Edmund Stone Explained

Edmund Stone
Birth Date:c. 1690
Birth Place:unknown, likely Argyllshire, Scotland
Death Date:March or April 1768
Death Place:unknown
Field:Mathematics
Patrons:John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll

Edmund Stone (1690 – March or April 1768) was an autodidact Scottish mathematician who lived in London and primarily worked as an editor of mathematical and scientific texts and translator from French and Latin into English. He is especially known for his translations of Nicholas Bion's Mathematical Instruments (1723, 1758) and the Marquis de l'Hospital's French: [[Analyse des Infiniment Petits pour l'Intelligence des Lignes Courbes|Analyse des Infiniment Petits]] (1730), and for his New Mathematical Dictionary (1726, 1743). Stone was celebrated for having risen from uneducated gardener's son to accomplished scholar.

Biography

The date and place of Edmund Stone's birth are unknown, as are the names of his parents, but he was probably born in Argyllshire, Scotland, at least a few years before 1700. What little is known about his early life comes from a letter by Andrew Michael Ramsay to Louis-Bertrand Castel, excerpted by the French: [[Journal de Trévoux]].[1] (See below for the letter and a translation.) According to this letter, Stone was the son of the gardener of John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll. He never attended any formal school, but after being taught by a servant to read at age 18, he taught himself arithmetic, geometry, Latin, and French. As the story goes, the Duke found a copy of Isaac Newton's Latin: [[Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica|Principia]] in the grass in his garden, and was astonished to find it belonged to the 28-year-old Stone,[2] and that he understood Latin and advanced mathematics. However, Stone's description of himself having studied mathematical instruments from the age of twelve seems inconsistent with this story.[3] The Duke became his patron.

With the Duke's support, Stone moved to London c. 1720,[4] where he likely worked as a mathematics tutor. He published translations of the Marquis de l'Hospital's posthumous book about conic sections in 1720 and Christopher Clavius's translation of Theodosius's Spherics in 1721. In 1723 he published a translation of Nicholas Bion's Construction and Principal Uses of Mathematical Instruments, to which he added descriptions of the English variants of the French instruments described by Bion; this book became the standard reference about the subject in English throughout the 18th century.[5] In 1725 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,[6] and from 1725 until at least 1736 he was a member of the Board of Green Cloth. His New Mathematical Dictionary appeared in 1726, a cheaper alternative to John Harris's Lexicon Technicum. He also translated Euclid's Elements (1728); l'Hospital's differential calculus book French: [[Analyse des Infiniment Petits pour l'Intelligence des Lignes Courbes|Analyse des Infiniment Petits]], to which he adjoined a second part about integral calculus, as The Method of Fluxions (1730);[7] and Isaac Barrow's Geometrical Lectures (1735).

In 1736 Stone submitted a paper to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (published 1740) about two cubic plane curves not cataloged by Isaac Newton or James Stirling,[8] but unbeknownst to him the two had been previously published in 1731 by François Nicole and 1733 by Nicolaus Bernoulli, respectively. In 1742 Stone submitted a 21-page paper "On Sir Isaac Newton's five diverging Parabolas", which was read to the Society but apparently never published.[9]

In 1742, Stone resigned as a Fellow of the Royal Society, perhaps for inability to pay the small annual membership fee.[10] In October 1743 Stone's patron the Duke of Argyll died. Little is known about Stone's life afterward, though he made another translation of Euclid's Elements in 1752, and he published a second edition of Bion's Mathematical Instruments in 1758, with a long appendix covering advancements of the intervening years. In a 1760 review in The Critical Review, Tobias Smollett wrote of Stone's situation, "His abilities are universally acknowledged, his reputation unblemished, his services to the public uncontested, and yet he lives to an advanced age unrewarded, except by a mean employment that reflects dishonour on the donor".[11] In 1766 Stone published a contrarian polemic contesting the scientific validity of the spherical shape of the Earth and suggesting contemporary evidence was insufficient to discount the possibility Earth is an irregular roundish polyhedron; biographers have suggested this book was the product of cognitive decline.[12] Stone died in March or April 1768.[13]

Works

References

Appendix: Letter from Ramsay

A letter from Andrew Michael Ramsay to Louis-Bertrand Castel was excerpted by the French: [[Journal de Trévoux]] 1732, pp. 109–112, as part of a review of Stone's The Method of Fluxions (1730). Here is the excerpt reproduced, along with an English translation:

