Richard Delamaine or Delamain, known as the elder (bef. 1629 – bef. 1645), 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, known for works on the
circular slide rule
The slide rule is a mechanical analog computer which is used primarily for multiplication and division, and for functions such as exponents, roots, logarithms, and trigonometry. It is not typically designed for addition or subtraction, which i ...
and
sundial
A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a flat ...
s.
Life
His earliest published work ''Grammelogia'' was dedicated to
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
. It was attacked in
William Oughtred
William Oughtred ( ; 5 March 1574 – 30 June 1660), also Owtred, Uhtred, etc., was an Kingdom of England, English mathematician and Anglican ministry, Anglican clergyman.'Oughtred (William)', in P. Bayle, translated and revised by J.P. Bernar ...
's ''Circles of Proportion'' (1631), on grounds of plagiarism: Oughtred had taught Delamaine, and considered that the work simply reproduced his mathematical instruments without any serious understanding of the theory on which they depended.
Subsequently Delamaine enjoyed royal favour and the appointment of tutor to the king in mathematics, and quartermaster-general. His widow described him in those terms, in 1645, when she petitioned the House of Lords. He left ten children, one of whom bore his name, who is tentatively identified with the mathematician Richard Delamaine the younger.
Charles I, just before his death, sent to his son
James, Duke of York
James VII and II (14 October 1633 16 September 1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Re ...
a silver ring-sundial made on the plan here described by Delamaine.
Works
He wrote:
* ''Grammelogia or the Mathematicall Ring, extracted from the Logarythmes and projected Circular'', 1631. The Greek title, meaning 'the speech of lines,' alludes to
John Napier
John Napier of Merchiston (; 1 February 1550 – 4 April 1617), nicknamed Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish landowner known as a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. He was the 8th Laird of Merchiston. His Latinized name was Ioann ...
's ''Rabdologia''.
*''The Making, Description, and Use of a small portable Instrument called a Horizontall Quadrant'', 1631.
Notes
References
*J F Scott, Biography in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York 1970-1990).
*F Cajori, William Oughtred. A great Seventeenth Century Teacher of Mathematics (London-Chicago, 1916).
*Richard Delamain, Dictionary of National Biography 5 (London, 1949–50), 751.
*A J Turner, William Oughtred, Richard Delamain and the Horizontal Instrument in 17th-Century England, Annali dell'Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza di Firenze 6.2 (1981), 99-125.
ink: *http://gen.lib.rus.ec/scimag/?q=A.J.+Turner%2C+"William+Oughtred%2C
;Attribution
External links
*http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Biographies/Delamain.html
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17th-century English mathematicians