Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.17348

    Diagram for doubling the cube

    Date
    4 September 1661
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p90
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 320mm
    width (page): 200mm
    Subject
    Description
    Diagram copied from the Register Book of the Royal Society.

    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 4 September 1661, Sir Paul Neile brought in a paper, endorsed by the King, of Thomas Hobbes's proposal of how to double the cube (stated as finding two proportionals between two straight lines given). This is the diagram accompanying Hobbes's proof.

    William Brouncker was asked to examine the proof, which he found erroneous, as registered in the next entry.

    This entry was copied from RBO/1/098v. Another copy from the Register Book can be found at RBC/1/103, and another version of this image can be found at Cl.P/1/11/013.

    This volume is another copy of entries of the first two volumes of the Register Book. It was given to Sir Joseph Banks by G. S. Heales Esquire of Doctor's Common on 31 May 1814.
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 4 September 1661, ‘A proposition of Mr. Hobbes for finding two mean proportionals between two strait lines given, was delivered to the Society by Sir Paul Neile from the king, indorsed with this majesty’s own hand, and was ordered to be registered; as was afterwards the answer to the problem, by lord viscount Brouncker’ (Birch 1:42). The date on which this was entered in the Register Book is given as 1 October, probably to await Brouncker's refutation.
    Related fellows
    Paul Neile (British) , Astronomer
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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