Notes and References

  1. Article IV. The Method of the fluxions, &c., C'est-à-dire, Méthode tant directe qu'inverse des fluxions, dont la premiére partie est une traduction de l'analyse des infiniment petits du célébre Marques de l'Hopital, & la seconde partie est suppléée par le Traducteur, M. Stone, Membre de la Société Royale [...] ]. 103–113 . 1732 . 1732 . . fr . The full excerpt and a translation can be found at .
  2. tells a version of this story in which Stone was 18 years old at the time, apparently mixing it up with the age when he reportedly first learned to read, and several later sources (; ; ; ; ; ; ;) repeat this. Ramsay's letter explicitly says Stone was 28 (As quoted in the French: Journal de Trévoux 1732, p. 110), and some later sources avoid the mixup (;). Based on the Duke having discovered Stone's talents at age 18, several biographies estimate his year of birth as 1700, but if it were age 28, this estimate would need to be pushed a decade earlier.
  3. Book: Stone, Edmund . 1758 . The Construction and Principal Uses of Mathematical Instruments . J. Richardson . A Supplement: Containing a further Account of some of the most useful Mathematical Instruments as now improved . Advertisement, . It is now almost forty Years since I translated Mr. Bions French Book of Mathematical Instruments into English. I did it with Reluctance, and at the Desire of Friends, and a little for the Sake of Interest, the Subject becoming somewhat unpleasant to me, at that Time, by Use and long Acquaintance; for having at first mostly applied myself, even from twelve Years of Age, in the Knowledge of Mathematical Instruments, I began to be tired and satiated, as I may say, with them, when I undertook this Work, although they are generally pleasing and useful, and betook myself to the more refined and difficult Branches of the Mathematicks..
  4. . There is no direct evidence of Stone's living in London until 1725, but he published several books in quick succession through London-based engraver and publisher John Senex starting in 1720.
  5. Book: Knight, David M. . David M. Knight

    . David M. Knight . Sources for the History of Science 1660–1914 . 202 . Sources of History Limited . 1975 . London . The most famous book devoted to instruments was that of Nicholas Bion, which appeared in English in 1723; there was a second edition, with a supplement describing further instruments, in 1758, and the book is attractively illustrated.. quotes Book: Adams, George . Geometrical and Graphical Essays. i . Dillon . 2nd . 1797 . 1st ed. 1791 . Monsieur Bions treatise on the construction of mathematical instruments, which was translated into English by Mr. Stone, and published in 1723, is the only regular treatise we have upon this subject; [...] .

  6. includes a photograph of the excerpt from the Journal Book of the Royal Society where Stone was proposed for the Society by John Theophilus Desaguliers, 11 March 1724, v. XIII, 456. ref. no. JBC. Repository GB 117, The Royal Society of London. Web site: Stone; Edmund . Code NA3485 . Royal Society Fellow Record . 2023-04-13.
  7. Book: Guicciardini, Niccolò . Niccolò Guicciardini . 1989 . The development of Newtonian calculus in Britain, 1700-1800 . 17–18 . Cambridge University Press.
  8. Stone . Edmund . 1740 . VI. A Letter from Edmund Stone, F.R.S. to —— concerning two Species of Lines of the Third Order, not mentioned by Sir Isaac Newton, nor Mr. Sterling. . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London . 41 . 456 . 318–320 . 10.1098/rstl.1739.0048 .
  9. Royal Society Collection, Paper, "On Sir Isaac Newton's five diverging parabolas" by Edmund Stone, L&P/1/164. Edward Stone (1702-1768) and Edmund Stone (1700-1768): Confused Identities Resolved . Pierpoint . William S. . Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London . 1997 . 51 . 2 . 211–217 . 531987 . 10.1098/rsnr.1997.0018 .
  10. Royal Society archive, Council Minutes Original, Vol 3, Minutes of a meeting of the Council of the Royal Society, 22 March 1741/1742. Ref. No. CMO/3/99. "A Letter from Mr Edmund Stone was read, signifying that his affairs not permitting him to attend the Meetings, he desired Liberty to withdraw himself from the Society. ¶ Which being granted, Mr Hauksbee was ordered to take notice thereof, and to leave the Name out of the List." ; .
  11. Smollett . Tobias . Tobias Smollett . 1760 . Art. VII. The Construction and Principal Uses of Mathematical Instruments. Translated from the French of M. Bion. [...] By Edmund Stone ]. The Critical Review . 9 . 59–65 . The review has no byline, but is claimed to be written by Smollett by: Book: Basker, James G. . 1988 . Tobias Smollett, Critic and Journalist . University of Delaware Press . 256 .
  12. . A critical review of this book can be found in: The Monthly Review 37: pp. 363–373. 1766.

  13. "from a MS memorandum in our possession it appears that he died in March or April 1768". The London Magazine . 37 . June 1768 . 332 . Deaths: Lately. . Mr. Edmund Stone, well known by his mathematical works .

  14. Book: Bryden, D.J. . 1993 . A 1701 Dictionary of Mathematical Instruments . Making Instruments Count . Anderson . R.G.W. . Bennett . J.A. . Ryan . W.F. . Variorum . 369–370 . https://archive.org/details/makinginstrument0000unse/page/369/ . limited .
  15. Book: Keil . John . John Keill . Cunn . Samuel . Ham . John . 1733 . Euclid's Elements of Geometry from the Latin Translation of Commandine . 3rd . Books Printed for and Sold by T. Woodward, at the Half-Moon over-against St. Dunstan's Church in Flteetstreet . T. Woodward . London . https://books.google.com/books?id=V682AAAAMAAJ&pg=PT1 . Advertisement after the text .

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