Mathematician:James Stirling

Mathematician

Scottish mathematician best known for Stirling's Formula.

Protégé of Isaac Newton.

One of the first to study what is now known as the Gamma function.

Nationality

Scottish

History

• Born: May 1692, Garden (near Stirling), Scotland
• 1717: Added $4$ new cubic curves to the $72$ already described by Newton in $1704$.
• Died: 5 Dec 1770 in Edinburgh, Scotland

Theorems

• Stirling's Formula
• Stirling's Asymptotic Series

• Stirling Numbers of the First Kind
• Stirling Numbers of the Second Kind
• Stirling's Constant

Results named for James Stirling can be found here.

Definitions of concepts named for James Stirling can be found here.

Publications

• 1717: Lineae Tertii Ordinis Neutonianae
• 1719: Methodus differentialis Newtoniana illustrata
• 1730: Methodus Differentialis (in which Stirling's Formula is introduced)

Also known as

He used the Latinized form of his name Jacobo Stirling on at least some of his works.

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "James Stirling": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 1986: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers ... (previous) ... (next): A List of Mathematicians in Chronological Sequence
• 1997: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): A List of Mathematicians in Chronological Sequence
• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Stirling's formula
• 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Stirling, James (1692-1770)