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Mathematics

 Subject
Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings

Found in 23 Collections and/or Records:

Isaaci Newtoni tractatus de seriebus infinitis et convergentibus, c1685

 Item
Identifier: Coll-33/Quarto A [56(1)]
Scope and Contents

Notes on Newton's 1671 tract on fluxions, copied out from John Craige. Their concluding section, on angular sections, is in English.

Dates: c1685
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Papers of David Gregory / Quarto A

Jo: Keil Scheda de figura Radij in Medio difformi, 1684-1700

 Item
Identifier: Coll-33/Quarto A [30]
Scope and Contents A logarithmic treatment of light propagating through a uniform medium. John Keill was an Edinburgh native who earned distinction under David Gregory in mathematics and natural philosophy there, and who followed him to Oxford in 1691, where, like Gregory, he made a name for himself as an enthusiastic vindicator of Sir Isaac Newton. At Balliol College he demonstrated by experiments the validity of some of the chief propositions of Newton concerning light and colour, among other things. Oddly,...
Dates: 1684-1700
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Papers of David Gregory / Quarto A

Mr Whistons mistakes in his new theory, 3 April 1698

 Item
Identifier: Coll-33/Quarto A [45]
Scope and Contents A short critique of William Whiston's A New Theory of the Earth, from its Original to the Consummation of all Things, (1696) , intended to damn Cartesian astronomy and advance corollaries to Newtonian thought instead. He affirmed the truth of the flood narrative in Genesis, ascribing the deluge to the impact of a comet. Whiston had been converted to Newtonianism by a paper of David Gregory. At the foot of this document is an unrelated note, dated 6 Sept. 1708, to...
Dates: 3 April 1698
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Papers of David Gregory / Quarto A

Neutons Investigatio Curvae Celerrimi descensus, 1 April 1700

 Item
Identifier: Coll-33/Folio C [122(2)]
Scope and Contents

Newton's full solution of the brachistochrone problem. The original of this photostat is in the Royal Society, as Gr MS 122.

Dates: 1 April 1700
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Papers of David Gregory / Folio C

Nota ad pag: 221 Newtoni, May 1694

 Item
Identifier: Coll-33/Folio C [60]
Scope and Contents

More tries to work out Newton's thoughts on the attraction of a spheroid.

Dates: May 1694
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Papers of David Gregory / Folio C

Nota ad pag 221 Newtoni, May 1694

 Item
Identifier: Coll-33/Folio C [63]
Scope and Contents

Yet more tries to work out Newton's thoughts on the attraction of a spheroid.

Dates: May 1694
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Papers of David Gregory / Folio C

Nota ad pag: 468 Newtoni, May 1694

 Item
Identifier: Coll-33/Folio C [61]
Scope and Contents

Gregory tries to work out how Newton's lemma 1 to book 3 in the Principia derives the ratio of forces acting on the earth and thence the precession of the equinoxes. He wonders if Newton, who in the interest of brevity disliked showing his work, knows a shorter way to do this.

Dates: May 1694
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Papers of David Gregory / Folio C

Notanda D.J. phys. et math. Lond: Martio 1693 cum Fatio, 31 March 1693

 Item
Identifier: Coll-33/Quarto A [37]
Scope and Contents Notes to an extended conversation with Fatio de Duillier, fellow enthusiast of Newtonian science at Oxford, and especially important to Gregory between December 1691 and May 1694, when he was cut off from direct contact with Sir Isaac Newton, whom he had offended in a published commentary on his 'abrumpent' mathematical series. Topics include magnetic attraction, refraction and colour, and movement of solids through fluid, with anecdotal remarks by de Duiller about ships, tides, and the...
Dates: 31 March 1693
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Papers of David Gregory / Quarto A

Observata et dicta apud D. Hugenium, 06 June 1693

 Item
Identifier: Coll-33/Quarto A [4]
Scope and Contents

Notes of a conversation in Holland with Christian Huygens, concerning an 'horologium' to show hours, months, years, and planetary positions. More general mention of the work of numerous other scientists: Notably, Huygens disputes the notion of John Bernoulli (James Bernoulli's younger brother) that the curve of an inflated sail is part-catenary and part-circle, and warns that Newton ought not to be 'deflected' into theology or chemistry.

Dates: 06 June 1693
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Papers of David Gregory / Quarto A

Oratio de Quadr: Lunale Hypocratis, 1690

 Item
Identifier: Coll-33/Folio C [190]
Scope and Contents

Graduation speech, in Gregory's hand, of one Laurence Oliphant. This young man may have been Gregory's future brother-in-law.

The subject is Hyppocrates' lunula. Two documents on the same subject come before this, no doubt as supporting notes. One is the draft of a letter from Gregory to Wallis, referring to a 1687 article by Tchirnhausen in the Leipzig Acta, the other, a transcript of that article.

Dates: 1690
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Papers of David Gregory / Folio C

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