Richard Swineshead (also Suisset, Suiseth, etc.; fl. c. 1340 – 1354) was an English mathematician,

logician Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure of arg ...

, and

natural philosopher Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe, while ignoring any supernatural influence. It was dominant before the developme ...

. He was perhaps the greatest of the Oxford Calculators of

Merton College Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor ...

, where he was a

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

certainly by 1344 and possibly by 1340. His magnum opus was a series of treatises known as the ''Liber calculationum'' ("Book of Calculations"), written c. 1350, which earned him the nickname of The Calculator. Robert Burton (d. 1640) wrote in '' The Anatomy of Melancholy'' that " Scaliger and Cardan admire Suisset the calculator, ''qui pene modum excessit humani ingenii'' hose talents were almost superhuman.

Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Isaac Newton, Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in ad ...

wrote in a letter of 1714: "Il y a eu autrefois un Suisse, qui avoit mathématisé dans la Scholastique: ses Ouvrages sont peu connus; mais ce que j'en ai vu m'a paru profond et considérable." ("There was once a Suisse, who did mathematics belonging to

scholasticism Scholasticism was a medieval European philosophical movement or methodology that was the predominant education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. It is known for employing logically precise analyses and reconciling classical philosophy and Ca ...

; his works are little known, but what I have seen of them seemed to me profound and relevant.") Leibniz had a copy of one of Swineshead's treatises made from an edition in the Bibliothèque du Roi in Paris and credited Swineshead as "the man 'who introduced mathematics into scholastic philosophy.'"

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References

* * Molland, George (2004) "Swineshead, Richard", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' 14th-century English mathematicians 14th-century English philosophers 14th-century writers in Latin Fellows of Merton College, Oxford Scholastic philosophers Medieval physicists 14th-century English writers {{scholastic-philosopher-stub