Research Progress and Reflections - 8/06/2022

This blog post will go over my experience researching over the past two and a half weeks.
Research Progress and Reflections - 8/06/2022
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Over the past two and a half weeks, I have experienced a few challenges in research, as well as satisfying breakthroughs. Despite being an undergraduate mathematics student, my Laidlaw research project is in fact a History project, concerning the interpretation of the instruments of James Gregory (1638-1675). Through the work and support of my great project supervisor, Dr. Isobel Falconer, I have applied my mathematical knowledge and learned many new skills such as critical thinking, source Portrait of James Gregoryanalysis, and essay writing. Some of the problems I have faced in my research are differentiating what is relevant and transforming my thoughts into words. Having not written an academic essay before, being much more experienced with numbers and coding, I have of course faced difficulty in thinking in a completely new way but welcome the challenge of making myself a more well-rounded academic. The experience of looking through many sources and finding an overarching theme throughout bits and pieces from various authors has been rewarding, building the story of three instruments in particular. My next stage of research next week will involve looking at and evaluating various methods of public engagement in preparation for next summer. My most recent reading was on the mechanics of a split-seconds clock held by the Museum of the University of St Andrews, commissioned by Gregory himself.  I have been exposed to a variety of sources, from the religious history of Scotland, the history of 16th and 17th-century Mathematics, the story of tracking down the books bought by Gregory, and the background of one of Elizabethan England's most prolific scientific instrument makers. Beginning as someone with next to no knowledge of history, I feel I have started to become familiar with how historians write, how correspondence took place at that time, and also build an image in my head of the key players in Mathematics at the time. Of course, there remain challenges such as the actual composition of the essay and poster, as having a plethora of notes and knowledge is all well and good, but if I do not put it in a concise and easy-to-understand way it is not productive. Recently I have begun to see the structure my essay will take, and will now start to focus my research on the key areas which seem to have the most depth and scope. I hope that my research over the next three and a half weeks will start to take shape, as I feel my background reading stage has finished, and I am now well-equipped to interpret the instruments for myself.

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