He also published anonymously an edition of Euclid's Elements, which was described as having brought the difficult problems "more within the reach of ordinary understandings." His later papers in the Philosophical Transactions treat of astronomical refractions, of planetary perturbations, of equilibrium of fluid masses, etc. This theorem is known as Ivory's theorem. Trans., 1809), in which the problem of the attraction of a homogeneous ellipsoid upon an external point is reduced to the simpler case of the attraction of another but related ellipsoid upon a corresponding point interior to it.
Of special importance in the history of attractions is the first of these earlier memoirs (Phil.
#James ivory professional#
In 1804 after the dissolution of the flax-spinning company of which he was manager, he obtained one of the mathematical chairs in the Royal Military College, Great Marlow (afterwards removed to Sandhurst) and until the year 1816, when failing health obliged him to resign, he discharged his professional duties with remarkable success.ĭuring this period he published in the Philosophical Transactions several important memoirs, which earned for him the Copley Medal in 1814 and ensured his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1815. His earliest memoir, dealing with an analytical expression for the rectification of the ellipse, is published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1796) and this and his later papers on Cubic Equations (1799) and Kepler's Problem (1802) evince great facility in the handling of algebraic formulae.
#James ivory full#
He was essentially a self-trained mathematician, and was not only deeply versed in ancient and modern geometry, but also had a full knowledge of the analytical methods and discoveries of the continental mathematicians. Three years later he became partner in, and manager of, a flax spinning company at Douglastown in Forfarshire, still prosecuting in moments of leisure his favourite studies. He then studied theology but, after two sessions at St Andrews and one at Edinburgh University, he abandoned all idea of the church, and in 1786 he became an assistant-teacher of mathematics and natural philosophy in the newly established Dundee Academy. In 1779 he entered the University of St Andrews, distinguishing himself especially in mathematics. He was educated at Dundee Grammar School. The family lived and worked on the High Street in Dundee. Ivory was born in Dundee, son of James Ivory the renowned watchmaker.
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