John Colson
English clergyman and mathematician (1680–1760)
title: "John Colson" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1680-births", "1760-deaths", "18th-century-english-mathematicians", "academics-of-the-university-of-cambridge", "english-anglicans", "lucasian-professors-of-mathematics", "british-fellows-of-the-royal-society"] description: "English clergyman and mathematician (1680–1760)" topic_path: "science/mathematics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Colson" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary English clergyman and mathematician (1680–1760) ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox scientist"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| honorific_prefix | The Reverend |
| name | John Colson |
| honorific_suffix | |
| image | John Colson by John Wollaston.jpg |
| caption | John Colson by John Wollaston |
| birth_date | 1680 |
| death_date | |
| death_place | Cambridge |
| nationality | British |
| field | Mathematics |
| work_institutions | University of Cambridge |
| alma_mater | Christ Church, Oxford |
| known_for | Signed-digit representation |
| :: |
| honorific_prefix = The Reverend | name = John Colson | honorific_suffix = | image = John Colson by John Wollaston.jpg | caption = John Colson by John Wollaston | birth_date = 1680 | birth_place = | death_date = | death_place = Cambridge | nationality = British | field = Mathematics | work_institutions = University of Cambridge | alma_mater = Christ Church, Oxford | doctoral_advisor = | doctoral_students = | known_for = Signed-digit representation | influences = | influenced = | prizes = | footnotes = | signature =
John Colson (1680 – 20 January 1760) was an English clergyman, mathematician, and the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University.
Life
John Colson was educated at Lichfield School before becoming an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford, though he did not complete a degree there. He became a schoolmaster at Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School in Rochester, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1713. He was Vicar of Chalk, Kent from 1724 to 1740. He relocated to Cambridge and lectured at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. From 1739 to 1760, he was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. He was also Rector of Lockington, Yorkshire.
Works
In 1726 he published his "Negativo-Affirmativo Arithmetik" , which advocated a modified decimal system of numeration. He proposed "reduction [to] small figures" by "throwing all the large figures 9, 8, 7, 6 out of a given number, and introducing in their room the equivalent small figures 1\bar{1}, 1\bar{2}, 1\bar{3}, 1\bar{4} respectively". This method of signifying numbers is now called signed-digit representation.
John Colson translated several of Isaac Newton's works into English, including De Methodis Serierum et Fluxionum in 1736.
Notes
References
- "A Brief History of The Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics at Cambridge University" – Robert Bruen, Boston College, May 1995
References
- {{acad
- John Colson (1726) "A Short Account of Negativo-Affirmativo Arithmetik", [[Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society]] 34:161–73. Available as ''Early Journal Content'' from [https://www.jstor.org/stable/103469 JSTOR]
- Cajori, Florian. (1993). "A History of Mathematical Notations". [[Dover Publications]].
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::