Horner

William George Horner

Born: 1786 in Bristol, England
Died: 22 Sept 1837 in Bath, England

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Horner became assistant master at Kingswood school in 1802 and headmaster 4 years later. He founded his own school in 1809.

His only significant contribution to mathematics was Horner's method for solving algebraic equations. It was published in 1819. Some years earlier Ruffini had described a similar method but the method was known to Chu Shih-Chieh 500 years earlier.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. F Cajori, Horner's Method of Approximation Anticipated by Ruffini, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 17 (1911), 409-414. 
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