Humphry Ditton (29 May 1675 – 15 October 1715) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. He was the author of several influential works.

Life

Ditton was born on 29 May 1675 in

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

, the only son of Humphry Ditton, gentleman and ardent nonconformist, and Miss Luttrell of Dunster Castle, near

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...

. He studied

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

privately, and was for some time also a

dissenting Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...

minister, at

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated population ...

, where he married a Miss Ball.Raymond Flood: "Ditton, Humphry umphrey, ODNB
Retrieved 29 May 2021.
/ref> On his father's death, Ditton devoted himself mainly to the study of

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. Through the influence of

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

he was elected mathematical master in

Christ's Hospital Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553 ...

. He produced also a theological work, ''A Discourse Concerning the Resurrection of Jesus Christ'', which sought to take a mathematical, deductive approach to the subject. The first of its four editions appeared in 1712 and it was translated into French and German. He was unable to complete his response to various criticisms of the work before his death. A diary containing Ditton's religious meditations appeared posthumously in the ''Gospel Magazine'' (September 1777, pp. 393–403; December 1777, pp. 437–441).

Works

He was author of the following memoirs and treatises: *''Of the Tangents of Curves'', published in ''

Philosophical Transactions ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a private venture of the Royal Society's secretary. It was established in 1665, making it the first journa ...

'' vol. xxiii; *''A Treatise on Spherical Catoptrics'', published in the ''Phil. Trans. vol. xxiv'', from which it was reprinted in the ''

Acta Eruditorum (from Latin: ''Acts of the Erudite'') was the first scientific journal of the German-speaking lands of Europe, published from 1682 to 1782. History ''Acta Eruditorum'' was founded in 1682 in Leipzig by Otto Mencke, who became its first editor, ...

'' (1707), and also in the ''Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences at Paris''; *''General Laws of Nature and Motion'' (1705), a work which was commended by Wolfius as illustrating and rendering easier the writings of

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...

and

Christiaan Huygens Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of ...

, and *''Principia of Newton; An Institution of Fluxions, containing the First Principles, Operations, and Applications of that admirable Method, as invented by Sir Isaac Newton'' (1706). In 1709 he published the ''Synopsis Algebraica of John Alexander'', with additions and corrections. In his ''Treatise on Perspective'' (1712) he explained his mathematical principles; and anticipated the method afterwards elaborated by

Brook Taylor Brook Taylor (18 August 1685 – 29 December 1731) was an English mathematician best known for creating Taylor's theorem and the Taylor series, which are important for their use in mathematical analysis. Life and work Brook Taylor w ...

. In 1714 Ditton published his ''Discourse on the

Resurrection Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, which ...

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

'', and ''The New Law of

Fluids In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that continuously deforms (''flows'') under an applied shear stress, or external force. They have zero shear modulus, or, in simpler terms, are substances which cannot resist any shear ...

, or a Discourse concerning the Ascent of Liquids in exact Geometrical Figures, between two nearly contiguous Surfaces''. To this was annexed a tract ("Matter not a Cogitative Substance") to demonstrate the impossibility of thinking or perception being the result of any combination of the parts of matter and motion. Ditton and

William Whiston William Whiston (9 December 166722 August 1752) was an English theologian, historian, natural philosopher, and mathematician, a leading figure in the popularisation of the ideas of Isaac Newton. He is now probably best known for helping to inst ...

wrote a book, called ''A new method for discovering the longitude both at sea and land'', concerning a method for discovering the

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter l ...

, which it seems they had published about half a year earlier. Although the method had been approved by Newton before being presented to the

Board of Longitude The Commissioners for the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea, or more popularly Board of Longitude, was a British government body formed in 1714 to administer a scheme of prizes intended to encourage innovators to solve the problem of finding lon ...

, and successfully practised in finding the longitude between

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, the board determined against it.

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...

wrote mockingly about this plan.

, "Ode, to Musick. On the Longitude." 1714. Ditton died in the following year, and was buried in

Christ Church Greyfriars Christ Church Greyfriars, also known as Christ Church Newgate Street, was a church in Newgate Street, opposite St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London. Established as a monastic church in the thirteenth century, it became a parish church af ...

in central London.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ditton, Humphry 1675 births 1715 deaths 18th-century English mathematicians English Anglicans English philosophers English theologians