Thomas Harriot (; – 2 July 1621), also spelled Harriott, Hariot or Heriot, 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 ...
astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...
,
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 ...
,
ethnographer
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...
and
translator
Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...
to whom the theory of
refraction
In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomeno ...
is attributed. Thomas Harriot was also recognized for his contributions in navigational techniques,
working closely with
John White to create advanced maps for navigation.
While Harriot worked extensively on numerous papers on the subjects of astronomy, mathematics and navigation, he remains obscure because he published little of it,
namely only ''The Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia'' (1588).
This book includes descriptions of English settlements and financial issues in Virginia at the time.
He is sometimes credited with the introduction of the
potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...
to the
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...
. Harriot was the first person to make a drawing of the
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
through a telescope, on 5 August 1609, about four months before
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 ...
.
![Harriot at Syon Park](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Harriot_at_Syon_Park.JPG)
After graduating from
St Mary Hall,
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, Harriot traveled to the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
, accompanying the 1585 expedition to
Roanoke island funded by Sir
Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebelli ...
and led by Sir
Ralph Lane
Sir Ralph Lane (c. 1532 – October 1603)
Boston: Directors of the Old South Work, 1902, ''Documenting the America ...
. He learned the
Carolina Algonquian language
Carolina Algonquian (also known as Pamlico, Croatoan) was an Algonquian language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup formerly spoken in North Carolina, United States. Carolina Algonquian was formerly spoken by Secotan (later known as Machapunga), ...
from two Native Americans,
Wanchese and
Manteo, and could translate it, making him a vital member of the expedition. On his return to England, he worked for the
9th Earl of Northumberland.
Biography
Early life and education
Born in 1560 in
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, Thomas Harriot attended
St Mary Hall, Oxford. His name appears in the hall's registry dating from 1577.
[Stedall, Jacqueline (2003) ''The Greate Invention of Algebra,'' Oxford University Press. p.3, .]
Harriot started to study navigation shortly after receiving a bachelor's degree from
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
.
The study of navigation that Harriot studied concentrated on the idea of the open seas and how to cross to the New World from the Atlantic Ocean.
He used instruments such as the
astrolabe and
sextant
A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of celes ...
s to aide his studies of navigation.
After educating himself by incorporating ideals from his astronomic and nautical studies, Harriot taught other captains his navigational techniques in Raleigh.
His findings were recorded in the ''Articon'' but were later never found.
Roanoke
After his graduation from Oxford in 1580, Harriot was first hired by Sir
Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebelli ...
as a mathematics tutor; he used his knowledge of
astronomy/astrology to provide navigational expertise, help design Raleigh's ships, and serve as his accountant. Prior to his expedition with Raleigh, Harriot wrote a treatise on navigation. He made efforts to communicate with
Manteo and
Wanchese, two Native Americans who had been brought to England. Harriot devised a
phonetic alphabet to transcribe their Carolina Algonquian language.
Harriot and Manteo spent many days in one another's company; Harriot interrogated Manteo closely about life in the New World and learned much that was to the advantage of the English settlers. In addition, he recorded the sense of awe with which the Native Americans viewed European technology:
:"Many things they sawe with us...as mathematical instruments, sea compasses...
ndspring clocks that seemed to goe of themselves – and many other things we had – were so strange unto them, and so farre exceeded their capacities to comprehend the reason and meanes how they should be made and done, that they thought they were rather the works of gods than men."
He made only one expedition, around 1585–86, and spent some time in the New World visiting
Roanoke Island
Roanoke Island () is an island in Dare County, North Carolina, Dare County, bordered by the Outer Banks of North Carolina, United States. It was named after the historical Roanoke (tribe), Roanoke, a Carolina Algonquian people who inhabited the ar ...
off the coast of
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
, expanding his knowledge by improving his understanding of the
Carolina Algonquian language. As the only Englishman who had learned Algonquin prior to the voyage, Harriot was vital to the success of the expedition. Hariot smoked
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
before Raleigh, and may have taught him to do so.
