Diagram in papers for Commercium Epistolicum
Date
14 June 1676
Creator
Unknown, Artist
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p1v
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 314mm
width (page): 202mm
width (page): 202mm
Subject
Description
Letter from John Collins to Henry Oldenburg (14 June 1676) for transmission to Leibniz (26 July 1676). Collins is here citing James Gregorie's method of approximation by repeated bisection (K, S) of the length of the circular arc HKL.
This volume contains the letters and papers of John Collins (1625-1683), which came into the possession of William Jones (1675-1749), who used them in Commercium Epistolicum, designed to prove Isaac Newton’s priority over Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the invention of fluxions.
The original letters were sealed up at the order of the Royal Society's council (25 October 1714) and stored in an iron chest. Further letters used in the 1722 edition of Commercium Epistolicum must have been added and stored with the original papers. These were ordered on 13 September 1737 to be ‘taken out of the Iron Chest’ and entrusted to Jones, who was asked to paste them into a guard-book in one volume (CMO/2/252, CMO/3/73).
This volume contains the letters and papers of John Collins (1625-1683), which came into the possession of William Jones (1675-1749), who used them in Commercium Epistolicum, designed to prove Isaac Newton’s priority over Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the invention of fluxions.
The original letters were sealed up at the order of the Royal Society's council (25 October 1714) and stored in an iron chest. Further letters used in the 1722 edition of Commercium Epistolicum must have been added and stored with the original papers. These were ordered on 13 September 1737 to be ‘taken out of the Iron Chest’ and entrusted to Jones, who was asked to paste them into a guard-book in one volume (CMO/2/252, CMO/3/73).
Transcription
Endorsed No. 45: p. 126' [reference to the 1722 edition of Commercium Epistolicum].
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
Object history
Extract (without the diagram) printed in Commercium Epistolicum D. Johannis Collins, et aliorum De analysi promota (London: Typis Pearsonianis, 1712), p. 45; Commercium epistolicum D. Johannis Collins, et aliorum de analysi promota (London: J. Tonson & J. Watts, 1722), p. 125.
Related fellows
John Collins (1625 - 1683, British) , Mathematician, Mathematician
Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646 - 1716, German) , Natural philosopher
Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646 - 1716, German) , Natural philosopher
Associated place