John Muller

French edition of his mathematics textbook on conic sections and analysis

John Muller , born as Müller (* 1699 in Germany , † 1784 in London ) was a German-British mathematician and engineer.

Nothing is known about its origin. He went to London and taught mathematics in the Arsenal drawing office in the Tower of London . In 1736 he published a mathematical textbook on conic sections and analysis, printed in the Tower and dedicated to the Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, to whom the arsenal was subordinate.

In 1741 he became deputy director of the newly formed Royal Military Academy Woolwich with an annual salary of 200 pounds. After the death of Martin Folkes in 1754 he succeeded him as director. However, he had been in office since 1741. With Thomas Simpson he converted the academy into a cadet school. Muller taught as a professor of fortification and artillery until his retirement in September 1766.

He wrote several textbooks that were used at the academy until the 19th century. His design of the Blackfriars Bridge with Robert Mylne was successful and used elliptical arches instead of semicircular arches.

On December 29, 1775, he married Mary Horn in St. Martin-in-the-Fields .

According to James Boswell , he was the academic teacher of all the great engineers that England produced over 40 years ( the scholastic father of all the great engineers which this country employed for forty years ).

Fonts

• A Mathematical Treatise Containing a System of Conic-Sections, with the Doctrine of Fluxions and Fluents, London 1736 (French edition Paris 1760)
• The Attack and Defense of Fortified Places, 1747
• A Treatise Containing the Elementary Part of Fortification, 1746
• A Treatise Containing the Practical Part of Fortification, 1755
• A Treatise of Artillery, 1757, reprinted 1768
• Elements of Mathematics, 1748 (also as: A System of Mathematics)
• A New System of Mathematics, 1769
• The Field Engineer, 1759 (translation of a French book by the Chevalier de Clairac)
• New Elements of Mathematics, or Euclid corrected, 1773

literature

• John Chichester (revised by Steven A. Walton): Muller, John , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , 2004