Sir Christopher Wren : $b Scientist, scholar and architectWeaver, Lawrence
History
Sir Christopher Wren : $b Scientist, scholar and architect
Weaver, Lawrence
Architects -- England -- Biography; Wren, Christopher, Sir, 1632-1723
The story is then taken up by a letter of Cavarci (dated December
10, 1658), the umpire, to Pascal (now masquerading under a new
pseudonym--A. Dettonville = an anagram of Louis de Montalte), in
which he recites the nature of the problems set--_i.e._, to find the
dimensions and centres of gravity of the solids generated by the
revolution of the cycloid. He goes on to say that there were sent
solutions of the more easy problems--“savoir: le centre de gravité de
la ligne courbe et la dimension des solides, lequelle M. Wren nous
envoya dans ses lettres du 12 Octobre”--but concludes that of the
challenge problem no solutions had been sent.
Pascal replied to this letter with a series of letters setting out a
general method for dealing with such problems and the actual solutions
of the problems he had proposed.
The real quarrel as to whether the problems had been solved or not was
with Wallis and not with Wren. Wallis appears to have sent a solution
and followed it up by various letters offering corrections. However,
he was adjudged wrong in principle (see Récit de l’Examen pour les
prix sur la Roulette). The prizes were not awarded. Wallis afterwards
(1659) published a “Tractatus de Cycloide,” in which are included four
propositions on the cycloid which Wren had given to Wallis.
Turning now to Wren’s counter problem. It is not directly connected
with the cycloid, but with one of the properties of the ellipse, and
it had previously been suggested by Kepler. It appears to have been
confused with Pascal’s cycloid problems because Pascal showed in his
general method that various cycloid problems could be referred to the
ellipse. Pascal has a chapter, “L’égalité entre les lignes courbes de
toutes sortes de Roulettes et les lignes elliptiques,” in the course of
which he remarks, “Cette admirable égalité de la courbe de la roulette
simple à une droite [=straight line] que M. Wren a trouvée, n’était,
pour aussi dire, q’une égalité par accident, qui vient de ce qu’en ce
cas l’ellipse se trouvé réduite à une droite.” Wren’s challenge seems
to have remained unnoticed.
APPENDIX II
AN ATTEMPT AT A WREN CHRONOLOGY
_The dates of Wren’s work have been set down so wildly that I prefer
the omission of some buildings to the repetition of blunders. Even so I
have no doubt repeated many old mistakes and made some fresh ones. An
accurate chronology of Wren would be of great comfort to the student.
I have checked only forty-seven of Miss Milman’s dates, but found
forty-five of them wrong, by from one to twenty-five years._
_The City churches are given under the year during which the first
payment to the builders was made: the dates in brackets mark the
last of such payments, which may well have been some years after the
buildings were completed. Wren seems to have settled final accounts in
batches._
L. W.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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