Scarce any problem will appear more hard and difficult, than that of determining the distance of the Sun from the Earth very near the truth: but even this... will without much labour be effected.

The construction of the life-table for Breslau which followed more primitive work by John Graunt is now seen as a major event in the history of demography. He publiEdmond Halleyd these along with his own reconstruction of Book VIII in the first complete Latin edition in 1710. He also completed a new translation of the first four books from the original Greek that had been started by the late David Gregory.

He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain following in the footsteps of John Flamsteed. Edmond Halley FRS (/ˈɛdmənd ˈhæli/; 8 November 1656 – 14 January 1742) was an English astronomer geophysicist mathematician meteorologist and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet.