Duncan Liddel

Duncan Liddel (1561 to 1613), also spelled Liddell, was a Scottish mathematician, physician and astronomer. Born in Aberdeen and educated at its university, he went abroad at eighteen and studied at Frankfurt on the Oder and at Breslau, where Paul Wittich taught him mathematics. In 1587 and 1588 he visited Tycho Brahe on Ven. He joined the new University of Helmstedt in 1590, took the lower and then the higher chair of mathematics, became a doctor of medicine in 1596 and taught medicine as well. In Germany he was reputed to be the first to teach the astronomy of Copernicus and of Tycho side by side with that of Ptolemy, and Tycho accused him of plagiarism. Returning to Scotland in 1607, he gave lands to the University of Aberdeen in 1612 to support six poor scholars and endowed a chair of mathematics at Marischal College, which bore his name, and left his books and instruments to that college.