John Pell (March 1, 1610 - December 12, 1685), was an English mathematician. March 1 is the 60th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (61st in leap years). ... Events January 7 - Galileo Galilei discovers the Galilean moons of Jupiter. ... December 12 is the 346th day (347th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events February 6 - James Stuart, Duke of York becomes King James II of England and Ireland and King James VII of Scotland. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Religion... A mathematician is a person whose area of study and research is mathematics. ...

He was born at Southwick in Sussex, where his father was minister. He was educated at Steyning, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of thirteen. During his university career he became an accomplished linguist, and even before he took his M.A. degree (in 1630) corresponded with Henry Briggs and other mathematicians. His great reputation and the influence of Sir William Boswell, the English resident, with the states-general procured his election in 1643 to the chair of mathematics in Amsterdam, whence be removed in 1646, on the invitation of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, to Breda, where he remained till 1652. Sussex as a traditional county. ... Categories: Stub | South Downs | Towns in West Sussex ... Full name The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity Motto Virtus vera nobilitas Virtue is true Nobility Named after The Holy Trinity Previous names - Established 1546 Sister College Christ Church Master Sir Martin Rees Location Trinity Street Undergraduates 656 Graduates 380 Homepage Boatclub The Great Gate is the main... Henry Briggs (February 1556 - January 26, 1630) was an English mathematician. ... Municipality of Amsterdam Alternate meanings: See Amsterdam Amsterdam  listen is the capital of the Netherlands. ... Events Ongoing events English Civil War (1642-1649) Births April 15 - King Christian V of Denmark (d. ... Frederick Henry (January 29, 1584–March 14, 1647), Prince of Orange, the youngest child of William the Silent, was born at Delft about six months before his fathers assassination. ... Breda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. ...

From 1654 to 1658 Pell acted as Oliver Cromwell's political agent to the Protestant cantons of Switzerland. On his return to England he took orders and was appointed by King Charles II of England to the rectory of Fobbing in Essex. In 1673 he was presented by Bishop Gilbert Sheldon to the rectory of Laindon in the same county. Events April 5 - Signing of the Treaty of Westminster, ending the First Anglo-Dutch War. ... Events January 13 - Edward Sexby, who has plotted against Oliver Cromwell, dies in Tower of London February 6 - Swedish troops of Charles X Gustav of Sweden cross from Sweden to Denmark over frozen sea May 1 - Publication of Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus by Thomas Browne September... Unfinished portrait miniature of Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper, 1657. ... Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ... The twenty-six cantons of Switzerland are the states of the federal state of Switzerland. ... Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 30 January 1649 (de jure) or 29 May 1660 (de facto) until his death. ... This article is about the county of Essex in England. ... Events The English Test Act was passed. ... Gilbert Sheldon (1598-1677), Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Stanton in the parish of Ellastone, Staffordshire, and educated at Oxford. ...

His devotion to mathematical science seems to have interfered with his advancement in the Church and with his private life. For a time he was confined as a debtor in the kings bench prison. He lived, on the invitation of Dr Whistler, for a short time in 1682 at the College of Physicians, but died at the house of Mr Cothorne, reader of the church of St Giles-in-the Fields. Many of Pell's manuscripts fell into the hands of Richard Busby, master of Westminster School, and afterwards came into the possession of the Royal Society; they are still preserved in something like forty folio volumes, which contain, not only Pell's own memoirs, but much of his correspondence with the mathematicians of his time. Richard Busby (1606 - 1695) was an English clergyman, and headmaster of Westminster School. ... Motto: Dat Deus Incrementum Westminster School (in full, The Royal College of St. ... The Royal Society of London is claimed to be the oldest learned society still in existence. ...

The Diophantine equation was a favorite subject with Pell; he lectured on it at Amsterdam; and he is now best remembered for the indeterminate equation ax² + 1 = y², which is known as the Pell equation or Pell's equation. This problem was proposed by Pierre de Fermat first to Bernhard Frenicle de Bessy, and in 1657 to all mathematicians. Pell's connection with the problem simply consists of the publication of the solutions of John Wallis and Lord Brounker in his edition of Breaker's Translation of Rizonius's Algebra (1668). In mathematics, a Diophantine equation is a polynomial equation that only allows the variables to be integers. ... Pells equation is any Diophantine equation of the form where n is a nonsquare integer. ... Pierre de Fermat Pierre de Fermat (August 17, 1601 – January 12, 1665) was a French lawyer of Basque origin at the Parliament of Toulouse and a mathematician who is given credit for the development of modern calculus. ... John Wallis John Wallis (November 22, 1616 - October 28, 1703) was an English mathematician who is given partial credit for the development of modern calculus. ...

His chief works are:

• Astronomical History of Observations of Heavenly Motions and Appearances (1634)
• Ecliptica prognostica (1634)
• Controversy with Longomontanus concerning the Quadrature of the Circle (1646?)
• An Idea of the Mathematics, I2iflO (1650)
• A Table of Ten Thousand Square Numbers (fol.; 1672).

Christian Sørensen Longomontanus (or Longberg) (October 4, 1562 – October 8, 1647), was a Danish astronomer. ... Squaring the circle is the impossible task of using ruler-and-compass constructions to make a square with the same area as a given circle. ...

Reference

• This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.

• The most recent study of Pell is by Noel Malcolm and Jacqueline Stedall, John Pell (1611-1685) and His Correspondence with Sir Charles Cavendish: The Mental World of an Early Modern Mathematician (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). ISBN 0-19-856484-8

(Redirected from 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica) The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...

External Links

• Biography (http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Pell.html) at the MacTutor archive