Edmund Gunter

Edmund Gunter (1581 - December 10, 1626), English mathematician, of Welsh extraction, was born in Hertfordshire in 1581.

Related Topics:
1581 - December 10 - 1626 - English - Mathematician - Welsh

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He was educated at Westminster school, and in 1599 was elected a student of Christ Church, Oxford. He took orders, became a preacher in 1614, and in 1615 proceeded to the degree of bachelor in divinity. Mathematics, however, which had been his favorite study in youth, continued to engross his attention, and on the 6th of March 1619 he was appointed professor of astronomy in Gresham College, London. This post he held till his death.

Related Topics:
Westminster school - Christ Church, Oxford - Astronomy - Gresham College, London

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With Gunter's name are associated several useful inventions, descriptions of which are given in his treatises on the Sector, Cross-staff, Bow, Quadrant and other Instruments. He contrived his sector about the year 1606, and wrote a description of it in Latin, hut it was more than sixteen years afterwards before he allowed the book to appear in English. In 1620 he published his Canon triangulorurn.

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There is reason to believe that Gunter was the first to discover (in 1622 or 1625) that the magnetic needle does not retain the same declination in the same place at all times. By desire of James I he published in 1624 The Description and Use of His Majesties Dials in Whitehall Garden, the only one of his works which has not been reprinted. He introduced the words cosine and cotangent, and he suggested to Henry Briggs, his friend and colleague, the use of the arithmetical complement (see Briggs Arithmetica Logarithmica, cap. xv.). His practical inventions are briefly noticed below:

Related Topics:
Declination - James I - Henry Briggs

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