George Brown (1650–1730) was a Scottish arithmetician, and inventor of two incomplete mechanical calculating machines now kept at the National Museum of Scotland. In 1698 he was granted a patent for his mechanical calculating device.
He was minister of Stranraer, schoolmaster in Fordyce, Banffshire, and in 1680 schoolmaster at Kilmaurs, Ayrshire. He invented a method of teaching the simple rules of arithmetic, which he explained in his Rotula Arithmetica, 1700. He wrote other arithmetical works; the last of them, Arithmetica Infinitorum, was endorsed by John Keill.
References Robert Watt, Bibliographia Britannica John Sinclair, New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1845 Hew Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, 1868 Attribution:
External links An Account of the Rotula Arithmetica, Invented by Mr George Brown, Minister of Kilmaures, Edinburgh, M DC XC VIII