Thomas Baker

Thomas Baker was an English mathematician, born around 1625 and dying in 1689, notable for producing a solution of biquadratic equations. He is said to have been fifteen when he became a battler at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1640, and later became minister of Bishop's Nympton in Devonshire, collated to the vicarage in 1681 after living there some years, where his retired life was devoted to mathematical studies alongside his profession and family. He described himself as one who pretended neither to learning nor to the profession of the mathematical art but took delight in its study. In 1684 he published the Geometrical Key, or Gate of Equations Unlocked, whose leading idea is the solution of biquadratic equations and those of lower degree by a geometrical construction using a parabola cut by a circle, and in the same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.