Diagram relating to a theory of tides

Date

2 June 1666

Object type

manuscript
diagram

Archive reference number

LBO/1/121

Manuscript page number

p331a

Material

ink
paper

Dimensions

height (page): 118mm
width (page): 84mm

Subject

Astronomy

Description

Diagram on separate slip of paper. This figure relates to John Wallis's theory of tides, explained in his letter to Henry Oldenburg dated 2 June 1666. The letter was read at the meeting of the Royal Society on 20 June 1666, and printed in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, vol. 1, no. 16 (1666). The figure was removed from the original paper, to be inserted in the Letter Book.

This image is copied at LBC/1/391.

Object history

At the meeting of the Royal Society on 20 June 1666, ‘Two letters of Dr. Wallis, one dated at Oxford June 2, 1666, and the other June 8, were read, containing his answers to several objections made by some of the members at their late meeting of May 23, upon his hypothesis of tides. He being now come to London, was present at this meeting, and there farther declaring his thoughts by word of mouth concerning some particulars of this subject, received the public thanks of the Society, who ordered, that he should be assisted for the farther evidencing of this subject, both with the relations contained in their register-books about the current of the tides in the open sea, and with astronomical observations, such as he had suggested in his letters above-mentioned’ (Birch 2:98).

John Wallis (communicated by Boyle), 'An essay, exhibiting his hypothesis about the flux and reflux of the sea...', Phil. Trans. vol. 1, no. 16 (August 1666), pp. 263-81, figs 1-4.

Related fellows

John Wallis (1650, British) , Mathematician
Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent

Associated place

<The World>
> Europe
> United Kingdom