James Stirling was a mathematician best known for the formula on series expansion which bears his name, Stirling's formula. Stirling's work contributed greatly to the development of the theory of infinite series and to the branch of calculus known as infinitesimal calculus. Although his formal education was interrupted over political quarrels, Stirling worked both in Venice and London, doing early work on the extension of Isaac Newton's theory of plane curves. His most influential work, also inspired by theories of Newton, Methodus differentialis, was published in 1730. In 1735 Stirling returned to his native Scotland, where he took a position at the Leadhills mining company, married, and concerned himself almost totally with mining affairs for the rest of his life.

Stirling was born in Garden, Stirlingshire, Scotland, in 1692. The third son of Archibald Stirling and Anna Hamilton, Stirling came from a staunchly Jacobite family, supporters of the restoration of...