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James Short FRS (10 June O.S. (21 June N.S.) 1710 – 14 June 1768) was a Scottish mathematician and manufacturer of optical instruments, principally telescopes. During his 35-year career as a telescope-maker he produced approximately 1,360 scientific instruments.

Early life and education

Short was born in Edinburgh in 1710 to Margaret Grierson and William Short, a

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, Shipbuilding, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. ...

. When he was orphaned at about the age of 10, he was accepted into the Heriot's Hospital, an orphanage, and at 12 transferred to the Royal High School where he excelled in the study of the

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

. In 1726 he entered the University of Edinburgh to study divinity, however after being inspired by lectures given by professor 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 ...

Colin Maclaurin, he transferred to astronomy and mathematics.

Telescope manufacture

In 1732 Maclaurin gave Short access to use his rooms in the university to work on for experiments in the construction of telescopes. Such was the quality of Short's instruments that in recognition of his skill he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society on 24 March 1737. In Short's first telescopes the specula were made of glass, as suggested by James Gregory, however later he used metallic specula only, and thus succeeded in giving them true parabolic and elliptic shapes. Short then adopted telescope-making as his profession, which he practised first in Edinburgh up until 1738, after which he transferred to London. Almost all of Short's telescopes were of the Gregorian form, and some of them even today retain their original high polish and sharp definition. In 1736 Queen Caroline requested him to instruct her second son, William, in mathematics. In March 1737 Short was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1758 became a foreign member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

. He was a founder member of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in 1754. Short died in Newington Butts, London in 1768, having made a considerable fortune from his profession.

References

*
James Short's Reflecting Telescopes, Reflecting Telescopes, National Museums Scotland
{{DEFAULTSORT:Short, James 1710 births 1768 deaths People associated with astronomy Scientists from Edinburgh Telescope manufacturers People educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh Businesspeople from Edinburgh British scientific instrument makers Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Royal Society

Early life and education

Telescope manufacture

See also

References