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However Heath had two separate careers, one as a civil servant, the other as one of the leading world experts on the history of mathematics.
He was a specialist in the history of Greek mathematics. He wrote articles on 'Pappus' and 'Porisms' for Encyclopaedia Britannica while still an undergraduate. In his first year at the Treasury he wrote an essay on Diophantus and this won him a Cambridge Fellowship. Cayley recommended its publication by Cambridge University Press.
In 1896 he published Apollonius of Perga, in 1897 Archimedes and in 1908 the three volume work on Euclid. Heath's translation of Euclid has since become the standard English version of the text.
Heath was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1912. Perhaps his most famous work History of Greek Mathematics appeared in 1921.
Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
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List of References (4 books/articles)
| Some Quotations (2)
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| Mathematicians born in the same country
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| Cross-references to History Topics | |
| Honours awarded to Thomas L Heath (Click a link below for the full list of mathematicians honoured in this way) | |
| Fellow of the Royal Society | Elected 1912 |
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JOC/EFR December 1996
The URL of this page is: |
School_of_Mathematics_and_Statistics University_of_St_Andrews,_Scotland |
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Heath.html
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