William Jones

Although of little importance as a mathematician, William Jones is well known to historians of mathematics since he corresponded with many 17th Century mathematicians, including Newton. He was, however, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1711.

Jones served at sea, teaching mathematics on board ship between 1695 and 1702. After his voyages were over he became a teacher of mathematics in London. He also held a number of posts in government offices.

Jones published Synopsis palmariorum mathesios 1706 , a book intended for beginners which included the differential calculus and infinite series. This book is also famed since the symbol p is used in it with its modern meaning.

Jones served on the Royal Society committee appointed to decide who had invented the infinitesimal calculus, Newton or Leibniz.

Navigation was also a topic which interested Jones and his first published work was A New Compendium of the Whole Art of Navigation. He applied mathematics to navigation studying methods to calculate position at sea.

In 1731 he published Discourses of the Natural Philosophy of the Elements.

On his death he left a large collection of manuscripts and correspondence which it appears he had intended to publish as a major piece of work. There are many notes and copied parts of original manuscripts to which he had access.

Texto original por: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson

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JOC/EFR December 1996	School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland
The URL of this page is: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Jones.htm