The Mathematical Works of Isaac Barrow: Edited for Trinity College

The Cambridge polymath Isaac Barrow (1630-77) gained recognition as a theologian, classicist and mathematician. This one-volume collection of his mathematical writings, dutifully edited by one of his successors as Master of Trinity College, William Whewell (1794-1866), was first published in 1860. Containing significant contributions to the field, the work consists chiefly of the lectures on mathematics, optics and geometry that Barrow gave in his position as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics between 1663 and 1669. It includes the first general statement of the fundamental theorem of calculus as well as Barrow’s ‘differential triangle’. Not only did he precede Isaac Newton in the Lucasian chair, but his works were also to be found in the library of Gottfried Leibniz. However, rather than considering arid questions of priority, scholars can see in these Latin texts the status of advanced mathematics just before the great revolution of Newton and Leibniz.