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28-458: David Gregory or Dave Gregory may refer to: Sciences [ edit ] David Gregory (mathematician) (1659–1708), Scottish mathematician and astronomer David Gregory (physician) (1625–1720), Scottish physician and inventor Writers [ edit ] David Gregory (author) , Christian author David Gregory (journalist) (born 1970), American journalist and former host of NBC's Meet

56-516: A "Gregorian dome". The following excerpt is from the Pantologia . A new (cabinet) cyclopædia (1813) Mr. James Gregory was a man of a very acute and penetrating genius. ...The most brilliant part of his character was that of his mathematical genius as an inventor, which was of the first order; as will appear by... his inventions and discoveries [which include] quadrature of the circle and hyperbola, by an infinite converging series; his method for

84-411: A circle from the tangent, and vice versa; as also for the secant and logarithmic tangent and secant, and vice versa. These, with others, for measuring the length of the elliptic and hyperbolic curves, were sent to Mr. Collins, in return for some received from him of Newton's , in which he followed the elegant example of this author, in delivering his series in simple terms, independent of each other. In

112-464: A letter of 1671 to John Collins , Gregory gives the power series expansion of the seven functions (using modern notation) arctan ⁡ x {\textstyle \arctan x} (often called Gregory's series ), tan ⁡ x , {\textstyle \tan x,} sec ⁡ x , {\textstyle \sec x,} log sec ⁡ x , {\textstyle \log \,\sec x,}

140-514: A physician and inventor. About a year after assuming the Chair of Mathematics at Edinburgh , James Gregory suffered a stroke while viewing the moons of Jupiter with his students. He died a few days later at the age of 36. In the Optica Promota , published in 1663, Gregory described his design for a reflecting telescope , the " Gregorian telescope ". He also described the method for using

168-618: A proponent of Isaac Newton 's Principia . The fourth of the fifteen children of David Gregorie , a doctor from Kinnairdy, Banffshire, and Jean Walker of Orchiston, David was born in Upper Kirkgate, Aberdeen. The nephew of astronomer and mathematician James Gregory , David, like his influential uncle before him, studied at Aberdeen Grammar School and Marischal College ( University of Aberdeen ), from 1671 to 1675. The Gregorys were Jacobites and left Scotland to escape religious discrimination. Young David visited several countries on

196-565: A reflecting telescope with a parabolic mirror would correct spherical aberration as well as the chromatic aberration seen in refracting telescopes . In his design he also placed a concave secondary mirror with an elliptical surface past the focal point of the parabolic primary mirror , reflecting the image back through a hole in the primary mirror where it could be conveniently viewed. According to his own confession, Gregory had no practical skill and he could find no optician capable of actually constructing one. The telescope design attracted

224-470: A second edition of Newton's Principia . Gregory made notes of these discussions, but the second edition of 1713 was not due to Gregory. In 1695 he published Catoptricae et dioptricae sphaericae elementa which addressed chromatic aberration and the possibility of its correction with achromatic lens . In 1705 Gregory became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh . At

252-473: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages David Gregory (mathematician) David Gregory (originally spelt Gregorie ) FRS (3 June 1659 – 10 October 1708) was a Scottish mathematician and astronomer. He was professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh , and later Savilian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford , and

280-460: Is unsuitable for irregular surfaces, and Gregory devised an appropriate "adaptable wheel" using a Gregory transformation . Gregory, an enthusiastic supporter of Newton, later had much friendly correspondence with him and incorporated his ideas into his own teaching, ideas which at that time were controversial and considered quite revolutionary. The crater Gregory on the Moon is named after him. He

308-672: The Union of 1707 , he was given the responsibility of re-organising the Scottish Mint . He was an uncle of philosopher Thomas Reid . Gregory and his wife, Elizabeth Oliphant, had nine children, but seven died while still children. On his death in Maidenhead , Berkshire he was buried in Maidenhead churchyard. James Gregory (astronomer and mathematician) In his book Geometriae Pars Universalis (1668) Gregory gave both

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336-554: The fundamental theorem of calculus and the discovery of the Taylor series can both be attributed to him." The book was reprinted in 1668 with an appendix, Geometriae Pars , in which Gregory explained how the volumes of solids of revolution could be determined. In his 1663 Optica Promota , James Gregory described his reflecting telescope which has come to be known by his name, the Gregorian telescope. Gregory pointed out that

364-576: The transit of Venus to measure the distance of the Earth from the Sun, which was later advocated by Edmund Halley and adopted as the basis of the first effective measurement of the Astronomical Unit . Before he left Padua, Gregory published Vera Circuli et Hyperbolae Quadratura (1667) in which he approximated the areas of the circle and hyperbola with convergent series: "The first proof of

392-526: The Gudermannian function 2 arctan ⁡ e x − 1 2 π . {\textstyle 2\arctan e^{x}-{\tfrac {1}{2}}\pi .} There is evidence that he discovered the method of taking higher derivatives in order to compute a power series, which was not discovered by Taylor until 1715, but did not publish his results, thinking he had only rediscovered "Mr. Newton's universal method," which

