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Alexander Anderson ( in
Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), ...
– in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
) was a
Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
.


Life

He was born in
Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), ...
, possibly in 1582, according to a print which suggests he was aged 35 in 1617. Wikisource:Anderson, Alexander (1582-1619?) (DNB00) It is unknown where he was educated, but it is likely that he initially studied writing and philosophy (the "belles lettres") in his home city of Aberdeen. He then went to the
continent A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...
, and was a professor of mathematics in Paris by the start of the seventeenth century. There he published or edited, between the years 1612 and 1619, various
geometric Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ca ...
and
algebra Algebra () is one of the areas of mathematics, broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathem ...
ic tracts. He described himself as having "more wisdom than riches" in the dedication of ''Vindiciae Archimedis'' (1616). He was first cousin of David Anderson of Finshaugh, a celebrated mathematician, and David Anderson's daughter was the mother of mathematician James Gregory.


Work

He was selected by the executors of
François Viète François Viète, Seigneur de la Bigotière ( la, Franciscus Vieta; 1540 – 23 February 1603), commonly know by his mononym, Vieta, was a French mathematician whose work on new algebra was an important step towards modern algebra, due to i ...
to revise and edit Viète's manuscript works. Viète died in 1603, and it is unclear if Anderson knew him, but his eminence was sufficient to attract the attention of the dead man's executors. Anderson corrected and expanded upon Viète's manuscripts, which extended known geometry to the new algebra, which used general symbols to represent quantities.


Publications

The known works of Anderson amount to six thin quarto volumes, and as the last of them was published in 1619, it is probable that the author died soon after that year, but the precise date is unknown. He wrote other works that have since been lost. From his last work it appears he wrote another piece, "A Treatise on the Mensuration of Solids," and copies of two other works, ''Ex. Math.'' and ''Stereometria Triangulorum Sphæricorum'', were in the possession of Sir Alexander Hume until the after the middle of the seventeenth century. *1612: ''Supplementum Apollonii Redivivi'' *1615: ''Ad Angularum Sectionem Analytica Theoremata F. Vieta'' *1615: ''Pro Zetetico Apolloniani'' *1615: ''Francisci Vietae Fontenaeensis'' *1616: ''Vindiciae Archimedis'' *1619: ''Alexandri Andersoni Exercitationum Mathematicarum Decas Prima''


See also

*
Marin Getaldić Marino Ghetaldi ( lat, Marinus Ghetaldus; hr, Marin Getaldić; 2 October 1568 – 11 April 1626) was a Ragusan scientist. A mathematician and physicist who studied in Italy, England and Belgium, his best results are mainly in physics, especially ...
*
Denis Henrion Denis (sometimes Didier) Henrion, was a French mathematician born at the end of the 16th century in France. He co-edited the works of Viète. He died around 1632 in Paris. Contributions Henrion wrote a tract concerning logarithms. He tran ...
* Frans van Schooten


References

Attribution: *


Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Alexander 1580s births 1620 deaths People from Aberdeen Algebraists British geometers Scottish mathematicians 17th-century Scottish people Scottish scholars and academics University of Paris faculty 17th-century Scottish scientists 17th-century Scottish mathematicians