Craig

John Craig

Born: 1670 in Scotland
Died: 11 Oct 1731 in London, England

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John Craig was a pupil of David Gregory in Edinburgh. He spent most of his life in Cambridge and became a friend of Newton.

Craig published three major works which contain the earliest example of the dy/dx notation of Leibniz in Britain and also contained the integration symbol (Integral). He was involved in a dispute with Jacob Bernoulli over the calculus.

Craig published several more papers on the logarithmic curve, the curve of quickest descent and quadrature of figures.

In 1699 he published Theologiae Christianae Principia Mathematica which applies probability to show that the evidence of the truth of the gospels is diminished through time. He claimed that it reaches 0 in the year 3144, so "proves" that this is an upper bound for the second coming.

In the last part of his life Craig went to London in the hope that his mathematical abilities would be noticed.

Other Web sites:

Rice University, USA

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. M Cantor, Voresungen über Geschichte der Mathematik III (Leipzig, 1896), 52, 188.
  3. John Craig, Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1917). 
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