Stirling, James, 1692-1770 (Scottish mathematician)

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 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 signed from Colin Maclaurin to James Stirling, undated [probably 1729], on the dispute with George Campbell regarding impossible roots ("I send you with this letter my answer to Mr George Campbell which I publish with regret being so far from delighting in such a difference that I have the greatest dislike at a publick dispute of this Nature"), also mentioning a debt of six guineas to Abraham de Moivre.

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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 from Colin Maclaurin addressed to James Stirling "at the Academy in Little Tower Street, London", dated Edinburgh, 11 February 1728 [Old Style, which means the year is actually 1729], expressing agitation regarding the replication of his work on the "impossible roots" in a paper by George Campbell in the Philosophical Transactions for October, asserting his own claim to priority, and providing demonstrations (including one...

Scope and Contents This collection consists of eleven letters from Scottish mathematician Colin Maclaurin addressed to his fellow mathematician James Stirling "at the Academy in Little Tower Street", London, or "at Leadhills". The correspondence is dated from 1728 to 1740, and discusses the 1728-9 controversy between Colin MacLaurin and George Campbell over complex roots, as well as other contemporary mathematical and scientific subjects. The letters Coll-2911/6, 7, 10 are annotated with mathematical...