In the course of my research, I have discovered two mathematicians in my family. Below are brief biographies of Alexander Wilson (my second cousin eight times removed) and Sir John Leslie (my first cousin six times removed). I hope to add some more to this page in the near future.

LESLIE, Sir John (1766-1832)

Scottish natural philosopher and physicist, born in Largo, Fife. He studied at St Andrews and Edinburgh, and travelled as tutor in America and on the continent, meanwhile engaging in experimental research. He invented a differential thermometer, a hygrometer and a photometer, and wrote An Experimental Inquiry into Heat (1804). In 1805 he obtained the chair of mathematics at Edinburgh. In 1810 he succeeded in creating artificial ice by freezing water under the air pump. Transferred to the chair of natural philosophy (1819), he also invented the pyroscope, atmometer and aethrioscope.

(Chambers Biographical Dictionary Fifth Edition, second impression 1993)

Alexander Wilson

Born: 1714 in St Andrews, Scotland

Died: 18 Oct 1786 in Edinburgh, Scotland

Alexander Wilson was educated at the University of St Andrews. After this he was an apprentice to a surgeon in St Andrews, then he moved to London. In 1739 he returned to St Andrews and, in 1742, he set up a type foundry. Two years later he moved to Glasgow where, in 1760, he was appointed to the chair of astronomy, a post he held until 1784.

Wilson made many observations of sunspots using a geometric argument to show that they were depressions in the Sun. A similar theory had been proposed by La Hire and by Cassini.

Wilson also published Thoughts on General Gravitation (1770), in which he attempted to answer Newton's question "What hinders the fixed stars from falling upon one another?"

Wilson's answer, that the entire universe rotates about a centre, is of course incorrect.

He was awarded an honorary degree by the University of St Andrews in 1763 and was a founding member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

(From the University of St Andrews history of mathematics site)

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