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Richard Swineshead (also Suisset, Suiseth, etc.; fl. c. 1340 – 1354) was an English mathematician, 
logician
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
, and natural philosopher
Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science.
From the ancient wo ...
. He was perhaps the greatest of the Oxford Calculators
The Oxford Calculators were a group of 14th-century thinkers, almost all associated with Merton College, Oxford; for this reason they were dubbed "The Merton School". These men took a strikingly logical and mathematical approach to philosoph ...
of Merton College
Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ...
, where he was a fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
certainly by 1344 and possibly by 1340. His magnum opus was a series of treatises known as the ''Liber calculationum'' ("Book of Calculations"), written c. 1350, which earned him the nickname of The Calculator.
Robert Burton
Robert Burton (8 February 1577 – 25 January 1640) was an English author and fellow of Oxford University, who wrote the encyclopedic tome '' The Anatomy of Melancholy''.
Born in 1577 to a comfortably well-off family of the landed gentry, Bur ...
(d. 1640) wrote in '' The Anatomy of Melancholy'' that "Scaliger
The Della Scala family, whose members were known as Scaligeri () or Scaligers (; from the Latinized ''de Scalis''), was the ruling family of Verona and mainland Veneto (except for Venice) from 1262 to 1387, for a total of 125 years.
History
Wh ...
and Cardan admire Suisset the calculator, ''qui pene modum excessit humani ingenii'' hose talents were almost superhuman. Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathem ...
wrote in a letter of 1714: "Il y a eu autrefois un Suisse, qui avoit mathématisé dans la Scholastique: ses Ouvrages sont peu connus; mais ce que j'en ai vu m'a paru profond et considérable." ("There was once a Suisse, who did mathematics belonging to scholasticism; his works are little known, but what I have seen of them seemed to me profound and relevant.") Leibniz even had a copy of one of Swineshead's treatises made from an edition in the Bibliothèque du Roi
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
in Paris.Duchesneau, François (1998) "Leibniz's Theoretical Shift in the Phoranomus and Dynamica de Potentia", ''Perspectives on Science'' 6, p. 105.
Notes
References
* * Molland, George (2004) "Swineshead, Richard", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' 14th-century English mathematicians Medieval English mathematicians 14th-century philosophers 14th-century Latin writers English philosophers Fellows of Merton College, Oxford Scholastic philosophers Medieval physicists 14th-century English writers {{england-philosopher-stub