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Briggs, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Briggs, Henry, 1561–1630, English mathematician. He was the first professor of geometry at Gresham College, London (1596–1619), and Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford (from 1619). After pub...

Fibonacci, Leonardo

(Encyclopedia)Fibonacci, Leonardo lāōnärˈdō fēbōnätˈchē [key], b. c.1170, d. after 1240, Italian mathematician, known also as Leonardo da Pisa. In Liber abaci (1202, 2d ed. 1228), for centuries a standard...

Maclaurin, Colin

(Encyclopedia)Maclaurin, Colin məklôrˈĭn, –lärˈĭn [key], 1698–1746, Scottish mathematician and natural philosopher, one of the greatest mathematicians of his time. He was professor at Aberdeen and from 1...

secant

(Encyclopedia)secant, in mathematics. 1 In geometry, a secant is a straight line cutting a curve or surface. If it intersects the curve in two different points, as in the secant of a circle, the segment of the seca...

experience

(Encyclopedia)experience, living through events and the impression on a person or animal of events. In epistemology, a distinction is made between things known inductively, from experience, and those known deductiv...

Sylvester, James Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Sylvester, James Joseph, 1814–97, English mathematician. He studied at Cambridge for four years after 1831, but because degrees were limited to members of the Church of England and he was a Jew, he ...

median

(Encyclopedia)median. 1 In statistics, a type of average. In a group of numbers as many numbers of the group are larger than the median as are smaller. In the group 4, 5, 6, 9, 13, 14, 19, the median is 9, three nu...

Saenredam, Pieter Jansz

(Encyclopedia)Saenredam, Pieter Jansz pēˈtər yäns sänˈrədäm [key], 1597–1665, Dutch painter. Born in Assendelft, he spent most of his life in Haarlem. Saenredam was a painter of structures and was sometim...

Eudoxus of Cnidus

(Encyclopedia)Eudoxus of Cnidus yo͞odŏkˈsəs, nīˈdəs [key], 408?–355? b.c., Greek astronomer, mathematician, and physician. From the accounts of various ancient writers, he appears to have studied with Plat...

Tarski, Alfred

(Encyclopedia)Tarski, Alfred tärˈskē [key], 1901–83, Polish-American mathematician and philosopher, Ph.D. Univ. of Warsaw, 1924, b. Alfred Teitelbaum, changed his named 1923. He lectured at Warsaw until 1939, ...