James Stirling (mathematician)

James Stirling ( MAY 1692 in Garden at Stirling, † December 5, 1770 in Edinburgh) was a Scottish mathematician.

Life

James Stirling traveled end of 1710 to Oxford, where he was enrolled as Snell Fellow at January 18, 1711 at Balliol College, Oxford University. In October 1711 he received another scholarship (Bishop Warner Exhibition ). The Stirling family was among the Jacobites, supporters of the Stuarts, and after the first Jacobite rebellion in 1715 Stirling were deprived of their fellowships. With the assistance of his friend Venetian Ambassador Nicholas Tron he lived from ( presumably) from 1717 to 1722 in Venice, 1721, he attended the University of Padua. After returning to the UK he worked from 1725 for about ten years a teacher at the Watt's Academy in Covent Garden, London. He was elected in 1726 a member of the Royal Society. From 1734 to 1736 he worked in the summer for the Scotch Mines Company in Leadhills in Lanarkshire, Scotland. Beginning in May 1737 he received a permanent appointment as Chief Agent, this place he retained until his death. By all accounts, his activity was very successful there. On June 30, 1746 he was elected member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences. In 1753 he stepped out for financial reasons from the Royal Society.

Stirling wrote contributions to the theory of cubics, to Newtonian interpolation theory and various series expansions. According to him, the Stirling numbers in combinatorics and the Stirling formula n for approximating the Faculty! named for large n, both can be found in his 1730 published Methodus font differentialis.

Stirling is buried in the cemetery Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh.

Writings

  • Lineae tertii Ordinis Neutonianæ, sive Tractatus illustratio D. Neutoni De Enumeratione Linearum tertii Ordinis, Edvardi Whistler, Oxoniae (Oxford) in 1717 (Latin )
  • Methodus differentialis Newtoniana Illustrata, Philosophical Transactions 30, 1719, pp. 1050-1070 (in Latin )
  • Methodus differentialis: sive Tractatus de Summa Tione et Interpolatione Serierum Infinitarum, G. Strahan, Londini ( London) in 1730 (Latin; Gallica ) The Differential Method: Or, A Treatise Concerning summation and interpolation of Infinite Series, E. Cave, London 1749 (English translation by Francis Holliday )
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