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Thomas Harriot

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For the liberal arts college at East Carolina University, see Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences.
Thomas Harriot
Portrait of Thomas Harriot (1602), which hangs in Trinity College, Oxford
Portrait of Thomas Harriot (1602), which hangs in Trinity College, Oxford
Born c. 1560
Oxford, England
Died July 2, 1621
London, England
Citizenship British
Ethnicity English
Fields Astronomy, mathematics, ethnography
Alma mater St Mary Hall, Oxford

Thomas Harriot (c. 1560 – 2 July 1621) was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer, and translator. Some sources give his surname as Harriott or Hariot or Heriot. He is sometimes credited with the introduction of the potato to Great Britain and Ireland.[1] Harriot was the first person to make a drawing of the Moon through a telescope, on July 26, 1609, over four months before Galileo.[2]

After graduating from Oxford University, Harriot traveled to the Americas on expeditions funded by Raleigh, and on his return he worked for the 9th Earl of Northumberland. At the Earl's house, he became a prolific mathematician and astronomer to whom the theory of refraction is attributed.

Contents

[edit] Early life and education

Born in 1560 in Oxford, England, Thomas Harriot attended St Mary Hall, Oxford. His name appears in the school's registry dating from 1577.[3] After his graduation from Oxford (in 1580), Harriot was first hired by Sir Walter Raleigh as a mathematics tutor; he used his knowledge of astronomy/astrology to provide navigational expertise. Harriot was also involved in designing Raleigh's ships and served as his accountant. During this time he also wrote a treatise on navigation prior to his expedition with Raleigh.[4]

[edit] Expedition to the Americas

He made only one expedition, around 1585-86, and spent some time in the New World visiting Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina expanding his knowledge by learning the Algonquian language. His account of the voyage was published in 1588 (probably written in 1587).[5] The Report contains an early account of the Native American population encountered by the expedition; it proved very influential upon later English explorers and colonists. He wrote: "Whereby it may be hoped, if means of good government be used, that they may in short time be brought to civility and the embracing of true religion." At the same time, his views of Native Americans' industry and capacity to learn were later largely ignored in favour of the parts of the "Report" about extractable minerals and resources.

As a scientific adviser during the voyage, Harriot was asked by Raleigh to find the most efficient way to stack cannon balls on the deck of the ship. His ensuing theory about the close-packing of spheres shows a striking resemblance to atomism and modern atomic theory, which he was later accused of believing. His correspondence about optics with Johannes Kepler, in which he described some of his ideas, later influenced Kepler's conjecture.

[edit] Later years

He was dedicated to work for Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland with whom he also resided at Syon House, which was run by Henry Percy's cousin Thomas Percy.

Harriot's sponsors began to fall from favour: Raleigh fell from favour, and Harriot's other patron Henry Percy, the Ninth Earl of Northumberland, was imprisoned in 1605 in connection with the Gunpowder Plot as he was the second cousin of one of the conspirators, Thomas Percy.

Harriot himself was interrogated and briefly imprisoned but soon released. Walter Warner, Robert Hues, William Lower and other scientific peers were present around the Earl of Northumberland's mansion as they worked and lent a hand in the teaching of the family's children.[3]

Halley's Comet in 1607 turned Harriot's attention towards astronomy. In early 1609 he bought a "Dutch trunke" (telescope), invented in 1608, and his observations were amongst the first uses of a telescope for astronomy. Harriot is now credited as the first astronomer to draw an astronomical object after viewing it through a telescope, a map of the Moon on July 26, 1609, preceding Galileo by several months,[6][7][8][9] and also to observe sunspots in December 1610.[10]

[edit] Death

In 1615 or 1616, Harriot wrote to an unknown friend with medical expertise, describing what would have been the reason for the eruption of a cancerous ulcer on his lip. This progressed until 1621, when he was living with a friend named Thomas Buckner on Threadneedle Street, where he died. Sources cited below are among several that describe his condition for having cancer of the nose. In either case, Harriot apparently died from skin cancer.

