Edward Wright (mathematician)

Edward Wright ( * unknown, baptized October 8, 1561 in Garveston, Norfolk, † November 1615 in London ) was an English mathematician and cartographer.

Wright put in his book " Certaine Errors in Navigation" ( German as: "Error of the (sea) navigation " ), which he published in 1599, laid the foundation for the mathematical basis of the Mercator projection. He also published several calculation tables, with which it was possible for the first time to create a map with this projection and use.

Life

Wright came from a modest background in Norfolk and studied at Cambridge University ( Gonville and Caius College), received in 1584 the MA degree and became a Fellow in 1587, which he remained until 1596. He made ​​friends in Cambridge with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, the astrologer Christopher Heydon and Henry Briggs. From 1589 he was on leave at the College to create on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I.Karten, first in the context of a plunder of the Earl of Cumberland to the Azores against the Spaniards in 1589, which he published in his book Certaine Errors of 1599. In the same year he published the first English World Map ( with Globe Manufacturer Emery Molyneux, published in Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, Voyages ... 1599), which was also the first map by Gerhard Mercator (originally 1569 ), which related the Mercator projection that projects to which this contact in the equatorial cylinder from the center of the globe. Mercator himself had the details of his method is not published, what Wright caught up in the form of a detailed Sheetl, which subsequent cartographers easily made ​​possible to create such a projection map. In the table prior to the associated width of the respective geographic distance from the equator on the map. In the second edition in 1610, he expanded the table on pages 23 entries with the 1 minute of arc width difference corresponded.

In the second edition, other navigation aids were as corrections for the magnetic compass and a translation of the navigation manual by Rodrigo Zamorano.

Different parts of the exposition were used without his permission and reprinted, as the Dutchman Jodocus Hondius used the method for its Amsterdam World Map of 1597, after he had a manuscript of Wright borrowed and had promised, just not to do so.

On the expedition to the Azores he called himself Captain Edwarde Carelesse (aka Wright) and he may be identical with the captain of the Hope Edward Careless on the expedition of Sir Francis Drake 1585/86 in the Caribbean. The colonists were brought back who had gone under Walter Raleigh to Virginia, including the mathematician Thomas Harriot. His involvement, however, is controversial and not at all sure evidence of its participation in further Seeexpeditionen after his participation in Cumberland Azores expedition.

In 1589 he was back in Cambridge, and soon after in London ( established in 1594 ), where he observed with Heydon and 1595 Ursula Warren ( died 1625) married. With her he had several children, of whom only one son, Samuel (1596-1616) reached a higher age, he also studied at Cambridge. To 1595 he was Mathematical Lecturer of the City of London and was next to private lessons.

He was also a surveyor, among other things, on behalf of Hugh Myddleton for the approximately 60 km long canal ( New River Project) from Ware ( Hertfordshire) to London ( Islington ), which was built from 1608 to 1613 and still serves the water supply of London. He was the first person perspective glasses on his surveying instruments anbrachte (which were not identical with the telescopes, however, the end of the 17th century arose ).

1608 to 1609 he taught Henry Frederick Stuart, the Prince of Wales (son of James I ) in mathematics - but he died already in 1612 for Wright that was a big blow because he was to be the librarian.. He designed and built instruments for navigation ( such as the Sea- ring for the compass), astrolabes, armillary sphere one ( for Prince Henry, which simulated the movement of the heavenly bodies, which he also wrote a book ) and pantographs. Beginning of the 17th century, he was also teaching navigation for seafarers in London, first in the house of the merchant Thomas Smyth, then on behalf of the East India Company. That seems to have been his last source of income, which brought him 50 pounds per year.

Wright 1599 De Havenvinding translated into English by Simon Stevin ( The Haven -finding Art, or The Way to Find any Haven or Place at Sea, by the Latitude and Variation ), and wrote a preface to De Magnet by William Gilbert ( 1600). Perhaps he had also proportion of the sections on compass corrections. In 1605 he published a new edition of The Safe Guard of Sayler, a common navigation manual, the Robert Norman translated from Dutch.

He translated the Book of John Napier on logarithms ( 1614) from the original Latin into English, but it was published posthumously in 1616.

Writings

  • Certaine Errors in Navigation, Arising Either of the ORDINARIE Making Erroneous or vsing of the Sea Chart, compasses, Crosse Staffe, and Tables of declination of the Sunne, and fixed rigid Detected and Corrected. London: Valentine Sims 1599, 2nd edition 1610, 3rd edition 1657
  • The Description and Use of the sphere, in 1613, another edition in 1627 ( Da Capo reprint 1969)
  • A Short Treatise of Dialling Shewing, the Making of All Sorts of Sun - dials ..., 1614

There are also various above-mentioned translations and Editorial Boards.

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