James Gregory (mathematician)

James Gregory <a href="/facts/Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society/cWs8TdC5">FRS</a> (November 1638 – October 1675) was a Scottish mathematician and <a href="/facts/Astronomer/ronF8j4a">astronomer</a>. His surname is sometimes spelt as Gregorie, the original Scottish spelling. He described an early practical design for the <a href="/facts/Reflecting_telescope/5Y4aXFvF">reflecting telescope</a> – the <a href="/facts/Gregorian_telescope/Sp8cI5jH">Gregorian telescope</a> – and made advances in <a href="/facts/Trigonometry/K4hfaC6F">trigonometry</a>, discovering <a href="/facts/Infinite_series/yDnlsgIe">infinite series</a> representations for several trigonometric functions.
In his book Geometriae Pars Universalis (1668) Gregory gave both the first published statement and proof of the <a href="/facts/Fundamental_theorem_of_the_calculus/pHeSGtUx">fundamental theorem of the calculus</a> (stated from a geometric point of view, and only for a special class of the curves considered by later versions of the theorem), for which he was acknowledged by <a href="/facts/Isaac_Barrow/cEkaBQhN">Isaac Barrow</a>.

James Gregory (mathematician) open-in-new

James Gregory (mathematician)