Thomas Harriot

A contemporary of Shakespeare, Elizabeth I, Johannes Kepler, and Galilei Galileo, Thomas Harriot (1560-1621) was an English scientist and mathematician. His principal biographer, J. W. Shirley, was quoted in the website "Thomas Harriot's manuscripts," saying that in his time he was "England's most profound mathematician, most imaginative and methodical experimental scientist, and first of all Englishmen to make a telescope and turn it on the heavens." He was also an early English explorer of North America. He published very little in his life time, and the extensive scientific papers he left at his death suffered loss and then neglect until the twentieth century.

Educated at Oxford

Harriot was born in Oxfordshire, England, in 1560. Nothing is known about his parents except that his father was recorded as a plebeian when Harriot entered the University of Oxford on December 20, 1577. Of Harriot's early school years a boyhood friend, Tom Buckner, one day wrote, as quoted in Thomas Harriot: Science Pioneer, "Tom Harriot had a far greater gift for language than I had. He enjoyed reading the writings of the ancient Romans, sharpening his language abilities through disputation and debate, and writing poetry in Latin." Harriot was a good student. At Oxford he attended St. Mary's Hall with other students from the plebeian class. He became friends with two of his teachers, Richard Hakluyt, a geographer, and Thomas Allen, who had an interest in astronomy and was a suspicious figure to some because of the unusual instruments in his rooms. Harriot continued to do well in his studies and was one of only three in his class to receive a bachelor's degree in July 1580.

Sponsored by Raleigh

While Harriot was enrolled in St. Mary's Hall, Walter Raleigh had attended Oxford's Oriel College, the preserve of the gentry and nobility. Raleigh was already involved in exploration in North America when Harriot graduated. Raleigh and his half brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert had sailed with 11 ships to the Cape Verde Islands in 1578, and the ships had become badly scattered en route. Raleigh wanted someone to teach reliable navigation techniques to his ship captains. The principal at St. Mary's recommended Harriot, and Raleigh became Harriot's first patron. Harriot moved to Raleigh's London residence, Durham House.

Harriot made several investigations to prepare a course for English navigators. He interviewed ships' captains at the docks along the Thames River. His friends Allen and Hakluyt from Oxford helped him. He also read John Dee's translation of Martin Cortes' Arte de navigation. The result was a textbook he named Arcticon. Only the names of its chapters have survived; some of them were "Some Remembrances of taking the altitude of the Sonne by Astrolabe and Sea Ring," "How to find the declination of the Sonne for any time of the yeare & any place; by a speciall table called the Sonnes Regiment newly made according to late observations," and "Effect of longitude on declination."

Traveled to Virginia

When Raleigh received permission to sail to North America in 1584, Harriot may have accompanied him, but there are no records to confirm it. He is known to have sailed for the Western Hemisphere with Sir Richard Grenville in 1585. En route Harriot made many observations of the sun and stars to track his course, and he also observed a partial solar eclipse. The ship sighted Dominica in the Caribbean, then moved northward. On June 30, 1585, it anchored at Roanoke Island, off Virginia. On shore, Harriot observed the topography, flora, and fauna, making many drawings and maps, and the native people, who spoke a language the English called Algonquian. Harriot worked out a phonetic transcription of the native people's speech sounds and began to learn the language, which enabled him to converse to some extent with other natives the English encountered. Apparently Harriot favored friendly relations with the native people, but others in the party felt otherwise, and at least one of the native people was killed. At the same time, Sir Francis Drake, patrolling the Florida coast for Spanish treasure galleons to capture, heard the Spanish planned to attack the colony at Roanoke. He sailed north to warn the English and took most of them back to England in 1586. Harriot wrote his report for Raleigh and published it as A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia in 1588. Raleigh gave Harriot his own estate, in Ireland, and Harriot began a survey of Raleigh's Irish holdings. He also undertook a study of ballistics and ship design for Raleigh in advance of the Spanish Armada's arrival.

Security Shaken

Two events made Raleigh's and Harriot's lives stressful about this time. First, Raleigh's political situation became murky when he married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of Queen Elizabeth's ladies in waiting, in 1587. He had been a favorite of Elizabeth, and the marriage may have displeased the queen. Second, the queen issued a proclamation on October 18, 1591, attacking Jesuits in England for trying to return the country to Catholicism. Perhaps in retaliation, Jesuit father Robert Parsons attacked Elizabeth's sometime friend Raleigh, as well as Harriot, accusing them of atheism.

