William Oughtred facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
William Oughtred
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William Oughtred engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar
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| Born | 5 March 1574 |
| Died | 30 June 1660 (aged 86) Albury, Surrey, England
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| Education | Eton College |
| Alma mater | King's College, Cambridge |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematician |
| Institutions | King's College, Cambridge |
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William Oughtred (5 March 1574 – 30 June 1660), also Owtred, Uhtred, etc., was an English mathematician and Anglican clergyman. After John Napier invented logarithms and Edmund Gunter created the logarithmic scales (lines, or rules) upon which slide rules are based, Oughtred was the first to use two such scales sliding by one another to perform direct multiplication and division. He is credited with inventing the slide rule in about 1622. He also introduced the "×" symbol for multiplication and the abbreviations "sin" and "cos" for the sine and cosine functions.
Contents
Clerical life
Education
The son of Benjamin Oughtred of Eton in Buckinghamshire (now part of Berkshire), William was born there on 5 March 1574/75 and was educated at Eton College, where his father, a writing-master, was one of his teachers. Oughtred had a passion for mathematics, and would often stay awake at nights to learn while others were sleeping. He then attended King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1596/97 and MA in 1600, holding a fellowship in the college from 1595 to 1603. He composed a Funeral Ode in Latin for Sir William More of Loseley Park in 1600.
Rector at Guildford and at Shalford
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Admitted to holy orders, he left the University of Cambridge about 1603, when as "Master" William Oughtred he held the rectorate of St Mary's Church, Guildford, Surrey. At the presentation of the lay patron George Austen, gent., he was instituted as vicar at Shalford near Wonersh, in the neighbourhood of Guildford in western Surrey, on 2 July 1605.
On 20 February 1606, at Shalford, Oughtred married Christsgift Caryll, a member of the Caryll family seated at Great Tangley Hall at Shalford. The Oughtreds had twelve children, William, Henry, Henry (the first Henry died as a baby), Benjamin, Simon, Margaret, Judith, Edward, Elizabeth, Anne, George, and John. Two of the sons, Benjamin and John, shared their father's interest in instruments and became watchmakers.
Oughtred's wife was a niece of Simon Caryll of Tangley and his wife Lady Elizabeth Aungier (married 1607), daughter of Sir Francis Aungier. Oughtred was a witness to Simon Caryll's will, made 1618, and through two further marriages Elizabeth remained matriarch and dowager of Great Tangley until her death in about 1650. Elizabeth's brother Gerald, 2nd Baron Aungier of Longford, was married to Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Onslow of Knowle, Surrey in 1638. Oughtred praised Gerald (whom he taught) as a man of great piety and learning, skilled in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and other oriental languages.
In January 1610 Sir George More, patron of Compton church adjacent to Loseley Park, granted the advowson (right of presentation of the minister) to Oughtred, when it should next fall vacant, though Oughtred was not thereby empowered to present himself to the living. This was soon after Sir George More became reconciled to the marriage of his daughter Anne to the poet John Donne, which had occurred secretly in 1601.
Rector of Albury
Oughtred was presented by Sir (Edward) Randall (lord of the manor) to the rectory of Albury, near Guildford in Surrey and instituted on 16 October 1610, vacating Shalford on 18 January 1611.
In January 1615/16 Sir George More re-granted the advowson of Compton church (still occupied) in trust to Roger Heath and Simon Caryll, to present Oughtred himself, or any other person whom Oughtred should nominate, when the vacancy should arise. Soon afterwards Oughtred was approached by John Tichborne seeking his own nomination, and entering an agreement to pay him a sum of money upon certain days. Before this could be completed the incumbent died (November 1618), and Oughtred sought for himself to be presented, preaching several times at Compton, having the first fruits sequestered to his use, and, after four months, asking the patron to present him. However, Tichborne offered to complete the agreed payment at once, and was accordingly presented by the trustees in May 1619 (Simon Caryll dying in that year): but before he could be admitted, the Crown interposed a different candidate because the contract between Oughtred and Tichborne was deemed by Sir Henry Yelverton clearly to be Simoniacal.
