William Neile (7 December 1637 – 24 August 1670) was anEnglishmathematician and founder member of theRoyal Society. His major mathematical work, therectification of thesemicubical parabola, was carried out when he was aged nineteen, and was published byJohn Wallis. By carrying out the determination ofarc lengths on a curve given algebraically, in other words by extending toalgebraic curves generally withCartesian geometry a basic concept fromdifferential geometry, it represented a major advance in what would becomeinfinitesimal calculus. His name also appears as Neil.
Neile was born atBishopsthorpe, the eldest son ofSir Paul Neile MP for Ripon and Newark. His grandfather wasRichard Neile, theArchbishop of York.[1] He enteredWadham College, Oxford as agentleman-commoner in 1652, matriculating in 1655. He was taught byJohn Wilkins andSeth Ward.[1]
In 1657, he became a student at theMiddle Temple. In the same year he gave his exact rectification of the semicubical parabola and communicated his discovery toWilliam Brouncker,Christopher Wren and others connected withGresham College. His demonstration was published by Wallis inDe Cycloide (1659). The general formula for rectification bydefinite integral was in effect discovered byHendrik van Heuraet in 1659. In 1673 Wallis asserted thatChristiaan Huyghens, who was advancing his own claim to have influenced Heuraet, was also slighting the priority of Neile.[1][2]
Neile was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 7 January 1663 and a member of the council on 11 April 1666. He entered the debate on the theory ofmotion, as a critic of theempiricist stance of other members. His own theory of motion was held up from publication by unfavourable peer review by Wallis, in 1667; a revision was communicated to the society on 29 April 1669. Neile objected to Wren's 1668 work oncollision as lacking discussion of causality: he asked for discussion of the nature ofmomentum. His own work was much influenced by ideas drawn from theDe Corpore ofThomas Hobbes.[1][3][4]
He made astronomical observations with instruments erected on the roof of his father's residence, the “Hill House” (later called Waltham Place) atWhite Waltham inBerkshire, where he died at the age of 32. A white marble monument in the parish church of White Waltham commemorates him and an inscribed slab in the floor marks his burial-place. He belonged to theprivy council ofKing Charles II.[1]
Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1894). "Neile, William".Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 40. London:Smith, Elder & Co.
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