10 Facts About Thomas Simpson

Thomas Simpson FRS was a British mathematician and inventor known for the eponymous Simpson's rule to approximate definite integrals.

Thomas Simpson dabbled in divination and caused fits in a girl after 'raising a devil' from her.

Thomas Simpson moved with his wife and children to London at age twenty-five, where he supported his family by weaving during the day and teaching mathematics at night.

In 1758, Simpson was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Thomas Simpson died in Market Bosworth, and was laid to rest in Sutton Cheney.

Thomas Simpson's treatise entitled The Nature and Laws of Chance and The Doctrine of Annuities and Reversions were based on the work of De Moivre and were attempts at making the same material more brief and understandable.

Thomas Simpson stated this clearly in The Nature and Laws of Chance, referring to Abraham De Moivre's The Doctrine of Chances: "tho' it neither wants Matter nor Elegance to recommend it, yet the Price must, I am sensible, have put it out of the Power of many to purchase it".

In both works, Thomas Simpson cited De Moivre's work and did not claim originality beyond the presentation of some more accurate data.

The method commonly called Thomas Simpson's Rule was known and used earlier by Bonaventura Cavalieri in 1639, and later by James Gregory; still, the long popularity of Thomas Simpson's textbooks invites this association with his name, in that many readers would have learnt it from them.

Several of Thomas Simpson's books contain selections of optimisation problems treated by simple geometrical considerations in similar manner, as an illuminating counterpart to possible treatment by fluxional methods.