Savilian Chair of Geometry

The Savilian Professor of Geometry ( English , roughly: Savilischer Chair of Geometry) is a highly respected chair of mathematics at Oxford University . The owner is named Savilian Professor of Geometry .

The chair was founded in 1619 together with the Savilian Chair of Astronomy by Henry Savile and is named after him. Savile said the chair was intended to remedy the fact that " geometry is almost totally unknown and abandoned in England ". The main themes he intended were the content of Euclid's Elements , Apollonios von Perge's treatise on conic sections and the works of Archimedes .

Chair holders were:

• 1619 Henry Briggs
• 1631 Peter Turner
• 1649 John Wallis
• 1704 Edmond Halley
• 1742 Nathaniel Bliss
• 1765 Joseph Betts
• 1766 John Smith
• 1797 Abraham Robertson
• 1810 Stephen Peter Rigaud
• 1827 Harry Baden-Powell
• 1861 Henry John Stephen Smith
• 1883 James Joseph Sylvester
• 1897 William Esson
• 1920 Godfrey Harold Hardy
• 1932 Edward Charles Titchmarsh
• 1963 Michael Francis Atiyah
• 1969 Ioan MacKenzie James
• 1995 Richard Taylor
• 1997 Nigel James Hitchin

See also

• Lucasian Chair of Mathematics (Cambridge)

Web links

• John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson :  Savilian Chairs of Geometry and Astronomy. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .