Томас Харриот: Англиялық ғалым, саяхатшы және Америка тілдерін зерттеуші

English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer and translator
the liberal arts college at East Carolina University

Thomas Harriot (/'//h//ær//i//ə//t/; c. 1560 – 2 July 1621), also spelled Harriott, Hariot or Heriot, was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer and translator to whom the theory of refraction is attributed. Thomas Harriot was also recognized for his contributions in navigational techniques, working closely with John White to create advanced maps for navigation. namely only The Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588). Harriot invented binary notation and arithmetic several decades before Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, but this remained unknown until the 1920's. He was also the first person to make a drawing of the Moon through a telescope, on 5 August 1609, about four months before Galileo Galilei. After graduating from St Mary Hall, Oxford, Harriot travelled to the Americas, accompanying the 1585 expedition to Roanoke island funded by Sir Walter Raleigh and led by Sir Ralph Lane. He learned the Carolina Algonquian language from two Native Americans, Wanchese and Manteo, and could translate it, making him a vital member of the expedition. On his return to England, he worked for the 9th Earl of Northumberland.

Born in 1560 in Oxford, England, Thomas Harriot attended St Mary Hall, Oxford. His name appears in the hall's registry dating from 1577. Harriot started to study navigation shortly after receiving a bachelor's degree from Oxford University. He made efforts to communicate with Manteo and Wanchese, two Native Americans who had been brought to England. Harriot devised a phonetic alphabet to transcribe their Carolina Algonquian language. Harriot and Manteo spent many days in one another's company; Harriot interrogated Manteo closely about life in the New World and learned much that was to the advantage of the English settlers. In addition, he recorded the sense of awe with which the Native Americans viewed European technology:
"Many things they sawe with us as mathematical instruments, sea compasses [and] spring clocks that seemed to goe of themselves – and many other things we had – were so strange unto them, and so farre exceeded their capacities to comprehend the reason and meanes how they should be made and done, that they thought they were rather the works of gods than men." He made only one expedition, around 1585–86, and spent some time in the New World visiting Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina, expanding his knowledge by improving his understanding of the Carolina Algonquian language. As the only Englishman who had learned Algonquin prior to the voyage, Harriot was vital to the success of the expedition. Hariot smoked tobacco before Raleigh, and may have taught him to do so. His account of the voyage, named A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, was published in 1588 (probably written a year before). The True Report contains an early account of the Native American population encountered by the expedition; it proved very influential upon later English explorers and colonists. He wrote: "Whereby it may be hoped, if means of good government be used, that they may in short time be brought to civility and the embracing of true religion." At the same time, his views of Native Americans' industry and capacity to learn were later largely ignored in favor of the parts of the "True Report" about extractable minerals and resources. As a scientific adviser during the voyage, Harriot was asked by Raleigh to find the most efficient way to stack cannonballs on the deck of the ship. His ensuing theory about the close packing of spheres shows a striking resemblance to atomism and modern atomic theory, which he was later accused of believing. His correspondence about optics with Johannes Kepler, in which he described some of his ideas, later influenced Kepler's conjecture.

Harriot was employed for many years by Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, with whom he resided at Syon House, which was run by Henry Percy's cousin Thomas Percy. The Duke was surrounded by many scholars and learned men and provided a more stable form of patronage than Raleigh, In 1595 the Duke of Northumberland made property in Durham over to Harriot, moving him up the social ladder into 'the landed gentry'. Not long after the Durham transactions, the Duke gave Harriot the use of one of the houses on the estate at Syon, to work on optics and the sine law of refraction. Harriot's sponsors began to fall from favor: Raleigh was the first, and Harriot's other patron Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland, was imprisoned in 1605 in connection with the Gunpowder Plot as he was closely connected to one of the conspirators, Thomas Percy. Harriot himself was interrogated and briefly imprisoned but was soon released. He also observed sunspots in December 1610.

