Greaves, John

▪ English mathematician, astronomer, and antiquary

born 1602, Colemore, near Alresford, Hampshire, Eng.

died Oct. 8, 1652

      English mathematician, astronomer, and antiquary.

      Greaves was the eldest son of John Greaves, rector of Colemore, and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford (B.A., 1621) and Merton College, Oxford (M.A., 1628). In 1630 he was chosen professor of geometry in Gresham College, London. After travel in Europe (beginning apparently in 1635), he traveled to Constantinople (1638), Rhodes, Egypt, and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean, where he collected a considerable number of Arabic, Persian, and Greek manuscripts and also attempted an accurate survey of the pyramids, using the best mathematical instruments of the day. On his return to Europe he visited for a second time several parts of Italy and, during his stay at Rome, instituted inquiries into ancient weights and measures. He was back in England in 1640, and in 1643 he was appointed Savilian professor of astronomy at the University of Oxford (though, concurrently, he was deprived of his Gresham professorship on the charge of neglecting its duties). In 1646 he published his Pyramidographia, or a Discourse of the Pyramids in Egypt and in 1647 A Discourse of the Roman Foot and Denarius. The period of the English Civil Wars, however, caused him some grief; in 1648 he was ejected from his Savilian professorship on several charges that included aiding and consorting with the Royalists.

      Back in London, Greaves continued his research and writing, living on his private fortune and producing works on astronomy, narratives on the Middle East, and studies of ancient astronomers and mathematicians of the Middle East and India. Several of his works were published posthumously.

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