Mathematician:William Jones

Mathematician

Welsh mathematician who has recently come to notice for being the first to use the symbol $\pi$ (pi) in print to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

Close friend of Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley.

On his death, left behind him a library of about $15 \, 000$ books, which was probably the most valuable library of mathematics in England. This has only recently been fully dispersed.

Welsh

History

• Born: 1675 in Llanfihangel Tre'r Beirdd, Isle of Anglesey
• 1695 -- 1702: Served at sea, teaching mathematics on board Navy ships
• 1702: Started a career lecturing on mathematics in coffee-houses
• November 1711: Became a Fellow of the Royal Society, later its president
• Died: 3 July 1749 in London, England

Publications

• 1702: A New Compendium of the Whole Art of Navigation
• 1706: Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos in which $\pi$ (pi) first appeared in print
• 1711: Analysis per quantitatum series, fluxiones ac differentias
• 1731: Discourses of the Natural Philosophy of the Elements