Page:A History of Mathematics (1893).djvu/237

 curves by the algebraic method, but, finding it laborious, attacks the problem geometrically, and afterwards returns again to analysis.[36]

Space does not permit us to do more than merely mention Newton's prolonged researches in other departments of science. He conducted a long series of experiments in optics and is the author of the corpuscular theory of light. The last of a number of papers on optics, which he contributed to the Royal Society, 1687, elaborates the theory of "fits." He explained the decomposition of light and the theory of the rainbow. By him were invented the reflecting telescope and the sextant (afterwards re-discovered by Thomas Godfrey of Philadelphia[2] and by John Hadley). He deduced a theoretical expression for the velocity of sound in air, engaged in experiments on chemistry, elasticity, magnetism, and the law of cooling, and entered upon geological speculations.

During the two years following the close of 1692, Newton suffered from insomnia and nervous irritability. Some thought that he laboured under temporary mental aberration. Though he recovered his tranquillity and strength of mind, the time of great discoveries was over; he would study out questions propounded to him, but no longer did he by his own accord enter upon new fields of research. The most noted investigation after his sickness was the testing of his lunar theory by the observations of Flamsteed, the astronomer royal. In 1695 he was appointed warden, and in 1699 master, of the mint, which office he held until his death. His body was interred in Westminster Abbey, where in 1731 a magnificent monument was erected, bearing an inscription ending with, "Sibi gratulentur mortales tale tantumque exstitisse humani generis decus." It is not true that the Binomial Theorem is also engraved on it.

We pass to Leibniz, the second and independent inventor