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Oughtred therefore remained at Albury, serving as rector there for fifty years. Of his portrait (aged 73, 1646) engraved by Wenceslas Hollar, prefixed to the Clavis Mathematica, John Evelyn remarked that it "extreamly resembles him", and that it showed "that calm and placid Composure, which seemed to proceed from, and be the result of some happy ἕυρησις and Invention". William Oughtred died at Albury in 1660, a month after the restoration of Charles II. A staunch supporter of the royalty, he is said to have died of joy at the knowledge of the return of the King. He was buried in Old St Peter and St Paul's Church, Albury. Autobiographical information is contained in his address "To the English gentrie" in his Just Apologie of c. 1634.
Mathematician
Oughtred developed his interest in mathematics early in life, and devoted whatever spare time his academic studies allowed him to it. Among the short tracts added to the 1647/48 editions of the Clavis Mathematica was one describing a natural and easy way of delineating sun-dials upon any surface, however positioned, which the author states he invented in his 23rd year (1597/98), which is to say, during his fellowship at King's College, Cambridge. His early preoccupation was to find a portable instrument or dial by which to find the hour, he tried various contrivances, but never to his satisfaction. "At last, considering that all manner of questions concerning the first motions were performed most properly by the Globe itself, rectified to the present elevation by the help of a moveable Azimuth; he projected the Globe upon the plane of the Horizon, and applied to it at the center, which was therein the Zenith, an Index with projected degrees, for the moveable Azimuth."
This projection answered his search, but then he had to invent theorems, problems and methods to calculate sections and intersections of large circles, which he could not find by instruments, not having access to any of sufficient size. In this way he drew out his findings, presenting one example to Bishop Thomas Bilson (who had ordained him), and another, in about 1606, to a certain noble lady, for whom he wrote notes for its use. In London, in spring 1618, Oughtred visited his friend Henry Briggs at Gresham College, and was introduced to Edmund Gunter, Reader in Astronomy, then occupying Dr Brooks's rooms. He showed Gunter his "Horizontall Instrument", who questioned him closely about it and spoke very approvingly. Soon afterwards Gunter sent him a print taken from a brass instrument made by Elias Allen, after Oughtred's written instructions (which Allen preserved). When, in 1632, Richard Delamain the elder claimed that invention for himself, William Robinson wrote to Oughtred: "I cannot but wonder at the indiscretion of Rich. Delamain, who being conscious to himself that he is but the pickpurse of another man's wit, would thus inconsiderately provoke and awake a sleeping lion..."
Around 1628 he was appointed by the Earl of Arundel to instruct his son William Howard in mathematics. Some of Oughtred's mathematical correspondence survives, and is printed in Bayle's General Dictionary, and (with some editorial omissions restored) in Dr Rigaud's Correspondence of Scientific Men. William Alabaster wrote to him in 1633 to propose the quadrature of the circle by consideration of the fourth chapter of the Book of Ezekiel. In 1634 he corresponded with the French architect François Derand, and (among others) with Sir Charles Cavendish (1635), Johannes Banfi Hunyades (1637), William Gascoigne (1640) and Dr John Twysden, M.D. (1650).
Oughtred offered free mathematical tuition to pupils, among them Richard Delamain and Jonas Moore, and his teaching influenced a generation of mathematicians. Seth Ward resided with Oughtred for six months to learn contemporary mathematics, and the physician Charles Scarborough also stayed at Albury: John Wallis and Christopher Wren corresponded with him. Another Albury pupil was Robert Wood, who helped him to see the Clavis through the press. Isaac Newton's high opinion of Oughtred is expressed in his letter of 1694 to Nathaniel Hawes, where he quotes him extensively, calling him "a Man whose judgement (if any man's) may safely be relyed upon... that very good and judicious man, Mr Oughtred".
