Duncan Liddel

Duncan Liddel, whose name sometimes appears as Liddell, was a Scottish mathematician, physician and astronomer, born in Aberdeen in 1561 as the son of a citizen of the town. He attended school in Aberdeen and King's College, Aberdeen, and in 1579 left Scotland for Frankfurt an der Oder, where the Scot John Craig taught him mathematics, philosophy and medicine and sent him on to study under Paul Wittich at Breslau. He later moved to Rostock, met Tycho Brahe on the island of Hveen at least twice, and from 1591 taught mathematics at the University of Helmstedt. Johannes Caselius wrote that he was the first person in Germany to explain the motions of the heavenly bodies according to the hypotheses of Ptolemy, Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. All his publications appear to be in medicine, though he seems to have been most interested in mathematics. He made several endowments to Marischal College, Aberdeen, and died in Aberdeen on 17 December 1613.