John Pell
John Pell (* March 1, 1611 in Southwick, Sussex, † December 12, 1685 in Westminster, London ) was an English mathematician.
Life
Pell was born in Southwick in Sussex, where his eponymous father John Pell was a pastor and rector; his mother was Mary Holland of Halden from Kent. Pell was orphaned early - his father died in 1616, his mother in 1617, he went to school in Steyning in Sussex and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, one at the age of 13 years in 1624. . He studied Latin and Greek, made in 1628 and his bachelor's degree in 1630 just before he received his MA degree, he began a correspondence with Henry Briggs (via logarithms ) and other mathematicians. After his studies he worked as a teacher in Horsham and Chichester in Sussex Academy and then five years in London. Because of its reputation, and with the help of the English ambassador in the Netherlands, Sir William Boswell, he became in 1643 professor of mathematics at the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam. In 1646 he was invited by Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, a professor at the University of Breda, where he remained until 1652.
From 1654 to 1658 Pell acted as Oliver Cromwell's political agent for Protestant cantons of Switzerland, which he should secede in Cromwell behalf of the Catholic cantons and out of a Protestant league. In Zurich he also taught Johann Heinrich Rahn in math, algebra textbook which he left later translated into English ( with own additions ). His political negotiations dragged on inconclusively and lay with his return to England Cromwell, to whom he should report the point of death. He now turned to an ecclesiastical career, was a deacon ( Deacon ) and in 1661 he received the priestly ordinations. Pell was vicar. Fobbing in Essex in 1663 and in addition of Laindon and Basildon in Essex, where he stayed for the last twenty years of his life But that did not stop him, often reside in London. John Pell was one of the "Original Fellows " of the Royal Society. He was officially incorporated on May 20, 1663, however, was probably earlier worked for the company. In 1675 he became its vice president.
In London, he often lived with John Collins. During the plague epidemic in 1665 he lived with William Brereton in Cheshire. Brereton had been his pupil in Amsterdam and became a close friend of Pell.
Pell married Ithumaria 1632, daughter of Henry Ragnolles (or " Reginald " ) from London, and had with her four sons and four daughters. After her death in 1661 he married a second time. He died on 12 December 1685 in the accommodation of Mr. Cothorne in Dyot Street in London and was " rector 's vault " in St Giles-in -the-Fields buried in London.
Work
Pell dealt with Algebra and Number Theory ( Diophantine equations). He published in 1668 a table of factors of numbers up to 100,000. Special Diophantine equation ( where a is an integer that is not square ) is known as Pellgleichung or Pellsche equation. She had already been investigated by the medieval mathematicians Brahmagupta and Bhaskara II in India. The solution of this equation was found as a problem of Pierre de Fermat in a letter to Bernard Frénicle de Bessy in 1657 and published as a problem for general information. The theory of the equation was mainly developed in the 18th century by Joseph -Louis Lagrange. Pell's relationship to the problem was only in the publication of the solutions of John Wallis and William Brouncker the translation of the algebra of Rahn (1668 ), the essential co Pell. The appointment was made by Leonard Euler Pell.
Pell was keen to promote the progress of mathematics in England and herein and in his correspondence is his chief merit. He published relatively little, including Idea of Mathematics ( 1638) and a rejection of the quadrature of the circle of the Danish astronomer Longomontanus from 1644 (first published 1644 in a Latin translation in 1647 ). The controversy, which had its origin in the interest of Pell for the calculation of Pi, also went after the death of Longomontanus 1647 with other mathematicians on. He also translated the trigonometric tables of Johan Philip Lansberg (1632 ) and dealt with astronomy.
Works
- Astronomical History of Observations of Heavenly Motions and Appearances. (1634 )
- Ecliptica Prognostica. (1634 )
- Controversy with Longomontanus Concerning the Quadrature of the Circle. (1646? )
- An Idea of the Mathematics, I2iflO. (1650)
- A Table of Ten Thousand Square Numbers. ( fol., 1672).