Nathaniel Torporley

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Nathaniel Torporley (* 1564 in Shropshire , † 1632 in London ) was a British mathematician , clergyman , astronomer and astrologer . He was the administrator of Thomas Harriot's estate .

Torporley went to school in Shrewsbury (which was possibly his birthplace) and studied at Christ Church College, Oxford University from 1581 , where he was listed as a plebeian (that is, non-noble student). In 1583 or 1584 he received his bachelor's degree (BA) and in 1591 his master's degree (MA) from Brasenose College . He then became a clergyman and was rector of Salwarpe in Worcestershire from 1608 to 1622 . He was also mentioned in 1611 as rector at Liddington , Wiltshire , but was mostly at Sion College in London. His patron was the scientifically interested Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland , who also paid him a pension for years.

In 1605 he was interrogated as part of the Gunpowder Plot because he had drawn up a horoscope for the king. He then spent a few years in France with the mathematician François Viète, where he served as his secretary. He died in Sion College, to which he bequeathed his legacy of books, manuscripts and instruments. Today some of them are in the Lambeth Palace Library , including manuscripts that are based on Harriot's mathematical writings and in which Torporley describes what, in his opinion, Harriot's algebra book contained ( Congestor analyticus , Summary, etc.). He was commissioned by Harriot to publish his Artis Analyticae practice , but most of the work was done by Walter Warner .

His book Diclides coelometricae, seu valvae astronomicae universales from 1602 was later heavily criticized by, for example, Augustus de Morgan because of its enigmatic notation and eccentric content , although he gave it a possible priority of Napier's rules in spherical trigonometry. The astronomer Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delambre ( Modern Astronomy , 1821) also complained about the book's obscurity and incomprehensibility. The book contains mathematical tables and a mathematical-astrological text full of allegories (also in the pictures) and metaphors and partly in poetry. The mathematical part apparently deals with spherical trigonometry, as it is necessary for astronomical calculations.

literature

  • R. Cecilia H. Tanner: Nathaniel Torporley and the Harriot manuscripts , Annals of Science, Volume 25, 1969, pp. 339-349.
  • R. Cecilia H. Tanner: Nathaniel Torporley's 'congestor analyticus and Thomas Harriot's' de triangulis laterum rationalium , Annals of Science, Volume 34, 1977, pp. 393-428
  • Muriel Seltman, Thomas Goulding Thomas Harriot´s Artis Analyticae Praxis , Springer 2007
  • Jacqueline Stedall : The great invention of algebra , Oxford University Press 2003

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joel Silverberg: Nathaniel Torporley and his Diclides Coelometricae
personal data
SURNAME Torporley, Nathaniel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British mathematician and astrologer
DATE OF BIRTH 1564
PLACE OF BIRTH Shropshire
DATE OF DEATH 1632
Place of death London