James Gregory Scottish mathematician and astronomer Date of Birth: 11.1638Год Country: Great Britain

Biography of James Gregory

James Gregory was a Scottish mathematician and astronomer known for his contributions to the field of mathematics and his development of the first practical reflecting telescope, known as the Gregorian telescope. He also made significant advancements in trigonometry, particularly in representing trigonometric functions as infinite series.

James Gregory was born in Drumoak, Aberdeenshire as the younger son of John Gregory, a clergyman in the Scottish Episcopal Church. His mother, Janet Anderson, played a crucial role in his early education, instilling in him a love for geometry. His uncle, Alexander Anderson, was a pupil and editor of the renowned poet François Viète.

After the death of his father in 1651, James's older brother David took responsibility for his education. In 1657, he was sent to the grammar school in Aberdeen and later enrolled at Marischal College, where he completed his studies in 1657.

In 1663, James Gregory traveled to London, where he met John Collins and his friend and colleague Robert Moray, the first president of the Royal Society. In 1664, Gregory moved to the University of Padua in Venice, passing through Flanders, Paris, and Rome on his way. In Padua, he lived with his fellow countryman James Caddenhead, a professor of philosophy, and studied under the guidance of Stefano Angeli.

Returning to London in 1668, Gregory became a member of the Royal Society. Later that year, he moved to St. Andrews, where he became the first holder of the mathematics chair, a position specially created for him by King Charles II, possibly at the request of Robert Moray. Gregory later became a professor at the University of St. Andrews and then at the University of Edinburgh.

James Gregory passed away in October 1675 in Edinburgh at the age of only 36. Despite his short life, he left behind a significant legacy. Two of his most notable works include "Optica Promota," which focused on the reflecting (Gregorian) telescope and proposed a method for measuring the distance from Earth to the Sun using Venus, and "Vera Circuli et Hyperbolae Quadratura," which demonstrated how the areas of a circle and a hyperbola could be represented as infinite convergent series.

In "Vera Circuli et Hyperbolae Quadratura," Gregory introduced the concept of transcendental numbers and is credited with the discovery of Taylor series and the first proof of Newton-Leibniz theorem. The work also explored the transformations of classical functions such as sin(x), cos(x), arcsin(x), and arccos(x). In 1668, the book was reissued with an additional chapter called "Geometriae Pars," where Gregory discussed the computation of volumes of various rotating solids.