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Barrow, I

Name: Isaac Barrow

Achievements: Advances in mathematics anticipating calculus.

Born: October 1630; London, England

Died: May 4, 1677; London, England (Aged 47)

Field & Discipline: Religion; Mathematics, Clergyman; Mathmatician

Language: English

Father: Thomas Barrow

Mother: Anne Buggin

Siblings: Names unknown

Spouse: None

Children: None

Education: Charterhouse Foundation, City of London; Felsted School, Essex; Trinity College, Cambridge

Major Work:

"Geometrical Lectures" (1870)

Life & Times:

Barrow's father was a wealthy merchant who held the court appointment of linen draper to the king.  Brought up in London,  his university education was threatened by the English Civil War because his father, who had studied at Oxford with the King, lost everything.

However, a patron paid Barrow's university  bills and in 1647 he was elected scholar of Trinity,  whose Puritan authorities chose to ignore his Royalist leanings. He gained his degrees and was elected fellow of the College in 1649, at the same time as [a pal of] Ray*, the botanist, who was a close friend. But Barrow was out of sympathy with the academic establishment of the times.

In 1649 he signed  his acceptance of Cromwell’s republican Commonwealth but immediately changed his mind and had his name erased.  As a Royalist, he was unlikely to get an important academic post and in 1655 he left Cambridge for the continent, having sold his books to finance his travels.

He went first to Paris where his father was part of the court around the exiled [visited in exile] Charles II* and then on to Italy. On the way to Turkey from Italy his ship was attacked by pirates and Barrow manned a gun on deck until they were driven off. He stayed in Turkey for a year and finally travelled back to England via Venice, Germany and Holland.

When he arrived home in 1659 he was ordained a priest, and when the monarchy was restored the following year his fortunes improved. He published a translation of Euclid's "Elements" which became a popular standard text, and he was appointed professor of Greek at Cambridge.

In 1662 Barrow also took on the professorship of geometry at Gresham College and in addition gave lectures on astronomy at Gresham. The next year he became the first mathematical professor at Cambridge. Barrow devoted his time to mathematics over the next six years and gave a series of lectures on three subjects: optics, geometry and mathematics.

In 1669 Barrow resigned his professorship in favour of  his ex-pupil [taught] Newton*,  with whom he worked briefly in that year and whose work he recommended to [colleague was] John Collins* at the Royal Society as being of  "an unparallelled genius".

It was Collins who persuaded a reluctant Barrow to publish his own mathematical work. His "Optical Lectures"  (1669) were very soon superseded by Newton's work, "Geometrical Lectures," came out in 1670 and the "Mathematical Lectures" were published posthumously.

In the "Geometrical Lectures" Barrow used a method of determining tangents that foreshadowed the methods of calculus developed later by others ([anticipated] Leibniz*) and Barrow was the first to recognise that the processes of integration and differentiation in calculus are inverse operations.

Barrow also met [knew] Flamsteed*, the astronomer, around this time.  When he retired from the chair of mathematics, Barrow was made chaplain to Charles II in 1670. Barrow was known as "the exhaustive preacher" and once preached a sermon which is  said to have lasted for three and a half hours; on another occasion, the vergers in Westminster Abbey were so impatient with his sermonizing that they ordered the organ to be played and Barrow was defeated by loud music.

In 1673 he was appointed Master of Trinity, Cambridge,  where he started the building of the library.  In 1675 he became Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University. The issue of rights for Roman Catholics and the extent of the pope's authority were causing a great deal of controversy at the time and in 1676 Barrow preached a sermon in which, he rejected the papal claim to be supreme authority in Christianity.

He gave his great friend [a pal of] Tillotson* permission to publish his speech under the title  "Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy."

Extra Connections: He was a friend of [a pal of] Petty* and [a pal of] Boyle*

Assessment: Barrow is remembered for his mathematical work which anticipated the

successful development of the calculus.

Oneliner: Isaac Barrow, who taught Newton math

Bibliography:

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