RAMUS, Peter. SNEL, Willebrord

£1,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

First edition of Peter Ramus popular work on arithmetic for students with the commentary by the dutch mathematician Willebrord Snell. “Willebrord Snell, .. astronomer and mathematician who discovered the law of refraction, which relates the degree of the bending of light to the properties of the refractive material. This law is basic to modern geometrical optics. In 1613 he succeeded his father, Rudolph Snell (1546–1613), as professor of mathematics in the University of Leiden. His Eratosthenes Batavus (1617) contains the account of his method of measuring the Earth. The account of Snell’s law of refraction (1621) went unpublished, capturing attention only when the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens related Snell’s finding in Dioptrica (1703).” Enc. Brit. “This is a reprinting of the first part (the arithmetic, without the geometry) of Ramus’ 1569 publication, Arithmeticæ libri duo: Geometriæ septem et viginti … Snel was a proficient computer and improved the classical method of finding the value of π by use of polygons. Using his method, he was able to find π t_ 35 places using a polygon of 230 sides rather than the 262 sides used earlier by Ceulen. Peter Ramus (Pierre de la Ramée) was primarily a teacher of mathematics who was a central figure in the early stages of the Scientific Revolution. He was born into a noble family that had lost its fortunes in war. When, at the age of twelve, he entered the University of Paris, he was obliged to work as a servant to a wealthy stud

• Binding: Hardcover

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