BALAM, RICHARD (fl. 1653), mathematician, was the author of 'Algebra, or the Doctrine of composing, inferring, and resolving an Equation' (1653). There seems to be nothing original in this work but a multitude of terms which have perished with their inventor. The following sentence may be worth quoting: 'It seems probable to me that quantity is not the true genus of number; but that measure and number, magnitude and multitude, quantity and quotity, are two distinct species of one common genus.'

[Algebra, preface, cf. p. 15.]

F. Y. E.

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