Thomas Heath

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Sir Thomas Little Heath (born October 5, 1861 in Bartnetby le Wold , in Lincolnshire , † March 16, 1940 in Ashtead in Surrey ) was an English mathematician and classical philologist. He became known for his translation of the works of Archimedes into English. He also translated Aristarchus , Apollonius, and Euclid , with careful commentaries.

Heath was one of six children (all mathematically and musically gifted) of the farmer Samuel Heath, who passed on his interest in classical languages ​​to his son. Heath attended Clifton College. From 1879 he attended Trinity College at Cambridge University with a scholarship (Fondation Scholar) , where he received top grades in both classical philology (1881) and mathematics in the Tripos (he was 12th in the Mathematical Tripos in 1882). While still a student, he wrote articles on Greek mathematics for the Encyclopedia Britannica. After completing his studies, he wanted to become a state employee and passed the corresponding tests with the top grade (1st place). From 1883 he was employed in the treasury. He was the private secretary of several finance state secretaries and became Assistant Secretary to the Treasury in 1907 and Permanent Secretary in 1913 (Joint Permanent Secretary of the Treasury with John Bradbury), and thus chief administrative officer in the Treasury. His task was to align the administration in the First World War with the needs of the war. In 1919 he became Comptroller General and Secretary of the Commission for the Reduction of Public Debt (National Debt Office), in particular responsible for the financing of the Irish Land Acts. In 1926 he retired.

In a second career, in addition to his administrative office, he dealt with Greek mathematics (for which he usually only had time in the evening) and won a fellowship at Cambridge with his essay on Diophant, published in 1885. It appeared before the text edition of Diophants von Heiberg (in 1910 a thorough revision with an investigation of Diophant's number-theoretic problems in the hands of Pierre de Fermat and Leonhard Euler appeared ). In 1886 the translation of the conic sections by Apollonios von Perge followed . His most important work was probably his edition of the works of Archimedes in 1897, to which he added in the second edition in 1912 a translation of Archimedes' treatise on his method, which had meanwhile been discovered by Heiberg in Istanbul . In the essays accompanying the issue, he also highlighted Archimedes as the pioneer of integral calculus. In 1908 his first translation of Euclid's Elements appeared, the second edition followed in 1925 (the standard English translation to this day, before there was no reliable English translation of all books). In it he also analyzed the otherwise neglected and difficult to understand books of the elements. He also published a school edition of the ancient Greek text of Book 1 of the Elements. In 1913 he turned to Greek astronomy with his book on Aristarchus of Samos , which also contained the texts of Aristarchus in translation and a history of Greek astronomy up to Aristarchus. In 1932 his story of Greek astronomy followed. In 1921 his two-volume history of Greek mathematics appeared, which Ivor Bulmer-Thomas described in 2002 as by and large the best history of Greek mathematics in any language, even if it no longer corresponds to the state of research. In his simplified representation from 1931 (A Manual of Greek Mathematics), he partly also takes into account the work done by Otto Neugebauer in the meantime .

In 1912 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society . In 1922/23 he was President of the Mathematical Association and he was a Fellow of the British Academy . In 1903 he received the Bathorden third class (CB), in 1909 the second class (KCB) and in 1916 the KCVO (Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order ).

Heath was also an accomplished climber who climbed particularly in the Dolomites. He played the piano and admired Brahms (once he traveled to Vienna just to see him from a distance). In 1914 he married Ada Mary Thomas with whom he had a son and a daughter.

He also participated in the revisions of the Liddell-Scott Ancient Greek-English Dictionary .

Fonts

  • Diophantus of Alexandria : a Study in the History of Greek Algebra , Cambridge University Press, 1885
  • Apollonius von Perga : Treatise on Conic Sections , Cambridge University Press, 1896
  • Archimedes : Works , Cambridge University Press, 1897
  • Euclid : The thirteen books of Euclid's Elements , Cambridge University Press, 1908, 2nd edition 1925
  • Euclid in Greek , Book I, 1920
  • Aristarchus of Samos, the Ancient Copernicus Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913 (with translation by Aristarchus)
  • A History of Greek Mathematics , Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2 volumes, 1921
  • A Manual of Greek Mathematics , Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931
  • Greek Astronomy , London: JM Dent & Sons, 1932
  • Mathematics in Aristotle , Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949 (edited posthumously by David Ross)

literature

  • JF Scott, Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  • David Eugene Smith: Sir Thomas Little Heath, Osiris, Volume 2, 1936, pp. V-XXVII (with portrait and bibliography)
  • MF Headlam (with J. Gilbert Smyly): Sir Thomas Little Heath, Proc. British Academy, Volume 26, 1940, pp. 1-16
  • D'Arcy W. Thompson, Obituary Notices Fellows Royal Society, Volume 3, 1939/40, pp. 409-426
  • Benjamin Wardhaugh: Greek mathematics in English: the work of Sir Thomas L. Heath (1861-1940) , in: Volker Remmert, Martina Schneider, Henrik Kragh Sörensen (eds.), Historiography of Mathematics in the 19th and 20th centuries, Birkhäuser 2016 Pp. 109-122
  • Ivor Bulmer-Thomas : Heath, Thomas Little , in: Joseph W. Dauben , Christoph J. Scriba (eds.): Writing the history of mathematics , Birkhäuser 2002, pp. 440–442

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dauben, Scriba, Writing the History of Mathematics, 441
  2. ↑ With the predecessors he only sees competition in Gino Loria
personal data
SURNAME Heath, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heath, Thomas Little
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Bartnetby le Wold
DATE OF DEATH March 16, 1940
Place of death Ashtead