Who invented pi

For those of you who are religious the bible also has mentioned pi in its description format 1kings KJV verion. The architects of the pyramids also in the BC knew about pi. The ancient Babylonians took the value of Pi to be not three but 3. Archimedes of Syracuse BC was the first mathematician to give the theoretical text for pi with the number very close to the actual value of pi. So much so that some time pi is referred to as Archimedes constant.

He drew a polygon on the inside and on the outside of a circle and realised that the sides of the polygon were totalling to almost the circumference of the circle. Such that if he keeps on increasing the sides of the polygon he will almost reach the circle.

It was probably around that Jones first came to Isaac Newton's attention when he published Synopsis, in which he explained Newton's methods for calculus as well as other mathematical innovations.

In Jones was able to acquire Collins's extensive library and archive, which contained several of Newton's letters and papers written in the s. These would prove of great interest to Jones and useful to his reputation.

Born half a century apart, Collins and Jones never met, yet history will forever link them because of the library and mathematical archive that Collins started and Jones continued, arising from their shared passion for collecting books.

The son of an impoverished minister, Collins was apprenticed to a bookseller. Essentially self-taught like Jones, he had also gone to sea and learned navigation. On his return to London he had earned his living as a teacher and an accountant. He held several increasingly lucrative posts and was adept at disentangling intricate accounts.

Collins's modest ambition had been to open a bookshop, but he was unable to accumulate enough capital. In , however, he was elected to the Royal Society of which he became an indispensable member, assisting the official secretary Henry Oldenburg on mathematical subjects. Collins corresponded with Newton and with many of the leading English and foreign mathematicians of the day, drafting mathematical notes on behalf of the Society.

In spite of these he was turned down. However Jones's former pupil, Philip Yorke, had by now embarked on his legal career and introduced his tutor to Sir Thomas Parker , a successful lawyer who was on his way to becoming the next lord chief justice in the following year. Jones joined his household and became tutor to his only son, George c. This was the start of his life-long connection with the Parker family. Around the time that Jones bought Collins's library and archive, Newton and the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz were in dispute over who invented calculus first.

In Collins's mathematical papers, Jones had found a transcript of one of Newton's earliest treatments of calculus, De Analyst , which in he arranged to have published. It had previously been circulated only privately. President of the Royal Society since , Newton was reluctant to have his work published and jealously guarded his intellectual property. However, he recognised an ally in Jones. In Jones joined the committee set up by the Royal Society to determine priority for the invention of calculus.

Jones made the Collins papers with Newton's correspondence on calculus available to the committee and the resulting report on the dispute, published later that year, Commercium Epistolicum , was based largely upon them. Though anonymous, Commercium Epistolicum was edited by Newton himself and could hardly be viewed as impartial. Unsurprisingly it came down on Newton's side. Today it is considered that both Newton and Leibniz discovered calculus independently though Leibniz's notation is superior to Newton's and is the one now in common use.

By Jones was firmly positioned among the mathematical establishment. In his patron Sir Thomas Parker was made lord chancellor and in was ennobled as Earl of Macclesfield. Shirburn castle became a home too for Jones who was, by then, almost a family member. Besides the law, Parker had a scholarly interest in many subjects including science and mathematics and was a generous patron of the arts as well as the sciences. He was influential in the appointment of Halley as astronomer royal in He also maintained links with Wales, particularly through the Morrises of Anglesey, a family of literary brothers renowned for their cultural influences and activities who, although a generation younger than William, came from the same part of Anglesey and had strong London-based connections.

William Jones became an important and influential member of the scientific establishment. In he was appointed a member of a committee established by the Royal Society to determine whether the Englishman, Isaac Newton, or the German, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, should be accorded the accolade of having invented the calculus — one of the jewels in the crown of contemporary mathematics. Not surprisingly, considering the circumstances, the committee adjudged in favour of Newton. Some of these books and manuscripts were written in Welsh, and this portion of the original library was safeguarded in about to form the Shirburn Collection at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

The Macclesfield estate benefited greatly from the sale, but this priceless collection has now been dispersed to libraries and private collectors across the globe. The Macclesfield family had been reluctant to release them and there is the suggestion of a scandal that the family has sought to conceal. Those papers would surely throw further light on William Jones, on his relationship with the earls of Macclesfield, and on his remarkable life-journey from a cottage in Anglesey to be a member of the mathematics establishment, and one of its shining stars.

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