His account of the voyage, named ''A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia'', was published in 1588 (probably written a year before). The ''True Report'' contains an early account of the
Native American population encountered by the expedition; it proved very influential upon later English explorers and colonists. He wrote: "Whereby it may be hoped, if means of good government be used, that they may in short time be brought to civility and the embracing of true religion." At the same time, his views of Native Americans' industry and capacity to learn were later largely ignored in favor of the parts of the "True Report" about extractable minerals and resources.
As a scientific adviser during the voyage, Harriot was asked by Raleigh to find the most efficient way to stack cannonballs on the deck of the ship. His ensuing theory about the
close-packing of spheres
In geometry, close-packing of equal spheres is a dense arrangement of congruent spheres in an infinite, regular arrangement (or lattice). Carl Friedrich Gauss proved that the highest average density – that is, the greatest fraction of space occu ...
shows a striking resemblance to
atomism
Atomism (from Greek , ''atomon'', i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms.
References to the concept of atomism and its atoms ...
and modern atomic theory, which he was later accused of believing. His correspondence about optics with
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws ...
, in which he described some of his ideas, later influenced
Kepler's conjecture.
Later years
Harriot was employed for many years by
Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland
Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, KG (27 April 1564 – 5 November 1632) was an English nobleman. He was a grandee and one of the wealthiest peers of the court of Elizabeth I. Under James I, Northumberland was a long-term prisoner i ...
, with whom he resided at
Syon House, which was run by Henry Percy's cousin
Thomas Percy.
The Duke was surrounded by many scholars and learned men and provided a more stable form of patronage than Raleigh, In 1595 the Duke of Northumberland made property in Durham over to Harriot, moving him up the social ladder into 'the landed gentry'. Not long after the Durham transactions, the Duke gave Harriot the use of one of the houses on the estate at Syon, to work on optics and the sine law of refraction.
Harriot's sponsors began to fall from favor: Raleigh was the first, and Harriot's other patron
Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland, was imprisoned in 1605 in connection with the
Gunpowder Plot
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby who sought ...
as he was closely connected to one of the conspirators,
Thomas Percy. Harriot himself was interrogated and briefly imprisoned but was soon released.
Walter Warner
Walter Warner (1563–1643) was an English mathematician and scientist.
Life
He was born in Leicestershire and educated at Merton College, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1578. Andrew Pyle (editor), ''Dictionary of Seventeenth Century British Phi ...
,
Robert Hues
Robert Hues (1553 – 24 May 1632) was an English mathematician and geographer. He attended St. Mary Hall at Oxford, and graduated in 1578. Hues became interested in geography and mathematics, and studied navigation at a school set up by Walte ...
,
William Lower, and other scientists were present around the Earl of Northumberland's mansion as they worked for him and assisted in the teaching of the family's children.
While this was occurring, Harriot continued his work involving mainly astronomy, and in 1607 Harriot used his notes from the observations of
Halley's Comet
Halley's Comet or Comet Halley, officially designated 1P/Halley, is a short-period comet visible from Earth every 75–79 years. Halley is the only known short-period comet that is regularly visible to the naked eye from Earth, and thus the o ...
to elaborate on his understanding of its orbit.
Soon after, in 1609 and 1610 respectively, Harriot turned his attention towards the physical aspects of the Moon and his observations of the first sightings of
sunspots.
In early 1609, he bought a "Dutch trunke" (telescope), invented in 1608, and his observations were among the first uses of a telescope for astronomy. Harriot is now credited as the first astronomer to draw an astronomical object after viewing it through a telescope: he drew a map of the
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
on 5 August 1609
.S. 26 July 1609 preceding
Galileo by several months. By 1613, Harriot had created two maps of the whole Moon, with many identifiable features such as lunar craters depicted in their correct relative positions that were not to be improved upon for several decades.
He also observed
sunspots in December 1610.
Death
From 1614 Harriot was consulting
Theodore de Mayerne
Theodore may refer to:
Places
* Theodore, Alabama, United States
* Theodore, Australian Capital Territory
* Theodore, Queensland, a town in the Shire of Banana, Australia
* Theodore, Saskatchewan, Canada
* Theodore Reservoir, a lake in Saskatche ...
, who was among
James I James I may refer to:
People
*James I of Aragon (1208–1276)
*James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327)
*James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu
*James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347)
*James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...
