Mathematics for Sale: Mathematical Practitioners, Instrument Makers, and Communities of Scholars in Sixteenth-Century London

Abstract

“Mathematics for Sale” investigates the location of mathematics within London, arguing that the place and community for practical mathematics provided the foundation for the coffee house culture of the seventeenth century. This paper examines mathematical lectures and especially instrument-makers both inside and outside the City walls. In particular, Thomas Hood’s mathematical lectures started a trend of such events, followed by a proposal by Edward Wright and John Tapp to fund a lecture in navigation. Gresham College played a small part in housing mathematics instruction for the larger community, but it was in the instrument shops of instrument-makers like Elias Allen and Emery Molyneux that like-minded men gathered to discuss practical mathematics and instruments. Cormack identifies 85 different instrument-makers and mathematical practitioners with shops and rooms in London between 1550 and 1630. She thus discovers a vibrant practical mathematical community, whose members were gentry, scholars, merchants, instrument-makers, and navigators. This rich mathematical exchange laid the groundwork for the natural philosophical sociability of the seventeenth century. These early mathematically-minded men and their ideas, however, did not change natural philosophy in a direct way.