James Dodson (mathematician) facts for kids
James Dodson (born around 1705, died 1757) was a clever British mathematician and actuary. An actuary is someone who uses math to figure out risks, especially for insurance companies. He was also a big inventor in the world of insurance. He was even a Fellow of the Royal Society, which is a group of top scientists.
A Life of Learning
James Dodson was a student of a famous mathematician named Abraham de Moivre. James worked as an accountant and a teacher. In 1752, his friend George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, became the head of the Royal Society. Soon after, in 1755, James Dodson was also chosen to be a Fellow of this important group.
Later that year, he became the master of the Royal Mathematical School at Christ's Hospital. He also taught at Stone's School there. James Dodson passed away on November 23, 1757, when he was over 52 years old. He lived in an area called Bell Dock in Wapping.
His Work in Insurance
James Dodson wanted to join an insurance company called the Amicable Life Assurance Society. But they said no because he was over 45 years old. This made him want to create a new, fairer insurance company.
He used special tables that showed how long people were expected to live. These tables were first made by Edmund Halley in 1693. Dodson wanted to set up an insurance company that would charge fair prices based on how risky it was to insure someone for a long time.
Even though he tried, James Dodson couldn't get official permission to start his own company. However, his ideas were very important. In 1762, after he had passed away, a group of mathematicians and others, including Edward Rowe Mores, started The Equitable Life Assurance Society. This company used the smart math principles that Dodson had developed.
His Books and Discoveries
As a mathematician, James Dodson is best known for two important books: The Anti-Logarithmic Canon and The Mathematical Miscellany.
In 1742, Dodson published The Anti-Logarithmic Canon. This book had a special table of numbers that was unique for a very long time. It helped people work with Logarithms, which are a way to make big math problems easier. It's believed that other mathematicians, Walter Warner and John Pell, had worked on these tables many years before.
In 1747, he published The Calculator, which was a collection of many small math tables. The same year, he began publishing The Mathematical Miscellany. This series of books had solutions to many different math problems. He dedicated the first volume to his teacher, Abraham de Moivre. The third volume, published in 1755, was about problems related to insurance and money.
After Dodson's death, another important work was published in 1758. It was called An Account of the Methods used to describe Lines on Dr. Halley's Chart of the terraqueous Globe. This book, which he worked on with William Mountaine, was about isogons, which are lines on a map that show where a compass points the same way.
His Family
When James Dodson died, he left behind three children who didn't have much money. At a meeting at Christ's Hospital in 1757, it was shared that Dodson had died "in very mean circumstances." His three children were James (15), Thomas (11), and Elizabeth (8). The two youngest children were allowed to live at Christ's Hospital.
Years later, after the Equitable Society had started, they decided to give £300 to Dodson's children. This was to thank their father for the important "Tables of Lives" he had created for the society. Dodson's oldest son, James the younger, later became an actuary for the society in 1764.
