father death_place death_date mother birth_place nationality field birth_date prizes article_title name
james ivory london , england 21 september 1842 jane brown dundee , scotland scottish mathematics 17 february 1765 copley , 1839 -rrb- medal -lrb- 1814 -rrb- royal medal -lrb- 1826 james ivory -lrb- mathematician -rrb-
 sir james ivory
james ivory -lrb- mathematician -rrb-

sir james ivory -lrb- 17 february 1765 -- 21 september 1842 -rrb- was a scottish mathematician .
ivory was born in dundee , son of james ivory the renowned watchmaker , and attended dundee grammar school .
in 1779 he entered the university of st andrews , distinguishing himself especially in mathematics .
he then studied theology ; but , after two sessions at st andrews and one at edinburgh university , he abandoned all idea of the church , and in 1786 he became an assistant-teacher of mathematics and natural philosophy in the newly established dundee academy .
three years later he became partner in , and manager of , a flax spinning company at douglastown in forfarshire , still prosecuting in moments of leisure his favourite studies .
he was essentially a self-trained mathematician , and was not only deeply versed in ancient and modern geometry , but also had a full knowledge of the analytical methods and discoveries of the continental mathematicians .
his earliest memoir , dealing with an analytical expression for the rectification of the ellipse , is published in the transactions of the royal society of edinburgh -lrb- 1796 -rrb- ; and this and his later papers on cubic equations -lrb- 1799 -rrb- and kepler 's problem -lrb- 1802 -rrb- evince great facility in the handling of algebraic formulae .
in 1804 after the dissolution of the flax-spinning company of which he was manager , he obtained one of the mathematical chairs in the royal military college , great marlow -lrb- afterwards removed to sandhurst -rrb- ; and until the year 1816 , when failing health obliged him to resign , he discharged his professional duties with remarkable success .
during this period he published in the philosophical transactions several important memoirs , which earned for him the copley medal in 1814 and ensured his election as a fellow of the royal society in 1815 .
of special importance in the history of attractions is the first of these earlier memoirs -lrb- phil .
trans. , 1809 -rrb- , in which the problem of the attraction of a homogeneous ellipsoid upon an external point is reduced to the simpler case of the attraction of another but related ellipsoid upon a corresponding point interior to it .
this theorem is known as ivory 's theorem .
he also published anonymously an edition of `` euclid 's elements '' , which was described as having brought the difficult problems `` more within the reach of ordinary understandings . ''
his later papers in the philosophical transactions treat of astronomical refractions , of planetary perturbations , of equilibrium of fluid masses , etc. .
for his investigations in the first named of these he received a royal medal in 1826 and again in 1839 .
in 1831 , on the recommendation of lord brougham , king william iv granted him a pension of # 300 per annum , and conferred on him the hanoverian guelphic order of knighthood .
besides being directly connected with the chief scientific societies of his own country , the royal society of edinburgh , the royal irish academy , etc. , he was corresponding member of the royal academy of sciences both of paris and berlin , and of the royal society of göttingen .
in 1839 , the university of st. andrews conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws .
he died in london .