Then in 1592, soon after Raleigh's son was born, Elizabeth imprisoned Raleigh and his family in the Tower of London. Coincidentally, one of Raleigh's ships captured a Spanish treasure ship, the Madre de Deus, not long after the imprisonment. With Raleigh in prison, the ship was being gradually looted. Elizabeth wanted the greater part of its fortune for England's treasury, so Raleigh and his family were released so that Raleigh could stop the looting. Harriot remained under Raleigh's patronage in Ireland, avoiding the plague that struck London in 1593.

Harriot Studied Optics, Algebra

In 1595, the Duke of Northumberland, Henry Percy, a great friend of Raleigh's, became Harriot's patron and deeded him property in Durham as well as allowing him use of a house in London. Harriot undertook a study of optics, using part of the house as a laboratory. The studies eventually led to several important discoveries concerning the refraction of light, but Harriot never published his results. He also began to analyze the forces affecting projectiles and commenced various studies in algebra. He and earlier mathematicians may have made several discoveries often credited to Rene Descartes (1596-1650). He wrote Artis Analyticae Praxis ad Aequationes Algebraicas Resolvendas, an algebra text, and left specific instructions for its publication in his will, but knowledgeable mathematicians reportedly think that the work which was eventually published represents Harriot's efforts poorly. His body of work in algebra is considerable. He advanced the notation system for algebra (although the "greater than" and "less than" symbols that have been credited to him are now thought to have been introduced by the editor of Artis Analyticae Praxis ) and did novel work on the theory of equations, including cubic equations and negative and imaginary numbers.

Queen Elizabeth died in March 1603, and James I became king. Raleigh was implicated in a plot against the new king and was arrested and charged with high treason. After a failed suicide attempt, Raleigh was sentenced to death, and Harriot, who had tried to help his former friend and patron, was mentioned in the judgment as "an atheist and an evil influence." Harriot, apparently shaken, ceased scientific work for about a year. Raleigh's death sentence was withdrawn, but he remained in the Tower of London. Then Guy Fawkes was arrested on November 4, 1604, for a plot to blow up Parliament. Henry Percy's grandson was arrested with Fawkes, and Harriot was imprisoned in a place called the Gatehouse on suspicion. Later in November, Percy was imprisoned in the Tower to remain for 16 years.

Moons, Sunspots Observed

Harriot was released by the end of 1604 and quickly resumed his study of optics, still under Percy's generous patronage. He also visited Percy and Raleigh in the Tower from time to time. Harriot was working out a theory of color, and a correspondence began between him and the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, although nothing memorable seems to have resulted. Harriot went on to observe a comet, later identified as Halley's, on September 17, 1607. With his painstaking observations, later workers were able to compute the comet's orbit. Harriot also was the first in England to use a telescope to observe the heavens. He made sketches of the moon in 1609, then developed lenses of increasing magnification. By April 1611, he had developed a lens with a magnification of 32. Between October 17, 1610, and February 26, 1612, he observed the moons of Jupiter, already discovered by Galileo. While observing Jupiter's moons, he made a discovery of his own: sunspots, which he viewed 199 times between December 8, 1610, and January 18, 1613. These observations allowed him to figure out the sun's period of rotation. After this time, his scientific work dwindled.

Cancer Diagnosed

The cause of Harriot's diminished productivity may have been a cancer discovered on his nose. A doctor he consulted in 1615 made notes in which he called Harriot "a man somewhat melancloly… . A cancerous ulcer in the left nostril eats up the septum of his nose and in proportion to its size holds the lips hard and turned upwards… . This evil the patient has suffered the last two years," quoted the "Thomas Harriot" website. Harriot lost several friends during this time, and on October 29, 1618, he witnessed the public execution of his friend Raleigh.

