George Brown (inventor)
George Brown (1650–1730) was a Scottish arithmetician, and inventor of two incomplete mechanical calculating machines now kept at the National Museum of Scotland. In 1698 he was granted a patent for his mechanical calculating device.
He was minister of Stranraer, schoolmaster in Fordyce, Banffshire, and in 1680 schoolmaster at Kilmaurs, Ayrshire; invented a method of teaching the simple rules of arithmetic, which he explained in his Rotula Arithmetica, 1700. He wrote other arithmetical works; the last of them, Arithmetica Infinita, was endorsed by John Keill.
References[]
- Robert Watt, Bibliographia Britannica
- John Sinclair, New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1845
- Hew Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, 1868
Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Brown, George (1650–1730)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
External links[]
- An Account of the Rotula Arithmetica[permanent dead link], Invented by Mr George Brown, Minister of Kilmaures, Edinburgh, M DC XC VIII
- 1650 births
- 1730 deaths
- Scottish inventors
- Scottish mathematicians
- Scottish scientist stubs