TAYLOR, BROOK

born Aug. 18, 1685, Edmonton, Middlesex, Eng. died Dec. 29, 1731, London British mathematician noted for his contributions to the development of calculus. In 1708 Taylor produced a solution to the problem of the centre of oscillation. The solution went unpublished until 1714, when his claim to priority was disputed by the noted Swiss mathematician Johann Bernoulli. Taylor's Methodus incrementorum directa et inversa (1715; Direct and Indirect Methods of Incrementation) added to higher mathematics a new branch now called the calculus of finite differences. Using this new development, he was the first to express mathematically the movement of a vibrating string on the basis of mechanical principles. Methodus also contained the celebrated formula known as Taylor's theorem, the importance of which remained unrecognized until 1772. At that time the French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange realized its importance and proclaimed it the basic principle of differential calculus. A gifted artist, Taylor set forth in Linear Perspective (1715) the basic principles of perspective. This work and his New Principles of Linear Perspective contained the first general treatment of the principle of vanishing points. Taylor was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1712 and in that same year sat on the committee for adjudicating Sir Isaac Newton's and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's conflicting claims of priority in the invention of calculus.