420-802: The Press David Gregory (historian) (1696–1767), English churchman and academic David Gregory-Kumar , BBC News journalist Sports [ edit ] Dave Gregory (cricketer) (1845–1919), Australian cricketer David Gregory (footballer, born 1951) , English footballer David Gregory (footballer, born 1970) , English footballer David Gregory (footballer, born 1994) , English football goalkeeper Other [ edit ] Dave Gregory (musician) (born 1952), guitarist for XTC David Gregory (Royal Navy officer) (1909–1975), British admiral David A. Gregory (born 1985), American TV actor David Gregory (politician) , Missouri politician [REDACTED] Topics referred to by

448-593: The attention of several people in the scientific establishment such as Robert Hooke , the Oxford physicist who eventually built the telescope 10 years later, and Sir Robert Moray , polymath and founding member of the Royal Society . The Gregorian telescope design is rarely used today, as other types of reflecting telescopes are known to be more efficient for standard applications. Gregorian optics are also used in radio telescopes such as Arecibo , which features

476-589: The continent, including the Netherlands (where he began studying medicine at Leiden University ) and France, and did not return to Scotland until 1683. On 28 November 1683, Gregory graduated M.A. at University of Edinburgh , and in October 1683 he became Chair of Mathematics at University of Edinburgh. He was "the first to openly teach the doctrines of the Principia , in a public seminary...in those days this

504-488: The first Regius Professor of Mathematics at the University of St Andrews , a position created for him by Charles II , probably upon the request of Robert Moray. There at the University of St Andrews , he laid the first meridian line across the floor of his lab in 1673, which was 200 years prior to the Greenwich Meridian being established, and thus "arguably making St Andrews the place where time began". He

532-449: The first published statement and proof of the fundamental theorem of the calculus (stated from a geometric point of view, and only for a special class of the curves considered by later versions of the theorem), for which he was acknowledged by Isaac Barrow . Gregory was born in 1638. His mother Janet was the daughter of Jean and David Anderson and his father was John Gregory, an Episcopalian Church of Scotland minister , James

560-592: The founders of the Royal Society . In 1664 he departed for the University of Padua , in the Venetian Republic , passing through Flanders , Paris and Rome on his way. At Padua he lived in the house of his countryman James Caddenhead , the professor of philosophy, and he was taught by Stefano Angeli . Upon his return to London in 1668 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society , before travelling to St Andrews in late 1668 to take up his post as

588-445: The inverse Gudermannian function log tan ⁡ 1 2 ( x + 1 2 π ) {\textstyle \log \,\tan {\tfrac {1}{2}}{\bigl (}x+{\tfrac {1}{2}}\pi {\bigr )}} , arcsec ⁡ ( 2 e x ) , {\textstyle \operatorname {arcsec} {\bigl (}{\sqrt {2}}e^{x}{\bigr )},} and

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616-407: The same term This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Gregory&oldid=1252768976 " Category : Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

644-406: The solution of the famous Keplerian problem by an infinite series; he discovered a method of drawing Tangents to curves geometrically, without any previous calculations; a rule for the direct and inverse method of tangents, which stands upon the same principle (of exhaustions ) with that of fluxions , and differs not much from it in the manner of application; a series for the length of the arc of

672-401: The transformation of curves; a geometrical demonstration of Lord Brouncker's series for squaring the hyperbola—his demonstration that the meridian line is analogous to a scale of logarithmic tangents of the half complements of the latitude; he also invented and demonstrated geometrically, by help of the hyperbola, a very simple converging series for making the logarithms; he sent to Mr. Collins

700-486: Was a daring innovation." Gregory decided to leave for England where, in 1691, he was elected Savilian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford, due in large part to the influence of Isaac Newton . The same year he was elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society . In 1692, he was elected a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford . Gregory spent several days with Isaac Newton in 1694, discussing revisions for

728-400: Was based on a different technique. James Gregory discovered the diffraction grating by passing sunlight through a bird feather and observing the diffraction pattern produced. In particular he observed the splitting of sunlight into its component colours – this occurred a year after Newton had done the same with a prism and the phenomenon was still highly controversial. A round wheel

756-409: Was successively professor at the University of St Andrews and the University of Edinburgh . He had married Mary, daughter of George Jameson , painter, and widow of John Burnet of Elrick, Aberdeen; their son James was Professor of Physics at King's College, Aberdeen . He was the grandfather of John Gregory (FRS 1756); uncle of David Gregorie (FRS 1692) and brother of David Gregory (1627–1720),

784-661: Was youngest of their three children and he was born in the manse at Drumoak , Aberdeenshire , and was initially educated at home by his mother, Janet Anderson (~1600–1668). It was his mother who endowed Gregory with his appetite for geometry , her uncle – Alexander Anderson (1582–1619) – having been a pupil and editor of French mathematician Viète . After his father's death in 1651 his elder brother David took over responsibility for his education. He attended Aberdeen Grammar School , and then Marischal College from 1653–1657, graduating AM in 1657. In 1663 he went to London, meeting John Collins and fellow Scot Robert Moray , one of

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