From 1614 Harriot was consulting Theodore de Mayerne, who was among James I's doctors, for an apparent cancer of the left nostril that was gradually eating away the septum and was apparently linked to a cancerous ulcer on his lip. This progressed until 1621, when he was living with a friend named Thomas Buckner on Threadneedle Street. There he died, apparently from skin cancer. It was suspected that Harriot's cancer was due to excessive tobacco consumption. His executors posthumously published his Artis Analyticae Praxis on algebra in 1631; Nathaniel Torporley was the intended executor of Harriot's wishes, but Walter Warner in the end pulled the book into shape. It may be a compendium of some of his works but does not represent all that he left unpublished (more than 400 sheets of annotated writing). It is not directed in a way that follows the manuscripts and it fails to give the full significance of Harriot's writings. He is also credited with discovering Girard's theorem, although the formula bears Girard's name as he was the first to publish it. His algebra book Artis Analyticae Praxis (1631) was published posthumously in Latin. Unfortunately, the editors did not understand much of his reasoning and removed the parts they did not comprehend such as the negative and complex roots of equations. Because of the dispersion of Harriot's writings the full annotated English translation of the Praxis was not completed until 2007. A more complete manuscript, De numeris triangularibus et inde de progressionibus arithmeticis: Magisteria magna, was finally published in facsimile form with commentary by Janet Beery and Jackie Stedall in 2009. The first biography of Harriot was written in 1876 by Henry Stevens of Vermont but not published until 1900 Prominent American poet, novelist and biographer Muriel Rukeyser wrote an extended literary inquiry into the life and significance of Hariot (her preferred spelling), The Traces of Thomas Hariot (1970, 1971). Interest in Harriot continued to revive with the convening of a symposium at the University of Delaware in April 1971 with the proceedings published by the Oxford University Press in 1974. John W. Shirley the editor (1908 1988) went on to publish A Sourcebook for the Study of Thomas Harriot and his Harriot biography (1983). The papers of John Shirley are held in Special Collections at the University of Delaware. Harriot's accomplishments remain relatively obscure because he did not publish any of his results and also because many of his manuscripts have been lost; those that survive are in the British Museum and in the archives of the Percy family at Petworth House (Sussex) and Alnwick Castle (Northumberland). He was frequently accused of being an atheist, and it has been suggested that he deliberately refrained from publishing for fear of intensifying such attacks; as the literary historian Stephen Greenblatt writes " he preferred life to fame. And who can blame him?" An event was held at Syon House, West London, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Harriot's first observations of the Moon on 26 July 2009. This event, Telescope400, included the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate Harriot by Lord Egremont. The plaque can now be seen by visitors to Syon House, the location of Harriot's historic observations. His drawing made 400 years earlier is believed to be based on the first observations of the Moon through a telescope. The event (sponsored by the Royal Astronomical Society) was run as part of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). The original documents showing Harriot's Moon map of c. 1611, observations of Jupiter's satellites, and first observations of sunspots were on display at the Science Museum, London, from 23 July 2009 until the end of the IYA. The observatory in the campus of the College of William & Mary is named in Harriot's honor. A crater on the Moon was named after him in 1970; it is on the Moon's far side and hence unobservable from Earth. In July 2014 the International Astronomical Union launched NameExoWorlds, a process for giving proper names to certain exoplanets and their host stars. The process involved public nomination and voting for the new names. In December 2015, the IAU announced the winning name was Harriot for this planet. (55 Cancri in the constellation Cancer). The winning name was submitted by the Royal Netherlands Association for Meteorology and Astronomy of the Netherlands. It honors the astronomer. The Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC is named in recognition of this Harriot's scientific contributions to the New World such as his work A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.

An alternate history short story, "Harriott Publishes", depicts the consequences of Harriott publishing his observations before Galileo. It appears in anthology of similar stories, Altered Times, pages 13–15.

Harriot's 5 August [O. S. 26 July] 1609 drawings of his observations of the Moon have been noted as the first recorded telescopic observations ever made, predating Galileo Galilei's 30 November 1609 observation by almost four months. Galileo's drawings, which were the first such observations to be published, contained greater detail such as identifying previously unknown features including mountains and craters. Critics, such as Terrie Bloom, accused Harriot of plagiarizing depictions directly from Galileo's works and argued that Harriot's representation of the Moon was an inadequate representation that needed to be improved. Harriot observed the sunspot with the use of a telescope in a direct and hazardous way. Even though Harriot observed the Sun directly through his telescope, there were no recorded injuries to his eyes. Harriot uses modern mathematical concepts to explain the process behind continuous compounding. The concept of compounded interest occurs when the more times interest is added within the year assuming the rate stays the same then the final interest will be larger. Based on this observation, Harriot created mathematical equations that included logarithms and series calculations to illustrate his concepts.