's doctors, for an apparent cancer of the left nostril that was gradually eating away the septum and was apparently linked to a cancerous ulcer on his lip. This progressed until 1621, when he was living with a friend named Thomas Buckner on
Threadneedle Street
Threadneedle Street is a street in the City of London, England, between Bishopsgate at its northeast end and Bank junction in the southwest. It is one of nine streets that converge at Bank. It lies in the ward of Cornhill.
History
The stree ...
. There he died, apparently from
skin cancer
Skin cancers are cancers that arise from the skin. They are due to the development of abnormal cells that have the ability to invade or spread to other parts of the body. There are three main types of skin cancers: basal-cell skin cancer (BCC) ...
. It was suspected that Harriot's cancer was due to excessive tobacco consumption.
He died on 2 July 1621, three days after writing his will (discovered by
Henry Stevens).
His executors posthumously published his ''Artis Analyticae Praxis'' on
algebra
Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics.
Elementary a ...
in 1631;
Nathaniel Torporley was the intended executor of Harriot's wishes, but Walter Warner in the end pulled the book into shape.
It may be a compendium of some of his works but does not represent all that he left unpublished (more than 400 sheets of annotated writing). It is not directed in a way that follows the manuscripts and it fails to give the full significance of Harriot's writings.
Thomas Harriot was buried in the church of
St Christopher le Stocks
St Christopher le Stocks was a parish church on the north side of Threadneedle Street in the Broad Street Ward of the City of London. Of Medieval origin, it was rebuilt following the Great Fire of London in 1666, but demolished in 1781 to make ...
in Threadneedle Street, near where he died. The church was subsequently damaged in the
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...
, and demolished in 1781 to enable expansion of the
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...
.
Legacy
Harriott also studied
optics
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...
and
refraction
In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomeno ...
, and apparently discovered
Snell's law 20 years before
Snellius did; like so many of his works, this remained unpublished. In
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
he learned the local
Algonquian language, which may have had some effect on his mathematical thinking. He founded the "English school" of
algebra
Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics.
Elementary a ...
. Around 1600, he introduced an algebraic symbolism close to modern notation; thus, computation with unknowns became as easy as with numbers.
He is also credited with discovering
Girard's theorem
Spherical trigonometry is the branch of spherical geometry that deals with the metrical relationships between the sides and angles of spherical triangles, traditionally expressed using trigonometric functions. On the sphere, geodesics are gr ...
, although the formula bears Girard's name as he was the first to publish it.
His algebra book ''Artis Analyticae Praxis'' (1631) was published posthumously in Latin. Unfortunately, the editors did not understand much of his reasoning and removed the parts they did not comprehend such as the negative and complex roots of equations. Because of the dispersion of Harriot's writings the full annotated English translation of the ''Praxis'' was not completed until 2007.
A more complete manuscript, ''
De numeris triangularibus et inde de progressionibus arithmeticis: Magisteria magna'', was finally published in facsimile form with commentary by
Janet Beery
Janet Lynn Beery is an American mathematician and historian of mathematics who serves as a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Redlands. She also served as the editor-in-chief of mathematics history journal ''Converge ...
and
Jackie Stedall
Jacqueline Anne "Jackie" Stedall (4 August 1950 – 27 September 2014) was a British mathematics historian. She wrote nine books, and appeared on radio on BBC Radio 4's '' In Our Time'' programme.
Early life
Stedall was born in Romford, Esse ...
in 2009.
The first biography of Harriot was written in 1876 by
Henry Stevens of Vermont but not published until 1900
fourteen years after his death. The publication was limited to 167 copies and so the work was not widely known until 1972 when a reprint edition appeared.
Prominent American poet, novelist and biographer
Muriel Rukeyser
Muriel Rukeyser (December 15, 1913 – February 12, 1980) was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism. Kenneth Rexroth said that she was the greatest poet of her "e ...
wrote an extended literary inquiry into the life and significance of Hariot (her preferred spelling), ''The Traces of Thomas Hariot'' (1970, 1971). Interest in Harriot continued to revive with the convening of a symposium at the University of Delaware in April 1971 with the proceedings published by the Oxford University Press in 1974. John W. Shirley the editor (1908-1988) went on to publish ''A Sourcebook for the Study of Thomas Harriot'' and his Harriot biography (1983). The papers of John Shirley are held in Special Collections at the University of Delaware.
