Abraham Sharp
Abraham Sharp | |
|---|---|
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| Born | c. 1653 |
| Died | 18 July 1742 Little Horton, Bradford,Kingdom of Great Britain |
| Nationality | English |
Abraham Sharp(1653 – 18 July 1742) was an English mathematician and astronomer.
Life
[edit]Sharp was born in Horton Hall inLittle Horton,Bradford,the son of well-to-do merchant John Sharp and Mary (née Clarkson) Sharp and was educated atBradford Grammar School.[1]
In 1669 he became a merchant's apprentice before becoming a schoolmaster inLiverpooland subsequently a bookkeeper inLondon.His wide knowledge ofmathematicsandastronomyattractedFlamsteed'sattention and it was through Flamsteed that Sharp was invited, in 1688, to enter theGreenwich Royal Observatory.There he did notable work, improving instruments and showing great skill as a calculator, publishingGeometry Improvedandlogarithmic tables.
Sharp calculatedpito 72 decimal places using anarctansequence, briefly holding the record untilJohn Machincalculated 100 digits in 1706.[2]
He returned to Little Horton in 1694. When theAtlas Coelestis– the largest star map at the time – was published,[3]it contained 26 maps of the majorconstellationsvisible fromGreenwich,and twoplanispheresdesigned by Sharp.[4]
Sharp died in Little Horton in 1742. He had never married. He was a great-uncle ofJesse Ramsden,the scientific instrument maker.[5]
An English translation of a memorial tablet in Latin inBradford Cathedralcarved byPeter Scheemakers[6]translates as "He was rightly counted among the most accomplished mathematicians of his day. He enjoyed constant friendship with the very famous men of the same repute, notably Flamsteed and the illustrious Newton. He drew up the description of the heavens made by the former of these (Flamsteed) in (astronomical) tables of the greatest accuracy; he also published anonymously various writings and descriptions of instruments perfected by himself....
The craterSharpon theMoonis named after him.
References
[edit]- ^"Abraham Sharp".Archived fromthe originalon 9 November 2019.Retrieved14 March2011.
- ^Beckmann, Petr (1971).A History of Pi.New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 102.ISBN0-312-38185-9.
- ^Linda Hall Library (ed.)."Flamsteed, John. Atlas coelestis. London, 1729".Archived fromthe originalon 27 September 2011.Retrieved12 May2011.
- ^Davide Neri."John Flamsteed, Atlas coelestis".Retrieved8 May2011.
- ^Melmore, S. (1938). "Abraham Sharp's Universal Instrument".The Observatory.61:248–250.Bibcode:1938Obs....61..248M.
- ^Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 by Rupert Gunnis
Further reading
[edit]- Cudworth, William (1889).Life and Correspondence of Abraham Sharp.London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Livington, Ltd.
abraham sharp.
- Connor, Elizabeth (1942)."Abraham Sharp, 1653-1742".Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.54(321): 237–243.Bibcode:1942PASP...54..237C.doi:10.1086/125455.
External links
[edit]- Brief biography of SharpArchived9 November 2019 at theWayback Machine
- Abraham Sharp's Polyhedra
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