| RefNo | MS/81/14 |
| Previous numbers | MS 81.11 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Letter, from John Collins to [Jean] Bertet |
| Recipient | Bertet; Jean (1622-1692); French Jesuit mathematician |
| Date | 21 February 1671 |
| Description | Corrected and translated copy of a letter in Collin's hand, dated on blank cover page and at the back of the text.
Likely a draft, the letter is written is English on the verso of pages and translated into Latin on the recto throughout.
Exchanges news of the latest publications in natural philosophy, including [Pierre de] Fermat, [Gilles de] Roberval, [John] Pell, [Nicholas] Mercator, [Jean-Dominique] Cassini, [Ismael] Bullialdus, [John] Wallis. Peter van Schooten's publications in Leiden in response to Wallis are detailed [method to express irreduscible fraction in short terms; treatise of a solid called "Cono Cuneus"; solution of an algebraic problem]. Expects that [Jean] Picard's treaty on the Measure of the Earth will be very well received and the Royal Society gave order to [Robert] Hooke, the Curator to perform an experiment to verify it, this has not been done yet. On the topic, recommends William Oughtred's Circuli Proportionum [Circles of Proportion, 1632] and [Edward] Wright's "De correctione Errorum in arte Navigandi" [Certaine Errors in Navigation, Detected and Corrected, 1610]; [Richard] Norwood "Experimentum sive Nautarum praxis" [likely the Seaman's practice, 1637]; as all valuable English books on the subject and credits Wright with having invented "the true sea chart" and Norwood's book as very useful to all seamen, he mentions that the author is very aged and still alive in Bermuda.
Details [Jacques de] Billy's harmonic progressions included in his discussion of Diophantus' geometry, hopes that some more of Diophantus' work can be recovered possibly extant if they were translated into Arabic in the Ethiopian Library in Amara [Amhara]. Notes that 7,000 Arabic manuscripts were taken from the library to be taken into the King of Spain's collection. His hope is based on Pell's description of a catalogue of the King of Spain's collection in a private library in Padua.
|
| Language | English |
| Latin |
| Extent | 23pp. |
| Format | Manuscript |
| AccessStatus | Open |
| RelatedMaterial | Printed in 'Commercium Epistolicum' 1722 edition, page 100, pargraph XXI |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA2898 | Collins; John (1625 - 1683); mathematician and scientific administrator | 1625 - 1683 |