Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.17452

    Diagrams in papers for Commercium Epistolicum

    Date
    31 July 1669
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p2r
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 200mm
    width (page): 160mm
    Subject
    Description
    Figures in a letter from Isaac Barrow to John Collins, dated 31 July 31 1669.

    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 (calculus).

    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
    De Analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    29 January 1713, ‘It was Ordered by Ballotting, that the Treasurer pay the Charges of Printing the Commercium Epistolicum lately ordered to be Published by the Society' (CMO/2/235).

    25 October 1714, ‘Ordered that the Originall of the Papers used in the Comercium Epistolicum lately printed by the Society be Sealed up and putt into the Iron Chest to be ready to be produced upon Occasion' (CMO/2/252).

    13 September 1737, ‘Ordered, that the original Papers used in the Commercium epistolicum be at the next Council taken out of the Iron Chest, and committed to the care of Mr Jones, who is desired to see them pasted into a Guard-Book all in one Volume’ (CMO/3/73).

    8 November 1737, ‘The Papers of the Commercium epistolicum relating to the Invention of Fluxions were taken out of the Strong Box, and lent to Mr Jones, according to a former Order of Council' (CMO/3/76).

    Diagrams printed in Commercium Epistolicum D. Johannis Collins, et aliorum De analysi promota (London: Typis Pearsonianis, 1712), pp. 3-4; Commercium epistolicum D. Johannis Collins, et aliorum de analysi promota (London: J. Tonson & J. Watts, 1722), pp. 67-69.
    Related fellows
    Isaac Barrow (1630 - 1677, British) , Classical and Mathematical Scholar, Mathematician
    John Collins (1625 - 1683, British) , Mathematician, Mathematician
    Associated place
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