Three days before Harriot died, he made his will. His mind was clear. He willed Percy charts and maps and his choice of books and papers. He remembered friends, servants, and Tom Buckner, a childhood friend with whom he maintained contact all his life and who had accompanied him on Grenville's trip to America. In the will, Harriot mentioned a sister, whose son he left fifty pounds, and a cousin. Most evidence suggests they were his only family when he died; it seems he never married. He remembered his servants generously, as well as Tom Buckner's wife (in whose house he died) and the Buckners' son.

Harriot died July 1 or 2 (accounts vary), 1621, in London and was buried in Saint Christopher's Parish Church, which burned in the fire of London in 1666. According to Thomas Harriot: Science Pioneer, after the fire an inscription was incorporated in a plaque in the Bank of England of London which reads, Harriot "cultivated all the sciences And excelled in all." The plaque calls him "A most studious searcher after truth." Harriot was several times accused of atheism during his lifetime, but the plaque adds that he was "a most devout worshiper of the Triune God."

Papers Rediscovered

Harriot's story did not end with his death. What some writers describe as his "thousands upon thousands of sheets of mathematics and of scientific observations" appeared to be lost-until 1784, when they were found in Henry Percy's country estate by one of Percy's descendants. She gave them to Franz Xaver Zach, her husband's son's tutor. Zach eventually put some of the papers in the hands of the Oxford University Press, but much work was required to prepare them for publication, and it has never been done. Scholars have begun to study them, and an appreciation of Harriot's contribution began to grow in the second half of the twentieth century. Today scholars, sometimes referred to as "Harrioteers," study the details of his life and work to understand both the man and the science of his time.

Books

Staiger, Ralph C., Thomas Harriot: Science Pioneer, Clarion Books, 1998.

Online

Apt, Adam Jared, "Harriot, Thomas," Encyclopaedia Britannica Library, www.britannica.com, 2003.

O'Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson, "Thomas Harriot," www.groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Harriot.html (March 1, 2003).

- , "Thomas Harriot's Manuscripts," www.groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics.Harriot.html (March 16, 2003).

For the liberal arts college at East Carolina University, see Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences.

Thomas Harriot
Portrait of Thomas Harriot (1602), which hangs in Trinity College, Oxford
Born	c. 1560 Oxford, England
Died	July 2, 1621 London, England
Citizenship	British
Ethnicity	English
Fields	Astronomy, mathematics, ethnography
Alma mater	St Mary Hall, Oxford

Thomas Harriot (c. 1560 – 2 July 1621) was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer, and translator. Some sources give his surname as Harriott or Hariot or Heriot. He is sometimes credited with the introduction of the potato to Great Britain and Ireland.^[1] Harriot was the first person to make a drawing of the Moon through a telescope, on July 26, 1609, over four months before Galileo.^[2]

After graduating from Oxford University, Harriot traveled to the Americas on an expedition funded by Raleigh, and on his return he worked for the 9th Earl of Northumberland. At the Earl's house, he became a prolific mathematician and astronomer to whom the theory of refraction is attributed.

Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Expedition to the Americas 3 Later years 4 Death 5 Legacy 6 See also 7 References 8 Sources 9 External links

Early life and education

Born in 1560 in Oxford, England, Thomas Harriot attended St Mary Hall, Oxford. His name appears in the school's registry dating from 1577.^[3] After his graduation from Oxford (in 1580), Harriot was first hired by Sir Walter Raleigh as a mathematics tutor; he used his knowledge of astronomy/astrology to provide navigational expertise. Harriot was also involved in designing Raleigh's ships and served as his accountant. During this time he also wrote a treatise on navigation prior to his expedition with Raleigh.^[4]

Expedition to the Americas

He made only one expedition, around 1585-86, and spent some time in the New World visiting Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina, expanding his knowledge by learning the Algonquian language. His account of the voyage was published in 1588 (probably written in 1587).^[5] The Report contains an early account of the Native American population encountered by the expedition; it proved very influential upon later English explorers and colonists. He wrote: "Whereby it may be hoped, if means of good government be used, that they may in short time be brought to civility and the embracing of true religion." At the same time, his views of Native Americans' industry and capacity to learn were later largely ignored in favour of the parts of the "Report" about extractable minerals and resources.

