Brook Taylor
Brook Taylor (born August 18, 1685 in Edmonton , Middlesex , † December 29, 1731 in Somerset House , London ) was a British mathematician and a member of the Royal Society . After him u. a. named the Taylor series .
Live and act
Taylor studied mathematics at Cambridge . In 1708 he developed a solution to the problem of oscillation. His main work Methodus incrementorum directa et inversa ("Method of direct and inverse incrementation") in 1715 provided studies on the method of finite differences , on singular solutions of differential equations and, for the first time in the history of mathematics, on the vibrating string based on mechanical ones Principles. It also contained the power series expansion of a differentiable function , known to him since 1712 , whose fundamental importance for the differential calculus Joseph-Louis Lagrange only noticed in 1772.
A gifted artist, Taylor also wrote about the fundamentals of perspective in 1715 and was the first to describe the principle of the vanishing point .
The Taylor series and Taylor's formula are named after him , with which one can represent continuously differentiable functions as power series or approximate them using polynomials . The lunar crater Taylor and the asteroid (31122) Brooktaylor are named after him.
He was temporarily secretary to the Royal Society .
literature
- Lenore Feigenbaum: Happy tercentenary, Brook Taylor! In: The Mathematical Intelligencer . Vol. 8, No. 1, 1986, pp. 53-56, doi : 10.1007 / BF03023922 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Brook Taylor in the catalog of the German National Library
- John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson : Brook Taylor. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
- Spektrum.de: Brook Taylor (1685–1731) July 1, 2015
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Taylor, Brook |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British mathematician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 18, 1685 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Edmonton |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 29, 1731 |
| Place of death | Somerset House , London |