John of Tynemouth (geometer)

Last updated

John of Tynemouth was a 13th-century mathematician and geometer.

Contents

Little is known of John's background, but he authored De curvis superficiebus or Liber de curvis superficiebus Archimenidis, a tract about Archimedes' measurements of spheres. This is an important work in the history of medieval geometry, as it helped transmit Archimedes' ideas to other medieval scholars. The work itself follows closely Archimedes' own reasoning, but with enough differences to lead modern historians to believe that John's work was dependent on a Greek text from late antiquity. [1]

De curvis survives in over 12 manuscripts, and was used by a number of other medieval scholars, including Robert Grosseteste, Jordanus de Nemore, Gerard of Brussels, and Roger Bacon. [1]

Certain stylistic choices in De curvis suggest that John was also responsible for a number of other works: [2]

Knorr writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography considers that John of Tynemouth (geometer) may be the same person as John of Tynemouth (canon lawyer). Knorr regards this as possible, but unlikely. [1]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 Knorr "Tynemouth, John of (fl. early 13th cent.) also including John of Tynemouth (d. 1221)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  2. Edited in Clagett, Marshall (1984). Archimedes in the middle ages, quasi-archimedean geometry in the thirteenth century. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. ISBN   0871691574.
  3. Busard, H. L. L. (1980). "Der Traktat De isoperimetris, der unmittelbar aus dem Griechischen ins Lateinische versetzt worden ist". Mediaeval Studies. 42: 61–88. doi:10.1484/J.MS.2.306255.
  4. Knorr, Wilbur R. (1990). "Paraphrase Editions of Latin Mathematical Texts: De figuris ysoperimetris". Mediaeval Studies. 52: 132–189. doi:10.1484/J.MS.2.306377.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archimedes</span> Greek mathematician and physicist (c.287–c.212 BC)

Archimedes of Syracuse was an Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Considered the greatest mathematician of ancient history, and one of the greatest of all time, Archimedes anticipated modern calculus and analysis by applying the concept of the infinitely small and the method of exhaustion to derive and rigorously prove a range of geometrical theorems. These include the area of a circle, the surface area and volume of a sphere, the area of an ellipse, the area under a parabola, the volume of a segment of a paraboloid of revolution, the volume of a segment of a hyperboloid of revolution, and the area of a spiral.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of geometry</span> Historical development of geometry

Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers (arithmetic).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adelard of Bath</span> 12th-century English natural philosopher

Adelard of Bath was a 12th-century English natural philosopher. He is known both for his original works and for translating many important Greek scientific works of astrology, astronomy, philosophy, alchemy and mathematics into Latin from Arabic versions, which were then introduced to Western Europe. The oldest surviving Latin translation of Euclid's Elements is a 12th-century translation by Adelard from an Arabic version. He is known as one of the first to introduce the Arabic numeral system to Europe. He stands at the convergence of three intellectual schools: the traditional learning of French schools, the Greek culture of Southern Italy, and the Arabic science of the East.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apollonius of Perga</span> Ancient Greek geometer and astronomer (c. 240–190 BC)

Apollonius of Perga was an ancient Greek geometer and astronomer known for his work on conic sections. Beginning from the earlier contributions of Euclid and Archimedes on the topic, he brought them to the state prior to the invention of analytic geometry. His definitions of the terms ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola are the ones in use today. With his predecessors Euclid and Archimedes, Apollonius is generally considered among the greatest mathematicians of antiquity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tynemouth</span> Human settlement in England

Tynemouth is a coastal town in the metropolitan borough of North Tyneside, England. It is located on the north side of the mouth of the River Tyne, hence its name. It is 8 mi (13 km) east-northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is best known for Tynemouth Priory.

Ernest Addison Moody (1903–1975) was a noted philosopher, medievalist, and logician as well as a musician and scientist. He served as professor of philosophy at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he also served as department chair, and Columbia University. He has an annual memorial conference in his name on the subject of medieval philosophy. He was president of the American Philosophical Association from 1963 to 1964.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greek mathematics</span> Mathematics of Ancient Greeks

Greek mathematics refers to mathematics texts and ideas stemming from the Archaic through the Hellenistic and Roman periods, mostly attested from the late 7th century BC to the 6th century AD, around the shores of the Mediterranean. Greek mathematicians lived in cities spread over the entire region, from Anatolia to Italy and North Africa, but were united by Greek culture and the Greek language. The development of mathematics as a theoretical discipline and the use of proofs is an important difference between Greek mathematics and those of preceding civilizations.

In mathematics, particularly in geometry, quadrature is a historical process of drawing a square with the same area as a given plane figure or computing the numerical value of that area. A classical example is the quadrature of the circle . Quadrature problems served as one of the main sources of problems in the development of calculus. They introduce important topics in mathematical analysis.