As a scientific adviser during the voyage, Harriot was asked by Raleigh to find the most efficient way to stack cannon balls on the deck of the ship. His ensuing theory about the close-packing of spheres shows a striking resemblance to atomism and modern atomic theory, which he was later accused of believing. His correspondence about optics with Johannes Kepler, in which he described some of his ideas, later influenced Kepler's conjecture.

Later years

He was dedicated to work for Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland with whom he also resided at Syon House, which was run by Henry Percy's cousin Thomas Percy.

Harriot's sponsors began to fall from favour: Raleigh fell from favour, and Harriot's other patron Henry Percy, the Ninth Earl of Northumberland, was imprisoned in 1605 in connection with the Gunpowder Plot as he was the second cousin of one of the conspirators, Thomas Percy.

Harriot himself was interrogated and briefly imprisoned but soon released. Walter Warner, Robert Hues, William Lower and other scientific peers were present around the Earl of Northumberland's mansion as they worked and lent a hand in the teaching of the family's children.^[3]

Halley's Comet in 1607 turned Harriot's attention towards astronomy. In early 1609 he bought a "Dutch trunke" (telescope), invented in 1608, and his observations were amongst the first uses of a telescope for astronomy. Harriot is now credited as the first astronomer to draw an astronomical object after viewing it through a telescope, a map of the Moon on July 26, 1609, preceding Galileo by several months,^[6][7][8][9] and also to observe sunspots in December 1610.^[10]

Death

In 1615 or 1616, Harriot wrote to an unknown friend with medical expertise, describing what would have been the reason for the eruption of a cancerous ulcer on his lip. This progressed until 1621, when he was living with a friend named Thomas Buckner on Threadneedle Street, where he died. Sources cited below are among several that describe his condition for having cancer of the nose. In either case, Harriot apparently died from skin cancer.

He died on 2 July 1621, three days after writing his Will (discovered by Henry Stevens) on paper.^[11] His executors posthumously published his Artis Analyticae Praxis on algebra in 1631; Nathaniel Torporley was the intended executor of Harriot's wishes, but Walter Warner in the end pulled the book into shape.^[12] It may be a compendium of some of his works but does not represent all that he left unpublished (more than 400 sheets of annotated writing). It isn't directed in a way that follows the manuscripts and it fails to give the full significance of Harriot's writings.^[3]

Legacy

He also studied optics and refraction and apparently discovered Snell's law 20 years before Snellius did, although, like so many of his works, this remained unpublished. In Virginia he learned the local Algonquin language, which may have had some effect on his mathematical thinking.^{[citation needed]} He founded the "English school" of algebra. He is also credited with discovering Girard's theorem, although the formula bears Girard's name as he was the first to publish it.^[13]

His only published work is his algebra book Artis Analyticae Praxis^[14] (1631) published posthumously in Latin. Unfortunately the editors did not understand much of his reasoning and removed the parts they did not comprehend such as the negative and complex roots of equations. Because of the dispersion of Hariot's writings the full annotated English translation of the Praxis was not completed until 2007.^[15]

The first biography of Harriot was written in 1876 by Henry Stevens of Vermont but not published until 1900^[11] fourteen years after his death. The publication was limited to 167 copies and so the work was not widely known until 1972 when a reprint edition appeared.^[16] Interest in Harriot revived with the convening of a symposium at the University of Delaware in April, 1971 with the proceedings published by the Oxford University Press in 1974.^[17] John W. Shirley the editor (1908-1988) went on to publish A Sourcebook for the Study of Thomas Harriot (1981)^[18] and his Harriot biography (1983).^[19] The papers of John Shirley have been deposited in the University of Delaware Library.^[20]

Harriot's accomplishments remain relatively obscure because he did not publish any of his results and also because many of his manuscripts have been lost; those that survive are sheltered in the British Museum and in the archives of the Percy family at Petworth House (Sussex) and Alnwick Castle (Northumberland).

An event was held at Syon House, West London, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Harriot's first observations of the moon on 26 July 2009. This event, Telescope400,^[21] included the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate Harriot by Lord Egremont. The plaque can now be seen by visitors to Syon House, the location of Harriot's historic observations. His drawing made 400 years earlier is believed to be based on the first ever observations of the moon through a telescope. The event (sponsored by the Royal Astronomical Society) was run as part of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA).

