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Re: [HM] T.L.Heath
Posted:
Jun 9, 2002 6:39 PM
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Hello, all.
Yet more thanks for all your help with my Heath bio, both through the list
and privately, especially the latest from David Derbes who sent me the
D'Arcy Thompson obituary and Duncan Melville for the more info from the
Osiris article.
I am taking the liberty of appending what I have written for Euclid and for
Heath. (Italics must be imagined in the appropriate places.) I have included
in these notes much that I have gotten from listmembers; I hope you will let
me know if I have muddled things. This is the last chance to catch any
errors or infelicities: electronic files will go off to the printer tomorrow
or Tuesday.
Best regards,
Dana Densmore
About the Author: Euclid
Very little is known about Euclidùs life. The Dictionary of Scientific
Biography begins its long article on Euclid with these words: óAlthough
Euclid is the most celebrated mathematician of all time, whose name became a
synonym for geometry until the twentieth century, only two facts of his life
are known, and even these are not beyond dispute.ò These ófactsò are
speculations based on references in ancient works. The first is that he
lived after Plato (d. 347 B.C.E.) and before Archimedes (b. 287 B.C.E.).
Some, however, question the latter date, maintaining that it is only known
with any confidence that he is before (or contemporaneous with) Apollonius
(active around 200 B.C.E.). The second fact referred to is that he worked in
Alexandria. But others argue that, although he evidently had pupils in
Alexandria, that does not prove that he himself worked there.
What we know of Euclid we know through the brilliant work he left us. This
book offers you the opportunity to experience that work directly and to
explore for yourself why óthe most celebrated mathematician of all timeò has
been so highly honored throughout more than two millenia.
About the Translator: Thomas L. Heath
Like the proprietors of Green Lion Press, and, it can safely be said, like
Euclid, Thomas Little Heath was an independent scholar.
He was born on October 5, 1861 in Barnetby le Wold, Lincoln, England. He
studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and received a first class degree in
both mathematics and classics from of Cambridge University in 1883. He then
embarked on a very successful career as a civil servant, serving first in
the Treasury, which he joined in 1884 (being chosen in 1887, after only
three yearsù service, to be Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary to
the Treasury), then serving later in the National Debt Office, until he
retired in 1926.
During this time he pursued his independent study as a historian of
mathematics and was recognized as one of the worldùs leading experts in the
history of Greek mathematics. His book Diophantus of Alexandria: A Study in
the History of Greek Algebra was published by Cambridge University Press in
1885. Apollonius of Perga (Cambridge) was published in 1896, and his book
The Works of Archimedes with the Method of Archimedes (Cambridge) appeared
in 1897. In 1908 Cambridge University Press published his three-volume work
on Euclidùs Elements, recognized as the standard English version of the
text. His most famous work was the two-volume A History of Greek
Mathematics, which was published in 1921. A second edition of the
three-volume Euclidùs Elements, revised and updated by Heath, was issued in
1926. A Manual of Greek Mathematics (Oxford) appeared in 1931.
He received an Sc.D. degree from Cambridge in 1896, the year his work on
Apollonius was published. He also received honorary doctorates from Oxford
in 1913 and Dublin in 1929, and was made an Honorary Fellow of Trinity
College Cambridge in 1920.
Heath was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1912.
Royal honors included the order Companion of the Bath (C.B.), awarded in
1903, and knighthoods Knight Commander of the Bath (K.C.B.), awarded in 1909
and Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (K.C.V.O.), awarded in
1916.
In addition to all these civil and scholarly accomplishments, his life was
rich in other interests and activities. He was an accomplished pianist and
lover of music, once in his youth traveling to Vienna just to look at Brahms
in the flesh. He loved to travel and took every opportunity for minute
exploration. He made a thorough study of some of his favorite works of
literature. He had a serious interest in the construction and operation of
trains, knowing the different engines and their improvements, and he is said
to have known by sound the express engines of all the great European lines
along with their schedules.
He married Ada Mary Thomas, a distinguished musician, in 1914. They reared a
daughter, Victoria, and a son, Geoffrey. According to a 1936 account by
David Eugene Smith, at that time Victoria was studying Jurisprudence in an
honors course at Oxford and Geoffrey was about to follow his father to
Trinity College Cambridge.
His friend DùArcy W. Thompson describes him as an indomitable rock-climber
who knew every inch of the Dolomites and who continued rock-climbing till he
was over fifty. Throughout his life he was an active mountaineer, with many
ascents in the Alps, including at least one first ascent, of Tre Cime di
Lavaredo near Cortina. He climbed the Wildspitz in Tirol when he was
seventy, fifty years after he had first climbed it.
Heath died of a stroke on March 16, 1940 in Ashtead, Surrey, England, while
hard at work on his account of Aristotleùs mathematics.
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