Roger Cotes

Roger Cotes was an English mathematician, born at Burbage in Leicestershire on 10 July 1682 and dead on 5 June 1716, known for working closely with Isaac Newton on the second edition of the Principia. He devised the quadrature formulas known as the Newton-Cotes formulas and made a geometric argument that can be read as a logarithmic version of Euler's formula. The son of a rector, he was tutored by his uncle John Smith, entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1699, became a fellow in 1707 and at twenty six the first Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy. He recomputed the solar and planetary tables of Cassini and Flamsteed, designed a heliostat telescope, and from 1709 to 1713 spent three and a half years with Newton preparing the second Principia, for which he wrote a preface defending Newton's principles against the vortex theory of gravity. He died young, and his cousin Robert Smith edited his works.