The original documents showing Harriot's moon map of c. 1611, observations of Jupiter's satellites, and first observations of sunspots are now on display at the Science Museum, London, from 23 July 2009 until the end of IYA.^[22]

The observatory in the campus of the College of William and Mary is named in Harriot's honor. A crater on the Moon was belatedly named after him in 1970; it is on the Moon's far side and hence unobservable from Earth.

The Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC is named in recognition of this Harriot's scientific contributions to the New World such as his work A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia^[23] and has instituted an eponymous lecture series in the liberal arts known as the Harriot Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series.^[24]

See also

• The School of Night

References

1. ^ Sir Walter Raleigh - American colonies
2. ^ Thomas Harriot: A telescopic astronomer before Galileo
3. ^ ^{a b c} Stedall, Jacqueline (2003) The Greate Invention of Algebra, Oxford University Press. p.3, ISBN 0-19-852602-4.
4. ^ Jehlen, Myra & Michael Warner (1997) The English Literatures of America, 1500-1800, Routledge (UK) p.64, ISBN 0-415-91903-7.
5. ^ Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
6. ^ By 1613 Harriot had created two maps of the whole moon, with many identifiable features such as lunar craters depicted in their correct relative positions that were not to be improved upon for several decades.
7. ^ History Corrected by 400 Year Old Moon Map Live Science January 14, 2009
8. ^ Christine McGourty, English Galileo' maps on display, 14 January 2009
9. ^ The Galileo Project: Thomas Harriot, Thomas Harriot's Moon Drawings
10. ^ The Galileo Project: Thomas Harriot (1560-1621)
11. ^ ^{a b} Stevens, Henry. (1900) Thomas Hariot, the Mathematician, the Philosopher and the Scholar, Privately printed at the Chiswick press [1] [2]
12. ^ Helena Mary Pycior, Symbols, Impossible Numbers, and Geometric Entanglements (1997), pp. 55-6.
13. ^ Richeson, David. (2008) Euler's Gem, Princeton University Press, p.91, [3]
14. ^ Artis analyticae praxis (1631)
15. ^ Thomas Harriot’s Artis analyticae praxis, New York: Springer, 2007 [4] [5]
16. ^ Thomas Hariot, the mathematician, the philosopher, and the scholar (1972) [6]
17. ^ Thomas Harriot; Renaissance scientist (1974), edited by John W. Shirley [7]
18. ^ A Sourcebook for the Study of Thomas Harriot (1981) by John W. Shirley [8]
19. ^ Thomas Harriot, a Biography by John W. Shirley (1983)
20. ^ John Shirley Papers related to Thomas Harriot (22 linear feet)[9]
21. ^ http://telescope400.org.uk/
22. ^ Hannah Devlin, Galileo was beaten to the Moon by a shy Englishman, The Times, 24 July 2009
23. ^ Thomas Harriot Quintessential Renaissance Scholar
24. ^ Harriot Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series

Sources

• Thomas Harriot: Trumpeter of Roanoke
• Thomas Harriot

External links

• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Thomas Harriot", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Harriot.html .
• Harriot, Thomas
• The first full biography of Thomas Hariot by Henry Stevens of Vermont 1900 Thomas Hariot, the Mathematician, the Philosopher and the Scholar
• Henry Stevens The first biographer of Thomas Hariot (1900)
• The Englishman who beat Galileo
• The Soft Logic of Thomas Harriot
• Works by Thomas Harriot at Project Gutenberg
• Annotated Translation of Harriot's Praxis by Ian Bruce
• A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia from American Studies at the University of Virginia.
• Thomas Harriot’s Artis analyticae praxis : an English translation with commentary / Muriel Seltman, Robert Goulding, editors and translators, New York: Springer, 2007 [10]
• The Thomas Harriot Seminar
• A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588) online pdf text edition
• Searching for the Lost Colony Blog
• UK Telescope400 Event (July 26th 2009)
• The Harriot Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series at East Carolina University
• The Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
• Thomas Harriot Quintessential Renaissance Scholar

Persondata
NAME	Harriot, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer, translator
DATE OF BIRTH	c. 1560
PLACE OF BIRTH	Oxford, England
DATE OF DEATH	1621-07-02
PLACE OF DEATH	London, England

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