Harriot's accomplishments remain relatively obscure because he did not publish any of his results and also because many of his manuscripts have been lost; those that survive are in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
and in the archives of the Percy family at
Petworth House
Petworth House in the parish of Petworth, West Sussex, England, is a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s to the design of the architect Anthony Sa ...
(Sussex) and
Alnwick Castle
Alnwick Castle () is a castle and country house in Alnwick in the English county of Northumberland. It is the seat of the 12th Duke of Northumberland, built following the Norman conquest and renovated and remodelled a number of times. It is a G ...
(Northumberland). He was frequently accused of being an atheist, and it has been suggested that he deliberately refrained from publishing for fear of intensifying such attacks; as the literary historian
Stephen Greenblatt writes "... he preferred life to fame. And who can blame him?"
![Thomas Harriot Memorial Plaque (Syon Park, London)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Thomas_Harriot_Memorial_Plaque_%28Syon_Park%2C_London%29.jpg)
An event was held at
Syon House, West London, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Harriot's first observations of the Moon on 26 July 2009. This event, Telescope400, included the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate Harriot by
Lord Egremont. The plaque can now be seen by visitors to Syon House, the location of Harriot's historic observations. His drawing made 400 years earlier is believed to be based on the first observations of the Moon through a telescope. The event (sponsored by the
Royal Astronomical Society
(Whatever shines should be observed)
, predecessor =
, successor =
, formation =
, founder =
, extinction =
, merger =
, merged =
, type = NGO ...
) was run as part of the
International Year of Astronomy
The International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) was a year-long celebration of astronomy that took place in 2009 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first recorded astronomical observations with a telescope by Galileo Galilei and the pu ...
(IYA).
The original documents showing Harriot's Moon map of c. 1611, observations of Jupiter's satellites, and first observations of sunspots were on display at the
Science Museum, London, from 23 July 2009 until the end of the IYA.
The
observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. His ...
in the campus of the
College of William & Mary
The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III ...
is named in Harriot's honor. A
crater on the Moon was named after him in 1970; it is on the Moon's far side and hence unobservable from Earth.
In July 2014 the
International Astronomical Union
The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...
launched
NameExoWorlds
NameExoWorlds (also known as IAU NameExoWorlds) is the name of various projects managed by the International Astronomical Union (I.A.U.) to encourage names to be submitted for astronomical objects, which would later be considered for official ad ...
, a process for giving proper names to certain exoplanets and their host stars. The process involved public nomination and voting for the new names. In December 2015, the IAU announced the winning name was Harriot for this planet. (55 Cancri in the constellation Cancer). The winning name was submitted by the Royal Netherlands Association for Meteorology and Astronomy of the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
. It honors the astronomer.
The
Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at
East Carolina University in
Greenville, NC
Greenville is the county seat of and the most populous city in Pitt County, North Carolina, United States; the principal city of the Greenville metropolitan area; and the 12th-most populous city in North Carolina. Greenville is the health, e ...
is named in recognition of this Harriot's scientific contributions to the New World such as his work ''A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia''.
In fiction
An
alternate history short story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...
, "Harriott Publishes", depicts the consequences of Harriott publishing his observations before Galileo. It appears in anthology of similar stories, ''Altered Times'', pages 13-15.
Telescope and Moon mapping
![Harriot Lunar Map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Harriot_Lunar_Map.jpg)
Harriot's 5 August
.S. 26 July1609 drawings of his observations of the Moon have been noted as the first recorded telescopic observations ever made, predating
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 ...
's 30 November 1609 observation by almost four months.
Galileo's drawings, which were the first such observations to be published, contained greater detail such as identifying previously unknown features including mountains and craters.
Harriot inaccurately drew how far the crescent Moon would be illuminated around its limb, inaccurately drew the position of the craters, and did not draw the relief details that one would see along the Moon's light/dark
terminator
Terminator may refer to:
Science and technology
Genetics
* Terminator (genetics), the end of a gene for transcription
* Terminator technology, proposed methods for restricting the use of genetically modified plants by causing second generation s ...
