Archive of the month: March 2019

During 2019 we will be celebrating a “Year of Discovery” which will be an opportunity to :

• look at inventive individuals who have carried out pioneering work in the fields of aeronautics, archaeology, mathematics, Celtic studies etc.
• find out about adventurous Welsh men and women who have travelled the world as settlers or missionaries
• discover more about new and exciting resources for researchers in the Archives and Special Collections

The “Year of Discovery” will enable us to build a multi-layered view of our collections – presenting our strengths and what makes us distinctive from other institutions throughout Wales.

William Jones by William Hogarth, oil on canvas, 1740 ( © National Portrait Gallery, London 5734) along with the title page from his volume on arithmetic and geometry published in 1706

William Jones (1675–1749), Welsh mathematician and pioneer

On the 14th of March we celebrate pi day – the symbol π (Greek letter ‘pi’) used to designate the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, which is approximately 3.14159.

This day is also an opportunity for us to honour William Jones, the Welsh mathematician from Llanfihangel Tre’r Beirdd, Anglesey who became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1711 and was a close friend of Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Edmund Halley.

Jones’s publication Synopsis palmariorum matheseos, or, A new introduction to mathermatics appeared in 1706 and the symbol π was used to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter for the first time in this book.

Today π is instantly recognised worldwide but few know that its history can be traced back to a small village in the heart of Anglesey.

This “Archive of the Month” was created by Elen Wyn Simpson, Archivist

Click on the links below to view all our showcased documents.