de circuli magnitudine inventa explanation

It appears that Gregorie's work is a substantial counter-example to the standard thesis that geometry and algebra were opposed forces in 17th-century mathematics. The third chapter studies Gregorie's work on 'Taylor' expansions and his analytical method of tangents, which has passed unnoticed so far. The new optical science sought experimental confirmation for its basic notions and results and thus provided a direct methodological antecedent to Newton's Principia. I argue that Gregorie, Barrow, and Newton produced a methodological revolution in geometrical optics. A major center of interest is the origins of the notion of geometrical optical image, which are shown to have been influenced by the philosophical empiricism. The second chapter studies Gregorie's contributions to optics, including a description of a hitherto unpublished manuscript. It is argued that John Collins, representing the world of practical mathematicians, was a source of motivations for some of Gregorie's mathematical discoveries, and that Gregorie's attempts to publicize his contributions failed because of institutional practices characteristic of the early Royal Society. Gregorie's correspondence with Newton is studied. Evidence on Gregorie's life within 17th-century Scottish universities, his involvement in setting up the St Andrews observatory, his activities in the early 1670's as leader of a Scottish network of mathematical virtuosi, and his juvenile astrological concerns is here produced for the first time. The first chapter contains a narrative of Gregorie's life and works. 'As a general conclusion this dissertation suggests that the mathematical and optical contributions of James Gregorie, Isaac Barrow and Isaac Newton are more closely related to one another than it is usually acknowledged.

De circuli magnitudine inventa explanation