Isaac Barrow

Isaac Barrow (1630 to 1677) was an English mathematician, classical scholar and theologian, remembered for a geometrical method of finding tangents that came close to the methods of calculus and for being the first to recognise that integration and differentiation are inverse operations. Born in London, he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, held the chair of Greek there and a professorship of geometry at Gresham College, and in 1663 became the first Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. His Lectiones Opticae (1669), Lectiones Geometricae (1670) and Lectiones Mathematicae (1683) set out his work on optics, tangents and the foundations of mathematics; John Collins published most of them and Isaac Newton helped to prepare them. Newton attended his lectures and discussed the work with him, and Barrow's work on tangents formed the starting point for Newton's calculus. In 1669 Barrow resigned the Lucasian Chair and did no further mathematical work, which allowed Newton to take it over; he later became Master of Trinity College.