The first edition of John Wallis's foundational text on infinitesimal calculus, Arithmetica Infinitorum (1656), carries a long letter of dedication to William Oughtred.
Inventions
Slide rule
Oughtred's invention of the slide rule consisted of taking a single "rule", already known to Gunter, and simplifying the method of employing it. Gunter required the use of a pair of dividers to lay off distances on his rule; Oughtred made the step of sliding two rules past each other to achieve the same ends. His original design of some time in the 1620s was for a circular slide rule; but he was not the first into print with this idea, which was published by Delamain in 1630. The conventional design of a sliding middle section for a linear rule was an invention of the 1650s.
Double horizontal sun dial
At the age of 23, Oughtred invented the double horizontal sundial, now named the Oughtred type after him. A short description The description and use of the double Horizontall Dyall (16 pp.) was added to a 1653 edition (in English translation) of the pioneer book on recreational mathematics, Récréations Mathématiques (1624) by Hendrik van Etten, a pseudonym of Jean Leurechon. The translation itself is no longer attributed to Oughtred, but (probably) to Francis Malthus.
Universal equinoctial ring dial
Oughtred also invented the Universal equinoctial ring dial.
Occult interests
According to his contemporaries, Oughtred had interests in alchemy and astrology. The Hermetic science remained a philosophical touchstone among many reputable scientists of his time, and his student Thomas Henshaw copied a Diary and "Practike" given to him by his teacher. He was well-acquainted with the astrologer William Lilly who, as noted above, helped to prevent his ejection from his living in 1646.
John Aubrey: Astrology and Geomancy
John Aubrey states that (despite their political differences) Sir Richard Onslow, son of Sir Edward, also defended Oughtred against ejection in 1646. He adds that Oughtred was an astrologer, and successful in the use of natal astrology, and used to say that he did not know why it should be effective, but believed that some "genius" or "spirit" assisted. According to Aubrey, Elias Ashmole possessed the original copy in Oughtred's handwriting of his rational division of the twelve houses of the zodiac. Oughtred penned an approving testimonial, dated 16 October 1659, to the foot of the English abstract of The Cabal of the Twelve Houses Astrological by "Morinus" (Jean-Baptiste Morin) which George Wharton inserted in his Almanac for 1659.
Aubrey suggests that Oughtred was happy to allow the country people to believe that he was capable of conjuring. Aubrey himself had seen a copy of Christopher Cattan's work on Geomancy annotated by Oughtred. He reported that Oughtred had told Bishop Ward and Elias Ashmole that he had received sudden intuitions or solutions to problems when standing in particular places, or leaning against a particular oak or ash tree, "as if infused by a divine genius", after having pondered those problems unsuccessfully for months or years.
Elias Ashmole: Freemasonry
Oughtred was well-known to Elias Ashmole, as Ashmole stated in a note to Lilly's autobiographical sketch: "This gentleman I was very well acquainted with, having lived at the house over-against his, at Aldbury in Surrey, three or four years. E.A."
The biography of Ashmole in the Biographia Britannica (1747) called forth the supposition that Oughtred was a participant in Ashmole's admission to freemasonry in 1646. Friedrich Nicolai, in both sections of his Essay (on the Templar and Masonic Orders) of 1783, associated Oughtred, Lilly, Wharton and other Astrologers in the formation of the order of Free and Accepted Masons in Warrington and London. The statement was reinforced through repetition by Thomas De Quincey, and elaborated by Jean-Marie Ragon, but was debunked in A.G. Mackey's History of Freemasonry (1906).
Ashmole noted that he paid a visit to "Mr. Oughtred, the famous mathematician", on 15 September 1654, about three weeks after the Astrologers' Feast of that year.
Oughtred Society
Oughtred's name is remembered in the Oughtred Society, a group formed in the United States in 1991 for collectors of slide rules. It produces the twice-yearly Journal of the Oughtred Society and holds meetings and auctions for its members.
See also
In Spanish: William Oughtred para niños
