The New World


Stamp Corner Robin Wilson

The New World

TT
he founders of American independence included
several highly learned people who encouraged
the study of mathematics and science in the late

18th century.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) invented the Franklin stove,

bifocal spectacles, the odometer, and the lightning rod. He also
carried out experiments in electricity, such as his celebrated
one on lightning conduction in which he flew a kite in a
thunderstorm. Although never claiming to be a mathematician,
he was fascinated by magic squares, and constructed a
remarkable 16 9 16 square in which the numbers in any row,
column, or 4 9 4 sub-square, have the same sum.

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), the third president of the
United States, extolled the virtues of science and wrote of the
importance of calculation (extracting roots, solving quadratic
equations, and using logarithms). Interested in classical archi-
tecture, he designed his home, Monticello, and the rotunda of
the University of Virginia. While ambassador in Paris he
became enthused by the metric system being proposed in
France, and strongly advocated decimalising the American
coinage, but it was not until 1866 that the United States Con-
gress passed a law legalising the use of metric measurements.

Benjamin Banneker (1731–1826) was a self-taught mathe-
matician and astronomer. When 22 years old he designed and
built an accurate striking clock, although he had never seen one
previously. In later life he constructed accurate astronomical
tables. In 1791 he compiled the first of several almanacs, as ‘the
creation of a free man of the African race’, and sent it to Jefferson
with a plea to end slavery. Banneker was appointed by George
Washington, himself a noted surveyor, to help with the surveying
and layout of the new capital city.

Benjamin Franklin

Thomas Jefferson
Franklin’s lightning

experiment

Virginia rotunda

Banneker and Washington

Benjamin Banneker

� Column editor’s address: Robin Wilson, Mathematical Institute,

Andrew Wiles Building, University of Oxford, UK

e-mail: r.j.wilson@open.ac.uk

96 THE MATHEMATICAL INTELLIGENCER � 2017 Springer Science+Business Media New York

DOI 10.1007/s00283-016-9647-0


	The New World