Cocker's Arithmetick

Cocker's Arithmetick, also known by its full title "Cocker's Arithmetick: Being a
Cocker's Arithmetick
Plain and Familiar Method Suitable to the Meanest Capacity for the Full
Understanding of That Incomparable Art, As It Is Now Taught by the Ablest School- Author Edward Cocker
Masters in City and Country", is a grammar school mathematics textbook written by Country United Kingdom
Edward Cocker (1631–1676) and published posthumously by John Hawkins in Language English
1677.[1][2] Arithmetick along with companion volume, Decimal Arithmetick
Subject Mathematics
published in 1684, were used to teach mathematics in schools in the United
Kingdom for more than 150 years. Publisher London
Publication 1677
Some controversy exists over the authorship of the book. Augustus De Morgan date
claimed the work was written by Hawkins, who merely used Cocker's name to lend Media type Print (hardcover)
the authority of his reputation to the book.[2] Ruth Wallis, in 1997, wrote an article
Pages 182 pp (first
in Annals of Science, claiming De Morgan's analysis was flawed and Cocker was the
edition)
real author.[3]
OCLC 34162097
The popularity of Arithmetick is unquestioned by its more than 130 editions, and that
its place was woven in the fabric of the popular culture of the time is evidenced by its references in the phrase, "according to
Cocker", meaning "absolutely correct" or "according to the rules".[4] Such noted figures of history as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas
Simpson are documented as having used the book.[5][6] Over 100 years after its publication, Samuel Johnson carried a copy of
Arithmetick on his tour of Scotland, and mentions it in his letters:

In the afternoon tea was made by a very decent girl in a printed linen ; she engaged me so
much, that I made her a present of Cocker's Arithmetick.[7]

Though popular, like most texts of its time, Arithmetick style is formal, stiff and difficult to follow as illustrated in its explanation of
the "rule of three".

Again, observe, that of the three given numbers, those two that are of the same kind, one of them must be the first,
and the other the third, and that which is of the same kind with the number sought, must be the second number in the
rule of three; and that you may know which of the said numbers to make your first, and which your third, know this,
that to one of those two numbers there is always affixed a demand, and that number upon which the demand lieth
must always be reckoned the third number

As well as the rule of three, Arithmetick contains instructions on alligation and the rule of false position. Following the common
practice of textbooks at the time, each rule is illustrated with numerous examples of commercial transactions involving the exchange
of wheat, rye and other seeds; calculation of costs for the erection of houses and other structures; and the rotation of gears on a
shaft.[2] The text contains the earliest known use of the termlowest terms.[8]

References
1. "Cocker's Arithmetick: Item Details"(http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/34162097?tab=details#tabs). WorldCat. 2008.
Retrieved 2008-07-17.
2. Yeldham, Florence (1936).The Teaching of Arithmetic Through Four Hundred Years (1535-1935). London: George
G. Harrap & Co. Ltd. pp. 75, 80, 80–83, 85.OCLC 152432557 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/152432557).
3. R Wallis, Edward Cocker (1632?-1676) and his arithmetick: De Morgan demolished, Ann. of Sci. 54 (1997), 507-522.
 4. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Edward Cocker" (http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/C
ocker.html), MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
5. Franklin, Benjamin (1793). "Chapter One".The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. Originally Written By
Himself, And Now Translated From The French (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)(http://www.earlyamerica.
com/lives/franklin/chapt1/). London: Printed for J. Parsons, no. 21, Pater-Noster Row. OCLC 4886899 (https://www.w
orldcat.org/oclc/4886899). Retrieved 2008-07-17. "And now it was that, being on some occasion made asham'd of
my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when at school, I took Cocker's book of Arithmetick, and
went through the whole by myself with great ease "
6. Ball, W. W. Rouse (1960). A Short Account of the History of Mathematics(http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/Peo
ple/Simpson/RouseBall/RB_Simpson.html)(Fourth ed.). New York: Dover Publications.OCLC 220957321 (https://w
ww.worldcat.org/oclc/220957321). Retrieved 2008-07-17.
7. Johnson, Samuel (1892).Letters of Samuel Johnson. Oxford: Clarendon Press.OCLC 61918137 (https://www.world
cat.org/oclc/61918137).
8. Jeff Miller (28 April 2008)."Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics: 'Lowest Terms' " (http://mem
bers.aol.com/jeff570/l.htm). Jeff Miller's Mathword. Retrieved 2008-07-17.

Further reading
On-line text of Cocker's decimal arithmeticat Internet Archive

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