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Edward Sang was born in
Kirkcaldy in 1805. At the age of only 13, he enrolled at the University of
Edinburgh, where he enrolled in the second mathematics class because there
was no advanced class that year. He embarked on a career as mathematician,
teacher, surveyor, civil engineer and actuary, and was elected a member of
the Royal Society of Edinburgh. From 1841 to 1843 he was Professor of
Mechanical Sciences at Manchester New College, from where he went to
Constantinople to plan railways and engineering projects for the Sultn
Abdul-Mejid, and lectured in Turkish to students at the Imperial School.
After returning to Edinburgh in 1854, he published numerous mathematical
and related books and papers. His best-known achievement was to prepare,
with the assistance of his daughters Flora and Jane, tables of logarithms
of up to 28 figures for numbers up to 370,000! He also invented a lantern
which was the model for Alan Stevenson's Skerryvore Lighthouse. Edward
Sang died in Edinburgh 1890. Sang and his wife Isabella Elmslie had a son
and four daughters, all of whom died unmarried.
Thanks to
Anne Burgess for this
information |
