Oliver Byrne

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oliver Byrne. Lithograph around 1850.

Oliver Byrne (* 1810 in Leiden ; † December 9, 1880 in London ) was an Irish mathematician who is best known today for his graphic editing of the first six books of Euclid . In his day, the arrangement was not seen as a serious work, but rather as a curiosity. Today's interest in Byrne's work, and in particular his The Elements of Euclid, is related to the reprint of one of his adaptations in Edward Tuftes Envisioning Information and the subsequent reprint of the work with commentary.

Life

Representation of the same idea of ​​proof before the visualization of Byrne.
Proof of Pythagoras' Theorem in Byrne's The Elements of Euclid .

Very little is known about Oliver Byrne's résumé and, in particular, his education. At the age of 20 he was appointed professor of mathematics at the College of Civil Engineers in Putney, Surrey, England. In 1847 he published his adaptation of the first six books of Euclid with numerous colored drawings in a volume. It was one of the first books to be printed in multiple colors and not colored by hand.

Byrne was the official surveyor of the settlements in the Falkland Islands .

In the 1850s he toured the United States of America and published a. a. 1853 in Boston, Massachusetts, his treatise Freedom to Ireland .

Byrne invented mechanical computing devices, the Byrnegraph and Gauger's Patent Calculating Instrument .

Works

  • A Short Practical Treatise on Spherical trigonometry , Valpy, 1835, ISBN 978-1-110-89691-2 .
  • How to Measure the Earth with the Assistance of Railroads , Currie and Bowman (Newcastle), 1838.
  • New and Improved Systems of Logarithms , Day (London), 1838.
  • The creed of St. Athanasius , under the pseudonym: E. B. Revilo, 1839.
  • The Practical, complete and correct Gager, containing a description of Parker and Byrne's patent Calculating Instruments; with their use and application , Bailey (London), 1840. Also Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper , Paternoster Row, London, 1841.
  • The Fifth Book of Euclid simplified , 1841.
  • Description and Use of the Byrnegraph, an instrument for multiplying, dividing and comparing lines, angles, surfaces and solids , C. and J. Adlard (London), 1846.
  • The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid in which colored diagrams and symbols are used instead of letters for the greater ease of learners , 1847.
  • The Miscellaneous Mathematical Papers of O (liver) B (yrne) , L. Maynard, ed.John Byrne, 1848.
  • Pocketbook for Railroad and Civil Engineers , Shepherd (New York), 1851.
  • The Practical Metal-Worker's assistant , Baird (Philadelphia), 1851, ISBN 978-1-151-79618-9 .
  • The Practical Model Calculator , Baird (Philadelphia), 1852, ISBN 978-1-145-93075-9 .
  • Appleton's Dictionary of machines, Mechanics, Engine work and Engineering , Oliver Byrne (editor), 2 vols, Daniel Appleton and Co., 1852.
  • Lectures on the Art and Science of War , Donahoe (Boston), 1853.
  • The Creed of Saint Athanasius proved by a Mathematical parallel (a satire), 1859.
  • The Handbook for the Artisan, Mechanic, and Engineer , Collins (Philadelphia), 1853.
  • Dual Arithmetic, A New Art , Bell & Daldy (London), 1865, ISBN 978-1-141-92119-5 .
  • The Young Dual Arithmetician , Bell & Daldy, 1865.
  • The Young Geometrician, or Practical geometry without compasses , Chapman and Hall (London), 1865, ISBN 978-1-143-82512-5 , books.google.com
  • Tables of Dual Logarithms, Dual Numbers, and corresponding Natural Numbers , Bell & Daldy, 1867
  • The Essential Elements of Practical Mechanics, based on the principal of work, designed for engineering students , Spon (London), 1868.
  • General Method of Solving Equations of all degress, applied particularly to equations of the second, third, fourth and fifth , Spon (London), 1868.
  • Spon's Dictionary of Engineering , Spon, 1869-1874.
  • The Calculus of Form , 1870.
  • Byrne's Treatise on navigation and nautical Astronomy , Oliver Byrne, 1875.
  • The Geometry of Compasses , Lockwood (London), 1877, ISBN 978-1-104-05805-0 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ According to the documents of the English census of 1871.
  2. ↑ Oliver Byrne: The first six books of The Elements of Euclid . in which colored diagrams and symbols are used instead of letters for the greater ease of learners. William Pickering, London 1847 (Various reprints available).
  3. ↑ Florian Cajori: A History of Mathematical Notations . Notation in Elementary Mathematics. tape 1 . The Open Court Publishing Company, Lasalle, IL 1928, pp. 429 (Various reprints available).
  4. ^ Edward R. Tufte: Envisioning Information . 1st edition. Graphics Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0-9613921-1-6 , pp. 84-87 .
  5. ↑ Euclid: Oliver Byrne . The First Six Books of The Elements of Euclid: Facsimile of the famous first edition of 1847. Ed .: Oliver Byrne [visualization], Werner Oechslin [commentary]. Taschen Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8365-1775-1 (reprint with commentary).
  6. ^ Johann Karl Friedrich Hauff: Euclid's elements . The first to the sixth together with the eleventh and twelfth beech. 2nd Edition. Neue Akademische Buchhandlung, Marburg 1807, p. 46–47 ( here online [accessed August 1, 2010]).
  7. ↑ Oliver Byrne: The first six books of The Elements of Euclid . in which colored diagrams and symbols are used instead of letters for the greater ease of learners. William Pickering, London 1847, p. 47–48 (Various reprints available).
  8. ↑ Ruari McLean: Victorian Book Design and Color Printing . Oxford University Press, New York (!) 1963, p. 50-51 .
  9. ↑ Oliver Byrne: Description and Use of the Byrnegraph . An instrument for multiplying, dividing and comparing lines, angles, surfaces, and solids. C. and J. Adlard, London 1846.
  10. ↑ Oliver Byrne: The Practical, complete and correct Gager, containing a description of Parker and Byrne's patent Calculating Instruments . with their use and application. Bailey, London 1840.
personal data
SURNAME Byrne, Oliver
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish mathematician and author
DATE OF BIRTH 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Suffer
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1880
Place of death London