James Gregory’s Meridian Line

James Gregory’s Meridian Line

Astronomy,Mathematics

James Gregory was a Scottish astronomer, mathematician and Regius Professor of Mathematics at the University of St Andrews. Gregory's contribution to his field is astonishing. For Astronomy, he developed a telescope that uses the properties of mirrors instead of lenses, and he pioneered the photometric method for calculating the distance to the stars, formalised later by Newton. For Mathematics, he seems to have developed calculus methods and the binomial theorem way before Newton and Leibniz did. In addition, he deduced several trigonometric series using the method that is now known as Taylor Series. In 1673, Gregory placed this meridian line in St Andrews, way before the establishment of the Greenwich Meridian. His line fixes time to be just 12 minutes before the GMT, meaning that for a long time Scots were 12 minutes early to their appointments. See also https://www.curious-sta.org/james-gregory/

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