin's autograph covering note to verso of conjugate leaf, with apostscript inviting Stirling to join a...

Scope and Contents Autograph letter signed from Colin Maclaurin addressed to James Stirling "at Leadhills", dated 20 May 1738, a detailed correction of an earlier mathematical demonstration, presumably that given in the previous letter ("When I spoke of concentric surfaces infinitely near I restricted only that I might distinguish the parts more properly into such as were convex and concave towards the particle"), referring to Cotes's theorems, encouraging Stirling's work on the figure of the earth ("I wish...

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Autograph letter from Colin Maclaurin addressed to James Stirling "at the Academy in Little Tower Street, London", dated 6 november 1729, on the dispute with Campbell ("I wonder I had no message by a good hand from Mr Campbell before he printed these silly reports … He has misrepresented my paper much and found things in it I never asserted").

Scope and Contents Autograph letter signed by Colin Maclaurin addressed to James Stirling "at Mr Watt's Academy in the little Tower Street, London", dated 16 November 1734, announcing his intention to write A Treatise of Fluxions ("Upon more consideration I did not think it best to write an answer to Dean Berkeley but to write a treatise of fluxions which might answer the purpose and be useful to my scholars. I intend that it shall be laid before you as soon I shall...

Scope and Contents Autograph letter signed from Colin Maclaurin addressed to James Stirling "at Leadhills", dated 6 December 1740, discussing the French expedition to Peru ("Mr Short writes that an unlucky accident has happened to the French mathematicians in Peru. It seems they were shewing some French gallantry to the natives’ wives, who have murdered their servants, destroyed their instruments and burn’t their papers"), and Short's observation of the satellite of Venus before summarising "all that I have...

Scope and Contents Autograph letter signed by Colin Maclaurin addressed to James Stirling "at the Academy in little Tower Street", on Maclaurin's intention to publish a piece on the collision of bodies ("I wish I had Mr Graham's Experiment at full length with Liberty to insert it"), his response to the nascent priority dispute with George Campbell (his "design of giving a Treatise of Algebra", his "method of demonstrating that [i.e. Newton’s] rule by the Limits", by which "too Idemonstrate a Theorem in y[our?]...

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Autograph letter from Colin Maclaurin to addressed to James Stirling "at the Academy in Little Tower Street, London", dated 1 May 1729, on the priority dispute with Campbell regarding impossible roots ("I have sent Mr Folkes the remainder of my paper … I am satisfied that any person who will read this paper and compare it with Mr Campbell’s will do me justice … The proposition I sent you in my last letter is the foundation of all my Theorems about the impossible Roots)".

Scope and Contents Autograph letter signed from Colin Maclaurin addressed to James Stirling "at Leadhills", dated 12 May 1738, principally on fluxions ("I am persuaded many things are wanting in the inverse methods of fluxions especially in what relates to fluents that are not reduced and perhaps are not reduced to the logarithms or circle. I give a chapter on these, distinguish them into various orders, and shew easy constructions of lines by whose rectification they may be assigned"), citing the work of...

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Autograph letter signed by Colin Maclaurin addressed to James Stilring "at Lead Hills", dated April 1738, in Dean near Edinburgh, recommending "an ingenious young man here who I am very sure will please you" owing to his "natural turn for making mathematical instruments", with a postscript regarding the publication of De Moivre’s new book (presumably the second edition of The Doctrine of Chances) and mentioning centripetal forces.