Oughtred, William
NAME:
Oughtred, William
ACHIEVEMENTS:
Invented an early form of the slide rule
NICKNAME/ALIAS:
None
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
5 March 1575, Eton, Buckinhamshire, England
DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:
30 June 1660, Albury, near Guildford, Surrey, England. Aged 85
DISCIPLINE:
Mathematician
FIELD:
Mathematics
LANGUAGE:
English
PARENTS:
Father: Benjamin Oughtred
Mother: name?
SIBLINGS:
?
SPOUSE:
Christ’sgift Caryll
CHILDREN:
Names?
EDUCATION:
Eton College
Kings’s College, University of Cambridge
MAJOR WORK:
“Clavis mathematicae” (1631, “The Keys to Mathematics”)
LIFE AND TIMES:
Oughtred’s father taught writing at Eton College, one of the most famous schools in England. Oughtred received a classical education at Eton and was taught arithmetic by his father.
He went to university at the age of seventeen and was made a fellow of his college when he was twenty. In 1598 he wrote a pamphlet entitled “Easy Way of Delineating Sun-Dials by Geometry” which was later translated into Latin by the future architect <translated by> Wren* (when he was studying at Oxford in 1647). Sun-dials were a popular study for the mathematically inclined since watches and pendulum clocks were not yet known. Oughtred was awarded his Master’s degree in arts in 1600. In the same year he wrote a monograph on the construction of sun-dials on a plane of any inclination.
Mathematics was neglected at Cambridge and Oughtred later noted that to make time for his mathematical studies he sat up at night and often had no sleep. He enjoyed introducing others to mathematical skills and assisted many other students in the university.
In 1603 he took holy orders and left Cambridge. In 1604 he was appointed to the living of Shalford in Surrey and became rector of Albury in the same county in 1610. There were apparently some grumbles in the parish because he spent more time on his mathematical problems than on parish business. He used to sit up late at night and always had an inkpot by the side of his bed in case he suddenly found a solution to a problem. In fact he occupied himself with mathematical questions day and night, and used to draw lines and diagrams with his stick in the dust on the paths around his house.
Through the mathematician <knew> Briggs*, Oughtred became aware of <a fan of> John Napier’s* invention of logarithms,which he greatly admired. By 1621, he had invented a rectilinear slide rule, a simple mechanical device for doing multiplication and division which was an adaptation on a physical scale of Napier’s logarithmic tables.
Oughtred also invented a circular slide rule for which his claim of priority was contested by a student. He took many young men as pupils for mathematical studies and in 1628, Lord Arundel asked him to instruct his son, Lord William Howard. In preparation for this task, Oughtred wrote his best-known work: “Clavis mathematicae” (“Key to Mathematics”).
The first edition, published in 1631, included a summary of the principles of arithmetic and algebra known at the time. It began with an explanation of the Hindu-Arabic notation and of demical fractions.
The algebraic section differed from other contemporary works in the amount of symbolism used. Oughtred introduced the symbol ‘x’ for multiplication, and a symbol for proportion, both of which are still used today.
The “Clavis” was widely praised and the number of foreign visitors to Oughtred’s home increased. He was more widely admired on the continent than in England although his work was later praised by <a fan was> Boyle* and <a fan was> Newton*, and he was revered by his pupils, in particular by <taught> Wallis* who dedicated his own book on arithmetic (“Arithmetica infinitorum” 1655) to Oughtred.
In 1646, during the Civil War in England, Wallis, who was known to be royalist supporter, was in danger of having his living sequestered. The court was presided over by Presbysterians and there were a number of sworn depositions against him. However, the well-known astrologer William Lilly and numerous others intervened in person on his behalf and the vote went in Oughted’s favour.
In 1657 he published his “Trigonometria”, a treatise on plane and spherical trigonometry in which he included tables of sines, tangents, secants and logarithms. The work was probably written over thirty years earlier, when Oughtred first became aware of Napier’s revolutionary work.
ASSESSMENT: Oughtred was a respected mathematician who is remembered today for his invention of the first slide rule.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS:
Much impetus for his work came from the rapidly rising amount of taxation of tobacco, after its introduction by <work related to> Nicot*
ONELINER: Willaim Oughtred, inventor of the slide rule
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Cajori, Florian, William Oughtred, A Great Seventeenth-Century Teacher of Mathematics, The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago and London, 1916