James Stirling: A Sketch of his Life and Works, along with his Scientific Correspondence

Abstract

MR. TWEEDIE'S volume opens with an account of the life of James Stirling, the distinguished mathematician of the early eighteenth century. Next follows a description of Stirling's contributions to mathematical knowledge, chief among them being his enumeration of cubic curves and the Methodus Differentialis. This latter is a remarkable piece of analysis, considering the state of mathematical knowledge at the time when it was evolved; it leads to the well-known expansion for log (n!) associated with Stirling's name. About three-quarters of the volume is occupied by copies of letters exchanged (during the period 1719-1740) between Stirling and such contemporary mathematicians as Maclaurin, Cramer, N. Bernoulli, Machin, Clairaut, and Euler. In days before scientific journals were developed new results were communicated by one worker to another in such letters as these. Much care has been expended by Mr. Tweedie in the reproduction of these letters: his book would have been improved by the addition of English translations of the French and Latin ones and by further comments upon them.

James Stirling: A Sketch of his Life and Works, along with his Scientific Correspondence.

Charles

Tweedie

By. Pp. xii + 213. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922.) 16s. net.