John Keill

John Keill ( born December 1, 1671 at Edinburgh; † August 31, 1721 in Oxford ) was a British mathematician and physicist. He was a professor at Oxford University and confidant of Isaac Newton, whom he defended in his priority dispute with Leibniz.

Life

Keill was the son of a lawyer in Edinburgh and studied especially mathematics and physics at the University of Edinburgh with David Gregory with the completion of MA 1692nd After that he went with Gregory to Oxford, where he received a scholarship at Balliol College in 1694 and received his master's degree. He held his first lectures on Newton's philosophy and physics at Oxford and was a lecturer in experimental philosophy, first in 1694 in his room at Balliol College, later in Hart Hall. This was the first such course at a UK university with physical experiments, but his lecture demonstrations were like the later publication is predominantly thought experiments. He published in 1701 ( Introductio ad veram Physicam ). In 1703 he moved to the Christ Church College. In 1699 he became assistant to the professor of natural philosophy Sedleian Thomas Millington. He joined neither this professor, as if the chair was founded in 1704 vacant, nor the Savilian Professor of Astronomy after the death of Gregory 1708. He therefore decided to go into government service (supported by Robert Harley, later Earl of Oxford) and supervised from 1709 refugees from the Palatinate, by the army of Louis XIV fleeing the devastation and accompanied a group on the voyage to New England. In 1711 he returned and worked from 1712 to 1716 as a cryptographer for the government of Queen Anne. In 1712 he was Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, which he remained until his death. In 1713 he became Doctor of Physic.

In 1700, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society.

He was an ardent defender of Newton in his priority dispute over the invention of calculus with Leibniz, whom he accused in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society plagiarism. He also issued the Commercium epistolicum, a collection of documents for priority dispute, after their surrender Newton stood. His writings served to popularize Newton and also found on the continent echo, as they were partially translated into French.

In 1715 he published an elementary geometry after the first six books of Euclid, in which he treated even trigonometry and logarithms. In 1725 he published in Leiden further his physics lectures.

In a book published in 1698 he attacked speculative cosmogonies of Thomas Burnet and William Whiston, in which he scented influences by the " atheistic " Cartesianism and where he faced the less speculative theories of Newton. He attacked in a similar manner, Richard Bentley. He was one of the few representatives of the Anglican High Church ( High Church ) within Newton (one of his uncles was bishop of Aberdeen). The attack on Burnet gave him the goodwill and patronage of the Dean Aldridge of Christchurch College, the likely significant impact on it was that he became the assistant of Millington, was elected to the Royal Society and a Fellow of Christ Church was and later the Savilian Chair obtained.

1717 caught his marriage to a much younger, socially under his wife a scandal in Oxford. Two years before his death, he inherited a considerable fortune from his brother James, who was a physician and with the support of John Keill tried to apply physical methods to medicine.

Writings

  • Introductio ad veram Physicam, accedunt Christianized Hugenii theoremata de vi centrifuga et motu circulari demonstrata, Oxford 1701 ( the Annex with an attempt by the dissipation introduced by Christian Huygens centrifugal force) English Translation: An Introduction to Natural Philosophy, or Philosophical Lectures Read in the University of Oxford, London, 1720
  • English Translation: An Introduction to the True Astronomuy; or, Astronomical Lectures, London 1721 ( made ​​at the request of the Duchess of Chandos and dedicated to her, also translated into French )

He also wrote a book with John Arbuthnot under the pseudonym Martin Strong An Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning. In a Letter From a Gentleman to His Friend in the City at Oxford, London, 1701

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