Robert Simson

Robert Simson (1687 to 1768) was a Scottish mathematician and professor of mathematics at the University of Glasgow, after whom the Simson line is named. Born in 1687 as probably the eldest of seventeen sons of a Glasgow merchant, he matriculated at Glasgow in 1701 intending to enter the Church and studied theology and Semitic languages, but reading Euclid's Elements drew him to geometry. Offered the chair of mathematics, he asked for a year to prepare and spent it in London, where he met Edmond Halley, James Jurin and other mathematicians. He was admitted professor in 1711, aged 23, designed a two-year course covering geometry, algebra, logarithms and optics, and taught students including Colin Maclaurin and Matthew Stewart until he resigned in 1761. In 1753 he noted that the ratio of adjacent Fibonacci numbers approaches the golden ratio. He was also an acknowledged expert in botany and bequeathed his library of about 850 books, mainly early mathematical and astronomical texts, to the university.