James Booth (mathematician)

James Booth (born August 26, 1806 in Lavagh , County Leitrim , Ireland , † April 15, 1878 in Stone , Buckinghamshire ) was an Irish mathematician , priest and teacher .

Booth studied from 1825 at Trinity College, Dublin with a bachelor's degree in 1832 and a master's degree in 1840. He received in 1842 a doctorate in law (LL.D.). Although he received the Berkeley Gold Medal for Ancient Greek and had very good grades, he did not receive a Fellowship from Trinity College.

In 1840 he became Principal in 1830 of the British Institution for classes free from specific religious orientation founded Bristol College, which was closed in 1841 due to opposition from Anglicans. Booth then had his own private school for a short time, was ordained as an Anglican clergyman in 1842 and became Vice-Principal of the Liverpool Collegiate Institution in 1842. From 1846 to 1849 he was President of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society. In 1848 he moved to London and in 1854 became pastor of St. Anne's in Wandsworth . In 1859 he became Vicar in Stone in Buckinghamshire (a benefice of the Royal Astronomical Society). He was also the local justice of the peace and chaplain to the Marquess of Lansdowne.

In 1846 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1859 the Royal Astronomical Society . In 1852 he became a member of the Royal Society of Arts, for which he also performed important administrative tasks.

Booth ovals and lemniscates are named after him (see lemniscates ). A tangential coordinate system is also named after him (but was already known to Julius Plücker ). His collected work on geometry and elliptical integrals appeared in 1873 and 1877. He also published educational papers.

Fonts

• A Treatise on Some New Geometrical Methods, Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, Volume 1, 1873, Volume 2, 1877

Web links

• Charles William Sutton, Dictionary of National Biography