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Is this a Recorde?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2016

J. W. S. Cassels*
Affiliation:
Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, 16 Mill Lane, Cambridge CB2 1SB

Extract

At some time in the eighties or nineties of the last century the Rev. William Done Bushell, a mathematics master at Harrow School, bought a portrait painting at an auction sale at a house in Harrow. It does not seem to have had any pedigree but bore the inscription “Robt. Recorde M.D. 1556”. It was thus presumed to depict the Tudor physician and mathematician Robert Recorde (1510?–1558) who wrote some of the earliest books in English on mathematics and was the first to use the symbol “=” for equality. No other portrait was (or is) known.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 1976

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