Brook Taylor
An 18th-century mind who gave calculus its most powerful tool, a formula that lets us approximate any smooth curve with an infinite sum of polynomials.
1685–1731 (age 46)·English mathematician·Birthday: August 18
Biography
Brook Taylor was a quintessential Enlightenment polymath, moving between mathematics, law, art, and philosophy. Born into a comfortable family, he studied at Cambridge and was elected to the Royal Society by age 26. While his professional life was as a barrister, his passion was mathematics. In 1715, he published 'Methodus Incrementorum Directa et Inversa,' a work that introduced the world to what we now call Taylor series. This concept, which allows complex functions to be expressed as infinite sums of simpler polynomial terms, was a cornerstone of calculus, though its full significance wasn't widely grasped until decades later. A man of delicate health and intense religious conviction, Taylor's legacy is a testament to the abstract beauty he found in the language of change.
#1 When Brook Was Born
The biggest hits of 1685
Brook's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1685Born
1690Started school
1698Became a teenager
1701Could drive
1703Could vote
1706Turned 21
1715Turned 30
1725Turned 40
1731Died at 46
Key Achievements
- Published Taylor's Theorem, the foundational principle behind Taylor and Maclaurin series, in his 1715 work 'Methodus Incrementorum.'
- Made early contributions to the mathematical study of perspective in art, publishing 'Linear Perspective' in 1715.
- Was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1712, reflecting his early recognition in scientific circles.
- His work on the vibrations of strings contributed to the developing field of mathematical physics.
Did You Know?
He was a skilled musician and an accomplished painter, deeply interested in the mathematical laws of art.
Taylor's theorem was not widely appreciated during his lifetime; its importance was later championed by mathematicians like Joseph-Louis Lagrange.
He engaged in a bitter priority dispute with the Swiss mathematician Johann Bernoulli over the origins of calculus of variations.
“The fluxion of a fluent quantity is its velocity of change.”
