William Wallace (mathematician)

William Wallace ( born September 23, 1768 in Dysart, † April 28, 1843 in Edinburgh) was a Scottish mathematician.

Life

William Wallace initially grew up to the age of 16 in Dysart on and made an apprenticeship as a bookbinder. In 1784 he moved with his family to Edinburgh and worked as a bookbinder. He taught mathematics at this time in self-study. He later earned his then living as a private teacher and attended mathematics lectures at the University of Edinburgh, but without being enrolled as a student. In 1794 he was a mathematics teacher at the Perth Academy. In the same year he married, and from his marriage came three daughters and a son out.

Through a recommendation of John Playfair in 1804 he received a professorship at the Royal Military College ( Great Marlow ). After the death of John Playfair, he took over his chair at the University of Edinburgh and gained there a reputation as a good teacher. His students included the mathematicians Mary Somerville. In 1838 he retired due to health awareness issues to private life, where he continued, however, was active in journalism.

Work

Wallace worked mainly on geometrical problems and discovered 1799, the Simson line that was mistakenly attributed to Robert Simson. In 1807 he proved a statement on equal-area polygons, which is known as a set of Wallace -Bolyai Gerwien today.

However, his most important contribution to mathematics in Britain was not on the field of geometry, but the fact that he was one of the first British mathematician it came to introduce the advancements of the calculus in continental Europe and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Wallace wrote in addition to his professional articles and several books and wrote reviews for the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. He also dealt with astronomy and developed the pantographs on to Eidografen.

Works

• A Geometrical Treatise on the Conic Sections with at Appendix Containing Formulae for Their Quadrature. (1838 )
• Geometrical theorem and Analytical Formulae With Their application to the Solution of Certain Problems and Geodetical in the appendix. (1839 )