Abu Amir Yusuf ibn Ahmad ibn Hud, more commonly known as al-Mu'taman, was a mathematician, and also one of the kings of the Taifa of Zaragoza. The name al-Mu'taman is itself a shortening of his full regnal name al-Mu'taman Billah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francesco Maurolico</span> Sicilian mathematician and astronomer (1494–1575)

Francesco Maurolico was a mathematician and astronomer from Sicily. He made contributions to the fields of geometry, optics, conics, mechanics, music, and astronomy. He edited the works of classical authors including Archimedes, Apollonius, Autolycus, Theodosius and Serenus. He also composed his own unique treatises on mathematics and mathematical science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Campanus of Novara</span> Italian mathematician and astrologer

Campanus of Novara was an Italian mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, and physician who is best known for his work on Euclid's Elements. In his writings he refers to himself as Campanus Nouariensis; contemporary documents refer to him as Magister Campanus; and the full style of his name is Magister Campanus Nouariensis. He is also referred to as Campano da Novara, Giovanni Campano or similar. Later authors sometimes applied the forename Johannes Campanus or Iohannes Campanus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oxford Calculators</span> Group of 14th-century English mathematicians and philosophers

The Oxford Calculators were a group of 14th-century thinkers, almost all associated with Merton College, Oxford; for this reason they were dubbed "The Merton School". These men took a strikingly logical and mathematical approach to philosophical problems. The key "calculators", writing in the second quarter of the 14th century, were Thomas Bradwardine, William Heytesbury, Richard Swineshead and John Dumbleton. Using the slightly earlier works of Walter Burley, Gerard of Brussels, and Nicole Oresme, these individuals expanded upon the concepts of 'latitudes' and what real world applications they could apply them to.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Latin translations of the 12th century</span>

Latin translations of the 12th century were spurred by a major search by European scholars for new learning unavailable in western Europe at the time; their search led them to areas of southern Europe, particularly in central Spain and Sicily, which recently had come under Christian rule following their reconquest in the late 11th century. These areas had been under Muslim rule for a considerable time, and still had substantial Arabic-speaking populations to support their search. The combination of this accumulated knowledge and the substantial numbers of Arabic-speaking scholars there made these areas intellectually attractive, as well as culturally and politically accessible to Latin scholars. A typical story is that of Gerard of Cremona, who is said to have made his way to Toledo, well after its reconquest by Christians in 1085, because he

arrived at a knowledge of each part of [philosophy] according to the study of the Latins, nevertheless, because of his love for the Almagest, which he did not find at all amongst the Latins, he made his way to Toledo, where seeing an abundance of books in Arabic on every subject, and pitying the poverty he had experienced among the Latins concerning these subjects, out of his desire to translate he thoroughly learnt the Arabic language....

Marshall Clagett was an American historian of science who specialized in medieval science. John Murdoch describes him as "a distinguished medievalist" who was "the last member of a triumvirate [with Henry Guerlac and I. Bernard Cohen, who] … established the history of science as a recognized discipline within American universities" while Edward Grant ranks him "among the greatest historians and scholars of the twentieth century."

Geometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a geometer. Until the 19th century, geometry was almost exclusively devoted to Euclidean geometry, which includes the notions of point, line, plane, distance, angle, surface, and curve, as fundamental concepts.

Gerard of Brussels was an early thirteenth-century geometer and philosopher known primarily for his Latin book Liber de motu, which was a pioneering study in kinematics, probably written between 1187 and 1260. It has been described as "the first Latin treatise that was to take the fundamental approach to kinematics that was to characterize modern kinematics." He brought the works of Euclid and Archimedes back into popularity and was a direct influence on the Oxford Calculators in the next century. Gerard is cited by Thomas Bradwardine in his Tractatus de proportionibus velocitatum (1328). His chief contribution was in moving away from Greek mathematics and closer to the notion of "a ratio of two unlike quantities such as distance and time", which is how modern physics defines velocity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilbur Knorr</span> American historian of mathematics

Wilbur Richard Knorr was an American historian of mathematics and a professor in the departments of philosophy and classics at Stanford University. He has been called "one of the most profound and certainly the most provocative historian of Greek mathematics" of the 20th century.

John of Tynemouth was a medieval English clergyman and canon lawyer. He was among the first teachers of canon law at what later became Oxford University, where he was by 1188. By the late 1190s John had joined the household of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter. Besides his position in the household, he also held a number of ecclesiastical positions, which earned him a substantial income. After Walter's death, John continued to serve as a lawyer as well as hold clerical offices. He died in 1221 and a number of his writings survive.

The Spherics is a three-volume treatise on spherical geometry written by the Hellenistic mathematician Theodosius of Bithynia in the 2nd or 1st century BC.

Lonnie Royce Shelby was an American academic, and Professor Emeritus of Speech Communication and former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the Southern Illinois University. He is known for his work on Mediaeval architects and design, especially on the work of Lorenz Lechler, Mathes Roriczer, Hanns Schmuttermayer, Taccola and Villard de Honnecourt. He is also known for coining the term constructive geometry.

References

Further reading