Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14724

    Diagram

    Date
    ca. 31 December 1669
    Creator
    John William Wallis (1740, British) , Mathematician
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p223a
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 147mm
    width (page): 135mm
    Subject
    Description
    Diagram from John Wallis's letter to Henry Oldenburg refuting Thomas Hobbes's method of squaring the circle (as printed in Hobbes, Quadratura circuli, cubatio sphaerae etc. (London: A. Crooke, 1669)). Wallis circulated his printed refutation, Thomae Hobbes Quadratura circuli (secundo edita) denuo refuata (Oxford: L. Lichfield for O. Pullein, 1669), which was presented to the Royal Society on 9 January 1670.

    This diagram is copied in LBC/3/269.
    Object history
    As indicated in the letter sent from Wallis to Oldenburg on 9 January 1670, copies of John Wallis, Thomae Hobbes Quadratura circuli (secundo edita) denuo refuata (Oxford: L. Lichfield for O. Pullein, 1669) sent earlier to Oldenburg did not include this diagram.

    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 13 January 1670, ‘There were presented from Dr. Wallis two books published by him, one intitled, Mechanica, sive de motu tractatus geometricus; pars prima: London 1670 in 4to; the other intitled, Thomae Hobbes Quadratura circuli secundo edita denuo refutata: printed at Oxford in 1669’ (Birch 2:415).
    Related fellows
    John Wallis (1650, British) , Mathematician
    Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
    Associated place
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          > United Kingdom
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