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From Newton to Hawking: a History of Cambridge University’S Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by Kevin C Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-66310-6 - From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by Kevin C. Knox and Richard Noakes Frontmatter More information From Newton to Hawking A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Cambridge University’s Lucasian professorship of mathematics is one of the most celebrated academic positions in the world. Since its foundation in 1663, the chair has been held by seventeen men who represent some of the best and most influential minds in science and technology. Principally a social history of mathematics and physics, the story of these great natural philosophers and mathematical physicists is told here by some of the finest historians of science. The journey begins with the search for a benefactor able to establish a ‘mathematicus professor honorarius’, and travels through the life and work of the professors, exploring aspects from the heroic to the absurd. Covering both the great similarities and the extreme differences in mathematical physics over the last four centuries, this informative work offers new perspectives on world-famous scientists including Isaac Newton, Charles Babbage, G. G. Stokes, Paul Dirac and Stephen Hawking. kevin c. knox is Historian at the Institute Archives, Caltech. He has held positions as Visiting Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and Ahmanson Postdoctoral Instructor in the Humanities at Caltech. richard noakes is a British Academy–Royal Society Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the History of Science, in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University. He previously held a Leverhulme postdoctoral fellowship at the universities of Leeds and Sheffield. © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-66310-6 - From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by Kevin C. Knox and Richard Noakes Frontmatter More information From Newton to Hawking A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by kevin c. knox California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA richard noakes Department of History of Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, UK © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-66310-6 - From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by Kevin C. Knox and Richard Noakes Frontmatter More information © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-66310-6 - From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by Kevin C. Knox and Richard Noakes Frontmatter More information Contents List of illustrations page vii List of contributors xiii Foreword xvii stephen hawking Preface xxi Timeline of the Lucasian professorship xxv Introduction: ‘Mind almost divine’ 1 kevin c. knox and richard noakes 1 Isaac Barrow and the foundation of the Lucasian professorship 45 mordechai feingold 2 ‘Very accomplished mathematician, philosopher, chemist’: Newton as Lucasian professor 69 rob iliffe 3 Making Newton easy: William Whiston in Cambridge and London 135 stephen d. snobelen and larry stewart 4 Sensible Newtonians: Nicholas Saunderson and John Colson 171 john gascoigne 5 The negative side of nothing: Edward Waring, Isaac Milner and Newtonian values 205 kevin c. knox © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-66310-6 - From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by Kevin C. Knox and Richard Noakes Frontmatter More information vi contents 6 Paper and brass: the Lucasian professorship 1820–39 241 simon schaffer 7 Arbiters of Victorian science: George Gabriel Stokes and Joshua King 295 david b. wilson 8 ‘That universal æthereal plenum’: Joseph Larmor’s natural history of physics 343 andrew warwick 9 Paul Dirac: the purest soul in an atomic age 387 helge kragh 10 Is the end in sight for the Lucasian chair? Stephen Hawking as Millennium Professor 425 h´el`ene mialet Appendix The statutes of the Lucasian professorship: a translation 461 ian stewart Index 475 © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-66310-6 - From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by Kevin C. Knox and Richard Noakes Frontmatter More information Illustrations 1 Newton deified. Reproduced by permission of the Museum for the History of Science, Oxford. page 2 2 ‘MC-Hawking’. Illustration and lyrics courtesy of Ken Leavitt-Lawrence, www.MCHawking.com. 8 3 The Mathematical Institute. Reproduced by permission of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Studies. 17 4 Frontispiece to Thomas Burnet’s Sacred Theory. Picture courtesy of the Caltech Archives. 20 5 William Blake’s ‘Newton’. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 32 6 Woolsthorpe. Picture courtesy of K. C. Knox. 36 7 The Lucasian seal. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 39 8 Portrait of Isaac Barrow. Reproduced by permission of the National Portrait Gallery, London. 51 9 Seventeenth-century Trinity College. Engraving by David Logan, Cantabrigia Illustrata (1690). Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 52 10 A New System of Mathematicks. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 58 11 Portrait of Isaac Newton. Reproduced by permission of the National Portrait Gallery, London. 70 12 Newton’s drawing of his reflecting telescope. Cambridge University Library ms Add. 3969.591. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 76 © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-66310-6 - From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by Kevin C. Knox and Richard Noakes Frontmatter More information viii Illustrations 13 Diagrams from the Newton and Hooke exchange. Redrawn from H. W. Turnball et al., The Correspondence of Isaac Newton [Cambridge, 1959], vol. ii, pp. 301, 305. 95 14 Manuscript notes on alchemy by Newton. Reproduced by permission of the Provost of King’s College, Cambridge. 120 15 Newton’s resignation from the chair. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 127 16 Portrait of William Whiston. Reproduced by permission of the Master and Fellows of Clare College, Cambridge. 137 17 A comet as the source of the biblical flood. Picture courtesy of the Caltech Archives. 139 18 The Vice-chancellor’s decree against Whiston. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 150 19 Mr. Whistons Solar System Epitomis’d. Picture courtesy of the Caltech Archives. 156 20 Whiston in Bedlam, by William Hogarth. Picture courtesy of K. C. Knox. 164 21 Title page to Whiston’s Josephus. Picture courtesy of K. C. Knox. 166 22 Portrait of Nicholas Saunderson. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 173 23 Fontenelle’s solar system. Engraving from the 6th edn of A Week’s Conversation on the Plurality of Worlds (London, 1738). Picture courtesy of K. C. Knox. 180 24 Saunderson’s board. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 186 25 An eighteenth-century orrery. Engraving from © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-66310-6 - From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by Kevin C. Knox and Richard Noakes Frontmatter More information Illustrations ix William Whiston, A Course of Mechanical, Magnetical, Optical, Hydrostatical, and Pneumatical Experiments. Picture courtesy of the Caltech Archives. 188 26 Portrait of John Colson. British Library, Add. 32271, f. 106. Reproduced by permission of the British Library. 194 27 Frontispiece to Newton’s Method of Fluxions. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 196 28 Undergraduate gownsmen. From Robert Ackermann’s History of Cambridge (1815). Picture courtesy of K. C. Knox. 208 29 Portrait of Edward Waring. Reproduced by permission of the President, Queens’ College, Cambridge. 212 30 ‘Frontispiss’ by William Hogarth. Reproduced by permission of the British Museum. British Museum Print 4089. 220 31 The rotating globe, in Pembroke College. Reproduced by permission of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. 224 32 Atwood’s machine. Picture courtesy the Caltech Archives. 225 33 Portrait of Isaac Milner. Reproduced by permission of the President, Queens’ College, Cambridge. 231 34 A portion of Babbage’s analytical engine. Reproduced by permission of the Whipple Museum, Cambridge. 242 35 Portrait of Charles Babbage. Reproduced by permis- sion of the National Portrait Gallery, London. 244 36 Caricature of Airy from Vanity Fair (1875). Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 264 © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-66310-6 - From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by Kevin C. Knox and Richard Noakes Frontmatter More information x Illustrations 37 Diagram of treadmill. John Orridge, Description of the Gaol at Bury St Edmunds (1819), plate 2, p. 37. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University
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