William Hopkins

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William Hopkins

William Hopkins FRS (born February 2, 1793 in Kingston-on-Soar , Nottinghamshire , † October 13, 1866 in Cambridge , England ) was an English mathematician and geologist . One of his main discoveries was the increase in melting temperature with pressure. During his time at the University of Cambridge he earned a reputation among math students as a successful private tutor for the Tripos exams .

An important contribution to geology was his assumption of a solid instead of liquid earth's interior and his explanations of various geological phenomena based on it. Even if his conclusions seem correct today, his mathematical and physical derivations were later viewed as unsustainable.

Hopkins students included Edward John Routh , Francis Galton , George Gabriel Stokes , Arthur Cayley , Lord Kelvin , Peter Guthrie Tait , James Clerk Maxwell , Isaac Todhunter and Philip Kelland (1808–1879).

Early life

Hopkins was born in Kingston-on-Soar as the only son of the gentleman farmer William Hopkins. In his youth he studied practical farming in Norfolk before his father rented him a small farm in Bury St Edmunds , Suffolk . William Hopkins was unsuccessful as a farmer, however, and when his first wife died around 1821, he took the opportunity to mitigate some of his losses and entered St Peter's College (now Peterhouse ) at the University of Cambridge. He received his BA in 1827 and became the seventh Wrangler . A Wrangler is a third-level graduate of the University of Cambridge's three-part Tripos Mathematical Exams who passed his third exam with honors. In 1830 he passed his exams as Master of Arts . In 1833 he published his book Elements of Trigonometry and made a name for himself as a mathematician.

Wrangler Makers

Before graduating, Hopkins had married Caroline Frances Boys (1799–1881) and was no longer a bachelor. For this reason he could not be elected as a fellow at the University of Cambridge, so that he earned his living as a private teacher. He prepared ambitious math students to take on the position of the best graduate of the respective year ( Senior Wrangler ) if possible . In this specialized form of tutoring he was exceptionally successful, earning 700 to 800 pounds a year and receiving the honorary title of Senior Wrangler Maker . By 1849 he had taught nearly 200 students, 17 of whom reached the coveted post of Senior Wrangler . Francis Galton praised his teaching style, in which he woven amusing episodes into the material and brought the dry topic to life through his lively manner of presentation. In addition to the students, Hopkins also trained Edward Routh , who initially became a senior wrangler , and later also became known as a wrangler maker .

In 1835 he was appointed syndic on the occasion of the establishment of the Fitzwilliam Museum and a second time in 1837.

geology

Hopkins became interested in geology around 1833 after meeting Adam Sedgwick in Barmouth and accompanying him on several excursions. Since then he has published in the journals of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and the Geological Society of London essays on the mathematical foundations of geology, which thus became physical geology . He dealt with the effects that forces from the interior of the earth have on the earth's crust and present themselves there in the formation of crevices and fissures . In this context he discussed the uplift and erosion of the Lake District , the area around Weald and the Bas Boulonnais .

In his imagination, the essentially solid earth body was dynamic, with caves running through it and in which hot vapors or liquids generated increased pressure in restricted areas, and created volcanoes and earthquakes , among other things . Such a dynamic model was in contrast to that represented by Charles Lyell , who assumed a calm state of the earth's body, liquid under a crust barely more than 100 miles thick inside.

In 1838 and 1842, Hopkins published a series of papers at the Royal Society in which he analyzed the rotation of the earth, including precession and nutation , among other observations , and concluded that a fluid interior of the earth did not agree with the observations. In 1847 he wrote a report to the British Association about his thoughts on volcanoes and earthquakes .

As part of his research, Hopkins attempted to gauge the effects of the enormous pressure on the melting point and thermal conductivity of various substances. With the support of a Royal Society scholarship, with the help of Lord Kelvin, James Prescott Joule and William Fairbairn, he took measurements to support his theories.

In his opinion, the cooling of the earth has no effect on the cooling of the climate . On this subject, he gave the lecture On the Causes which may have produced changes in the Earth's superficial Temperature at the Geological Society in 1851 ( On the possible reasons for changes in the surface temperature of the earth ). In his second address as President of the Geological Society of London (1853) he criticized the theory of Élie de Beaumont about the elevation of mountain ranges as ill-founded.

Finally, Lord Kelvin tactfully indicated that while Hopkins' views of the structure of the earth were correct, his mathematical and physical reasoning was flawed.

glaciology

Hopkins also wrote about the movement of glaciers and the transport of boulders , but this ended up falling within the domain of JD Forbes , who saw the subject as his personal domain and accused him of not having enough experience as an observer in the field.

Private life

Hopkins enjoyed music , poetry, and landscape painting . With his second wife, Hopkins had a son and three daughters, including the moral preacher Ellice Hopkins .

He spent the end of his life in a mental hospital in Stoke Newington , where he died of chronic insanity and exhaustion.

Honors

literature

  • Hopkins, William . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 13 : Harmony - Hurstmonceaux . London 1910, p. 685 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  • Hopkins, William . In: John Archibald Venn (Ed.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 2: From 1752 to 1900 , Volume 3 : Gabb – Justamond . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1947, pp. 439 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • Obituaries:
    • The Times . October 16, 1866, p. 4;
    • WW Smyth: Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society (1867), pp. Xxix
  • C. Smith: William Hopkins and the shaping of dynamical geology, 1830-1860 . In: British Journal for the History of Science . 22, 1989, pp. 27-52.
  • Crosbie Smith: Hopkins, William (1793-1866). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of May 2007 Registration required.
  • Hopkins William , Dictionary of National Biography XXVII (1891), pp. 339-340

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Hopkins, William . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 13 : Harmony - Hurstmonceaux . London 1910, p. 685 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 2007.
  3. ^ AT Fuller: Routh, Edward John (1831-1907) . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004 ( oxforddnb.com ).
personal data
SURNAME Hopkins, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English mathematician and geologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1793
PLACE OF BIRTH Kingston-on-Soar , Nottinghamshire
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 1866
Place of death Cambridge