.
Critics, such as Terrie Bloom, accused Harriot of plagiarizing depictions directly from Galileo's works and argued that Harriot's representation of the Moon was an inadequate representation that needed to be improved.
However, both descriptions were also deemed valuable due to the scientists focusing on different specific observations.
Galileo describes the arrangement in a topographical way while Harriot used cartographical concepts to illustrate his views of the Moon.
Harriot used a 6X Dutch telescope for his observations of the Moon.
Harriot's recordings and descriptions were very simple with minimal detail causing his sketches to be difficult to analyze by later scientists.
Galileo's astronomical observations regarding the Moon were published in his book ''
Sidereus Nuncius
''Sidereus Nuncius'' (usually ''Sidereal Messenger'', also ''Starry Messenger'' or ''Sidereal Message'') is a short Astronomy, astronomical treatise (or ''pamphlet'') published in New Latin by Galileo Galilei on March 13, 1610. It was the first ...
'' in 1610 and Harriot's observations were published in 1784 with some not coming to light until 1965.
Harriot's lack of publication is presumed to be connected to the issues with the Ninth Earl of Northumberland and the
Gunpowder Plot
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby who sought ...
.
Harriot was also known to have read and admired the work of Galileo in ''Sidereus Nuncius''. Harriot continued his observations of the Moon until 1612.
Sunspots
Thomas Harriot is recognized as the first person to observe
sunspots in 1610 with the use of a telescope.
Harriot observed the sunspot with the use of a telescope in a direct and hazardous way.
Even though Harriot observed the Sun directly through his telescope, there were no recorded injuries to his eyes.
Harriot's depiction of the sunspots were documented in 199 drawings that provided details about the solar rotation and its acceleration.
Like many of Harriot's other notes, depictions of the sunspots were not published.
Similar to the early observation of the Moon, Galileo was also known to contribute his observations of sunspots and published his findings in 1613.
The specifics as to how Harriot's telescope was set up remains largely unknown.
However, it is known that Harriot used different magnifications of telescopes with 10X and 20X power being used most often.
Harriot chose to observe the sunspots after sunrise because it made the vertical easier to analyze.
According to Harriot's notes there was a total of 690 observations of sunspots recorded.
Harriot's findings challenged the idea of the unchanging heavens by explaining the Sun's axial rotation and provided further support for the
heliocentric theory
Heliocentrism (also known as the Heliocentric model) is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the universe. Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth a ...
.
Compounding
Around 1620, Harriot's unpublished papers include the early basis of
continuous compounding.
Harriot uses modern mathematical concepts to explain the process behind continuous compounding.
The concept of compounded interest occurs when the more times interest is added within the year assuming the rate stays the same then the final interest will be larger.
Based on this observation, Harriot created mathematical equations that included logarithms and series calculations to illustrate his concepts.
See also
*
The School of Night
The School of Night is a modern name for a group of men centred on Sir Walter Raleigh that was once referred to in 1592 as the "School of Atheism". The group supposedly included poets and scientists Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, Matthew ...
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
External links
''Thomas Harriot: Trumpeter of Roanoke''John Shirley papers related to Thomas Harriot Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.
Works by Thomas Harriot
*
*
*
''A Brief and True Report''online pdf text edition
from American Studies at the University of Virginia.
Works or sites about Thomas Harriot
*
The Soft Logic of Thomas HarriotSearching for the Lost Colony BlogThe Harriot Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series at East Carolina UniversityThe Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University, Greenville, NCThomas Harriot Quintessential Renaissance ScholarRetrieved April 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harriot, Thomas
1560s births
1621 deaths
16th-century astrologers
16th-century English mathematicians
17th-century astrologers
17th-century English mathematicians
Algebraists
Alumni of St Mary Hall, Oxford
Atomists
Creators of writing systems
Deaths from cancer in England
Deaths from skin cancer
English astrologers
17th-century English astronomers
16th-century English astronomers
People from Oxford
People of the Elizabethan era
British scientific instrument makers