John pell mathematician biography

John Pell (1 March 1611 – 12 December 1685) was an.
Pell worked on algebra and number theory.
John Pell was an English mathematician and political agent abroad.

•

John Pell (mathematician)

British mathematician (1611–1685)

This article is about the mathematician. For his son, the American landowner, see John Pell (landowner).

John Pell (1 March 1611 – 12 December 1685) was an English mathematician and political agent abroad. He was made Royal Chair of Mathematics at Orange College by the Prince of Orange, and was under the patronage of Sir Charles Cavendish. He was also a compeer and correspondent of René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes.

Early life

He was born at Southwick in West Sussex, England. His father, also named John Pell, was from Southwick, and his mother was Mary Holland, from Halden in Kent. The second of two sons, Pell's older brother was Thomas Pell. By the time he was six, they were orphans, their father dying in 1616 and their mother the following year. John Pell the elder had a fine library, which proved valuable to the young Pell as he grew up. He was educated at Steyning Grammar School and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of 13.^[1]

During his university career he became an accomplish

•

John Pell was the son of John Pell, of Southwick in Sussex, in which parish he was born, on St David's Day (March 1)1610.

His father was a divine but a kind of Non-conformist; of the Pells of Lincolnshire, an ancient family; his mother of the Hollands of Kent. His father died when his son John was but five years old and six weeks, and left him an excellent library.

He went to school at the free school at Steyning, a borough town in Sussex, at the first founding of the school; an excellent schoolmaster, John Jeffreys. At thirteen years and a quarter old he went as good a scholar to Cambridge, to Trinity College, as most Masters of Arts in the University (he understood Latin., Greek and Hebrew), so that he played not much (one must imagine) with his schoolfellows, for, when they had play-days. or after school time, he spent his time in the library aforesaid.

He never stood at any election of fellows or scholars (of the House at) Trinity College.

Of person he was very handsome, and of a very strong and excellent habit of body, melancholic, sanguine, dark brown hair with a

•

Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pell, John

PELL, JOHN (1611–1685), mathematician, was born at Southwick in Sussex on 1 March 1611. His father, John Pell, was incumbent of that place, whither his grandfather, another John Pell, had migrated from Lincolnshire. He came of a good old family, one of his ancestors having been lord of a manor in Lincolnshire in 1368. He married Mary Holland of Halden, Kent, and died at Southwick in 1616, one year before his wife. His daughter, Bathsua Makin [q. v.], is separately noticed.

Pell, the younger of his two sons, was educated at the free school of Steyning in Sussex, and progressed so rapidly that he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of thirteen, being then, Wood relates, ‘as good a scholar as some masters of arts.’ He worked indefatigably. A ‘strong and good habit of body’ enabling him to dispense with recreations, ‘he plied his studies while others played.’ Yet he never became a candidate for college honours. He graduated B.A. in 1628, proceeded M.A. in 1630, and in 1631 was incorporated of the u