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William Oughtred (5 March 1574 – 30 June 1660) was an English mathematician and Anglican minister. After John Napier invented logarithms and Edmund Gunter created the logarithmic scales (lines, or rules) upon which slide rules are based, it was Oughtred who first used two such scales sliding by one another to perform direct multiplication and division; and he is credited as the inventor of the slide rule in 1622. Oughtred also introduced the "×" symbol for multiplication as well as the abbreviations "sin" and "cos" for the sine and cosine functions. ==Early life== Oughtred was born at Eton in Buckinghamshire (now part of Berkshire), and educated there and at King's College, Cambridge, of which he became fellow. Being admitted to holy orders, he left the University of Cambridge about 1603, for a living at Shalford; he was presented in 1610 to the rectory of Albury, near Guildford in Surrey, where he settled. He married Christsgift Caryll, (niece) of the Caryll family of Tangley Hall at Wonersh,〔''O.D.N.B.'', and see ''Aubrey's Brief Lives'', Ed. Oliver Lawson Dick (Ann Arbor, Michigan 1962), pp. 222-224.〕 of which Lady Elizabeth Aungier (daughter of Sir Francis), wife of Simon Caryll 1607-1619, was matriarch and then dowager until her death c.1650.〔(1623 Harleian Visitation of Surrey ), Harl Soc. Vol. XLIII (1899), p.88-89: cf. C.P.C. wills of John Machell, 1647; Elizabeth Machell, 1650/1656.〕 About 1628 he was appointed by the Earl of Arundel to instruct his son in mathematics. He corresponded with some of the most eminent scholars of his time, including William Alabaster, Sir Charles Cavendish, and William Gascoigne. He kept up regular contacts with Gresham College, where he knew Henry Briggs and Gunter.〔http://www.compilerpress.atfreeweb.com/Anno%20Johnson%20Gresham.htm〕 He offered free mathematical tuition to pupils, who included Richard Delamain, and Jonas Moore, making him an influential teacher of a generation of mathematicians. Seth Ward resided with Oughtred for six months to learn contemporary mathematics, and the physician Charles Scarburgh also stayed at Albury; John Wallis, and Christopher Wren corresponded with him.〔Helena Mary Pycior, ''Symbols, Impossible Numbers, and Geometric Entanglements: British Algebra Through the Commentaries on Newton's Universal Arithmetick'' (1997), p. 42.〕 Another Albury pupil was Robert Wood, who helped him get the ''Clavis'' through the press.〔Toby Christopher Barnard, ''Cromwellian Ireland: English Government and Reform in Ireland 1649-1660'' (2000), p. 223.〕 The invention of the slide rule involved Oughtred in a priority dispute with Delamain. They also disagreed on pedagogy in mathematics, with Oughtred arguing that theory should precede practice.〔Michelle Selinger, ''Teaching Mathematics'' (1994), p. 142.〕 He remained rector until his death in 1660 at Albury, a month after the restoration of Charles II. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「William Oughtred」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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