Samuel Earnshaw

Samuel Earnshaw (born February 1, 1805 in Sheffield , † December 6, 1888 in Sheffield) was an English clergyman , mathematician and physicist .

Life

His parents were Martha and Joseph, his father was a file cutter and later headmaster. Samuel attended Carver St. National School and received instruction from Rev. William Ellis in Doncaster . On July 5, 1827, he was admitted to St. John's College , Cambridge . However, in the beginning he would have had to pay for his own maintenance, which he did not manage. So he could not really begin his studies until the end of 1828, after he had been accepted as a sizar , who had to serve the fellows and received some of their meals in return. In 1830 Earnshaw received the "Hebblethwaite Scholar" scholarship, in 1831 he graduated as the best of his year. In 1834 he received his Magister Artium .

Since he had married Ann Wall on January 6, 1832 (their son Samuel Walter was born in 1833), he could not be made a Fellow. Instead, he worked as a private tutor in physics and mathematics and began a career as a cleric . In 1834 he was made a deacon in Buckden and ordained a priest on September 20, 1846 in St. Michael's Church at Cambridge. In 1837 he was Proctor , in 1838 he received the benefice of the Barnaby Lecturship in Philosophy at the Congregation .

In 1847, due to health problems, Earnshaw moved back to Sheffield, where he took the position of chaplain at Queen Mary's. He was responsible for introducing the University Local Examinations in Sheffield. The related lectures made a great impression on Mark Firth , who founded Firth College (which later became Sheffield University ) in 1879 , for which Earnshaw was initially vice-president and from 1880 president. In 1887 an earnshaw chair was established in his honor.

Samuel Earnshaw's son died that same year, and so did he on December 6, 1888, at the age of 83.

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Earnshaw published mathematical and physical articles and books since 1832. His best-known contribution is the Earnshaw theorem about the impossibility of stable floating permanent magnets, other topics were optics , waves , dynamics and acoustics in physics, differential calculus , trigonometry and partial differential equations in mathematics. As a cleric, he published various sermons and treatises.

source

• Biography on Yale University website (English; with picture of a bust)