| RefNo | MS/82/5 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Letter from Brook Taylor to [John] Keill, dated at Bifrons House, Kent |
| Date | 3 July 1713 |
| Description | Addressed to the University of Oxford.
Thanks Keill for supporting Stephen Gray for the office of Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society following Taylor's proposal. Describes Gray as "very fit... but the poor man is so very bashful... he has such dreadful apprehension of the presence of so many virtuosos". This follows the death of [Henry] Hunt and [Francis] Hawksbee.
Delighted to hear that Keill is about to print "a new system of astronomy". Thanks him for his correction on his paper [on oscillation of the centre] and understands that the RS will publish the paper on refractions and another on music.
Discusses the controversy related to the isoperimetric problem and a possible proof.
Sends a method of "finding series by placing the terms in points in a plane, as Sir Is[aac] N[ewton] does in parallelograms" but does not consider it valuable as only applicable to some cases, and instead proposes a general differential method 2though I can't boast much of it, but only as it serves to explain the nature of fluxions, I think, more fully than has been done yet". Followed by full demonstration in axioms with equations and a figure, and the theorem itself to reverse series.
Adds as a postscriptum: "I wish you would write a paper about the method you once shew'd me of proceeding with flowing coefficients, for I believe it to be very useful". |
| Extent | 3 pages |
| Format | Manuscript |
| PhysicalDescription | Ink on paper |
| AccessStatus | Open |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA6093 | Taylor; Brook (1685 - 1731) | 1685 - 1731 |
| NA5348 | Keill; John (1671 - 1721); mathematician; natural philosopher | 1671 - 1721 |