Mathematical Treasures - 17th-Century Student Notes

These are selections from a 17^th-century English university student’s mathematical notes (Plimpton MS 244). The notebook had several listed owners, the first of which was a “William Derham”; whether he was the original author remains unknown. A page written in English is devoted to the extraction of roots. The name “Phillipps” at the top denotes a later owner (folio 1).

At this time, university instruction was in Latin. Thus, a copied problem as given by the professor is in this language (folio 24v):

"The Second Book of Euclid Algebraically Demonstrated" includes algebraic as well as geometric representations of propositions from Book II of Euclid’s Elements (folio 33).

The images above have been obtained through the kind cooperation of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the Columbia University Libraries. These and more images may be accessed via Digital Scriptorium, a digital collection of medieval and early Renaissance manuscripts made available by a consortium of cooperating university libraries headed by the University of California, Berkeley. 

Index to Mathematical Treasures