| Authorised form of name | Keill; John (1671 - 1721); mathematician; natural philosopher |
| Dates | 1671 - 1721 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Date of birth | 01 December 1671 |
| Place of death | Holywell Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England |
| Date of death | 31 August 1721 |
| DatesAndPlaces | Burial: St Mary's Church, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England (2 September 1721) |
| Occupation | Mathematician |
| Research field | Physics |
| Mathematics |
| Activity | Education:
Edinburgh under David Gregory (FRS 1692); MA; Incorporated at Oxford (1694); Balliol College, Oxford. BMed, DMed (1713)
Career:
Lecturer in Experimental Philosophy at Hart Hall, Oxford; Deputy to the Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy (1699); Treasurer of the Palatines (1709); took refugees from the Palatinate to New England, returning (1711); Decipherer to Queen Anne and George I (1712-1716); Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford (1712-death); defended Newton against charges of plagiarism by Leibniz; died of a violent fever.
|
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 30/11/1700 |
| Age at election | 29 |
| Relationships | Parents: Robert Keill and Sarah Cockburn (d. 1697)
Siblings: James Keill (FRS 1712)
Spouse: Mary or Moll (née Clements) (b. c.1696) (1717)
Children: James Keill |
| PublishedWorks | RCN 46949
RCN 46947
RCN 46948
RCN 18459
RCN 18460
RCN 46946
RCN 46950 |
| OtherInfo | Important defender of Isaac Newton and disseminator of Newtonian principles. Following his appointment as lecturer in experimental Philosophy at Hart Hall, Keill began giving lectures and performing experiments based on Newton's findings, instructing his students on the laws of motion, principles of hydrostatics & optics, and Newtonian propositions on light and colours. He became involved in the famous Newton calculus plagiarism controversy, alleged by Gottfried Liebniz. He defended Newton's Principia mathematica against a criticism levelled at it by Johann Bernoulli (Philosophical Transactions, July–September, 1714). |
| Source | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB; DSB; Thomas; Eloy
References:
H E Bell, 'The Savilian Professors' Houses and Halley's Observatory at Oxford' in NR 1961 vol 16 pp 179-186
Sir Alan Cook, 'The 350th Anniversary of the Birth of G W Leibniz, FRS' in NR 1996 vol 50 pp 153-163
J P Zinsser, 'The ultimate commentary: a consideration of I Bernhard Cohen's Guide to Newton's Principia' in NR 2003 vol 57 pp 231-238
Notes:
According to Hunter, he was admitted in 1702.
As he was also known as Joannis Keill, some works in the Transaions do not appear under the search using his auuthorised form of name. Works attributed to Joannis Keill can be found here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstl.1714.0013 |
| Code | NA5348 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| MM/5/49 | Letter from Brooke Taylor, near Canterbury, to Isaac Newton | 22 April 1716 |
| EL/K/22 | Letter, from John Keill to William Cockburn | 1708 |
| EL/K/23 | Letter, from John Keill to John Machin, dated at Oxford | 21 May 1720 |
| CLP/8i/64 | Paper, regarding a solution to the Kepler problem by John Keill | 1712 |