He died on 2 July 1621, three days after writing his Will (discovered by Henry Stevens) on paper.[11] His executors posthumously published his "Artis Analyticae Praxis" on algebra in 1631. It may be a compendium of some of his works but it doesn't represent all the unpublished work he had (more than 400 sheets of annotated writing). It isn't directed in a way that follows the manuscripts and it fails to give the full significance of Harriot's writings.[3]

[edit] Legacy

He also studied optics and refraction and apparently discovered Snell's law 20 years before Snellius did, although, like so many of his works, this remained unpublished. In Virginia he learned the local Algonquin language, which may have had some effect on his mathematical thinking.[citation needed] He founded the "English school" of algebra. He is also credited with discovering Girard's theorem, although the formula bears Girard's name as he was the first to publish it.[12]

His only published work is his algebra book Artis Analyticae Praxis[13] (1631) published posthumously in Latin. Unfortunately the editors did not understand much of his reasoning and removed the parts they did not comprehend such as the negative and complex roots of equations. Because of the dispersion of Hariot's writings the full annotated English translation of the Praxis was not completed until 2007.[14]

The first biography of Harriot was written in 1876 by Henry Stevens of Vermont but not published until 1900[11] fourteen years after his death. The publication was limited to 167 copies and so the work was not widely known until 1972 when a reprint edition appeared.[15] Interest in Harriot revived with the convening of a symposium at the University of Delaware in April, 1971 with the proceedings published by the Oxford University Press in 1974.[16] John W. Shirley the editor (1908-1988) went on to publish A Sourcebook for the Study of Thomas Harriot (1981)[17] and his Harriot biography (1983). [18] The papers of John Shirley have been deposited in the University of Delaware Library.[19]

Harriot's accomplishments remain relatively obscure because he did not publish any of his results and also because many of his manuscripts have been lost; those that survive are sheltered in the British Museum and in the archives of the Percy family at Petworth House (Sussex) and Alnwick Castle (Northumberland).

In the UK there will be a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Harriot's first observations of the moon on 26 July 2009. This event, Telescope400,[20] will include the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate Harriot. His drawing made 400 years earlier is believed to be based on the first ever observations of the moon through a telescope. The event (sponsored by the UK Royal Astronomical Society) will be part of the International Year of Astronomy. The original documents showing Harriot's moon map of c. 1611, observations of Jupiter's satellites, and first observations of sunspots will be on display at the Science Museum, London, from 23 July 2009 until the end of Astronomy Year.[citation needed]

The observatory in the campus of the College of William and Mary is named in Harriot's honor. A crater on the Moon was belatedly named after him in 1970; it is on the Moon's far side and hence unobservable from Earth.

The Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC is named in recognition of this Harriot's scientific contributions to the New World such as his work A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia[21] and has instituted an eponymous lecture series in the liberal arts known as the Harriot Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series.[22]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sir Walter Raleigh - American colonies
  2. ^ Thomas Harriot: A telescopic astronomer before Galileo
  3. ^ a b c Stedall, Jacqueline (2003) The Greate Invention of Algebra, Oxford University Press. p.3, ISBN 0-19-852602-4.
  4. ^ Jehlen, Myra & Michael Warner (1997) The English Literatures of America, 1500-1800, Routledge (UK) p.64, ISBN 0-415-91903-7.
  5. ^ Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
  6. ^ By 1613 Harriot had created two maps of the whole moon, with many identifiable features such as lunar craters depicted in their correct relative positions that were not to be improved upon for several decades.
  7. ^ History Corrected by 400 Year Old Moon Map Live Science January 14, 2009
  8. ^ Christine McGourty, English Galileo' maps on display, 14 January 2009
  9. ^ The Galileo Project: Thomas Harriot, Thomas Harriot's Moon Drawings
  10. ^ The Galileo Project: Thomas Harriot (1560-1621)
  11. ^ a b Stevens, Henry. (1900) Thomas Hariot, the Mathematician, the Philosopher and the Scholar, Privately printed at the Chiswick press [1] [2]
  12. ^ Richeson, David. (2008) Euler's Gem, Princeton University Press, p.91, [3]
  13. ^ Artis analyticae praxis (1631)[4]
  14. ^ Thomas Harriot’s Artis analyticae praxis, New York: Springer, 2007 [5] [6]
  15. ^ Thomas Hariot, the mathematician, the philosopher, and the scholar (1972) [7]
  16. ^ Thomas Harriot; Renaissance scientist (1974), edited by John W. Shirley [8]
  17. ^ A Sourcebook for the Study of Thomas Harriot (1981) by John W. Shirley [9]
  18. ^ Thomas Harriot, a Biography by John W. Shirley (1983) [10]
  19. ^ John Shirley Papers related to Thomas Harriot (22 linear feet)[11]
  20. ^ http://telescope400.org.uk/
  21. ^ Thomas Harriot Quintessential Renaissance Scholar
  22. ^ Harriot Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series

[edit] Sources

[edit] External links


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