Everything about John Pell totally explained
John Pell (
March 1,
1611 –
December 12,
1685), was an
English mathematician.
He was born at Southwick in
Sussex, where his father was minister. He was educated at
Steyning Grammar School, and entered
Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of thirteen. During his university career he became an accomplished linguist, and even before he took his M.A. degree (in 1630) corresponded with
Henry Briggs and other mathematicians. His great reputation and the influence of Sir
William Boswell, the English resident, with the states-general procured his election in 1643 to the chair of mathematics in
Amsterdam, whence he removed in
1646, on the invitation of
Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, to
Breda, where he remained till 1652.
From
1654 to
1658 Pell acted as
Oliver Cromwell's political agent to the
Protestant cantons of
Switzerland. On his return to England he took orders and was appointed by King
Charles II of England to the
rectory of
Fobbing in
Essex. In
1673 he was presented by Bishop
Gilbert Sheldon to the rectory of Laindon in the same county. Upon the death of John Pell's brother,
Thomas Pell, in 1670, the mathematician's son,
Sir John Pell inherited lands in New York, where he lived as the first
Lord of the Manor of Pelham. His descendants have continued to be prominent in the American polity, including Ambassador and U.S. Representative
Herbert Pell and U.S. Senator
Claiborne Pell.
His devotion to mathematical science seems to have interfered with his advancement in the Church and with his private life. For a time he was confined as a
debtor in the
King's Bench Prison. He lived, on the invitation of Dr Whistler, for a short time in 1682 at the
College of Physicians, but died at the house of Mr Cothorne, reader of the church of
St Giles-in-the Fields. Many of Pell's manuscripts fell into the hands of
Richard Busby, master of
Westminster School, and afterwards came into the possession of the
Royal Society; they're still preserved in something like forty folio volumes, which contain, not only Pell's own memoirs, but much of his correspondence with the mathematicians of his time.
The
Diophantine equation was a favorite subject with Pell; he lectured on it at Amsterdam; and he's now best remembered for the indeterminate equation
, which is known as the
Pell equation or
Pell's equation. This problem was proposed by
Pierre de Fermat first to
Bernhard Frenicle de Bessy, and in 1657 to all mathematicians. Pell's connection with the problem consists of the publication of the solutions of
John Wallis and Lord Brounker in his edition of Breaker's
Translation of Rizonius's Algebra (1668), and his contributions to a book written by
Johann Heinrich Rahn
.
His chief works are:
- Astronomical History of Observations of Heavenly Motions and Appearances (1634)
- Ecliptica prognostica (1634)
- Controversy with Longomontanus concerning the Quadrature of the Circle (1646?)
- An Idea of the Mathematics, I2iflO (1650)
- A Table of Ten Thousand Square Numbers (fol.; 1672).
Further Information
Get more info on 'John Pell'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://john_pell.totallyexplained.com">John Pell Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
