James Gregory, a Scottish mathematician, worked in this area in the 1600s. Gregory studied the Taylor series and published several Maclaurin series. In 1715, Brook Taylor discovered a general method for applying the series to all functions. (All of the previous research showed how to apply the method to only specific functions.) published a special case of the Taylor series in the 1700s. This series, which is based around zero, is called the "Maclaurin series".