Robert Record

The Pathway to Knowledge is the earliest work on Geometry written in the English language and it was in general use until the middle of the seventeenth century as an elementary textbook. It is a mathematical textbook with a difference - it has poetry in its pages. Recorde is fond of using poetical phrasing and examples abound in his text. An example of his verse is found on the title page, where Geometry gives her verdict: 'All fresh fine wits by me are filed, All gross dull wits wish me exiled. Though no man's wit reject will I, Yet as they be I will them try.'

The work is a treatise on the sphere, written in dialogue form, dealing chiefly with astronomy but including some geographical information. Recorde's writings exhibit a marked bias in favour of mathematics, but they also reflect strong traditions which Recorde, in common with most educated people of his time, found difficult to discard. These Aristotelian and Ptolemaic traditions postulated that the sub-lunary realm, the seat of the base elements, was subject to change and corruption; in contrast, the heavenly or celestial realm was necessarily pure, immutable and eternal. It is in this book that Recorde provides the English reading public with the first significant reference to the heliocentric theories of Nicholas Copernicus.

The Whetstone of Witte contains a treatise on algebra which is generally supposed to be the first ever in the English language. The word itself appears for the first time in this book, although it is spelt algeber. In Recorde's time algebra was more often known as the cossic arte, from the Latin cosa, meaning thing, and algebraists were for many years known as cossists. The book contains the first use ever in mathematical notation of two parallel lines to mean 'equals', and it also contains the word which suposedly has the most z's in the English language - zenzizenzizenzike - which means the eighth power of a number. This terminology is now, of course, archaic.

The Grounde of Artes is that unusual thing, a mathematical text book with both poetry and humour. It is written in the form of a dialogue between a master and a somewhat precocious scholar. The lively exchange between the two gives an interesting insight into the English language as it was spoken in the sixteenth century. Recorde is fond of poetical phrasing and examples abound in his text. An instance is when the scholar, showing his eagerness to learn, says to the master, 'And I to your auctorite my wyttes do subdewe : what so ever you say, I take it for trewe'. To which the master replies, 'Though I myght of my Scoler some credence requyre, yet except I shewe reason, I do not it desyre'.