Nicholas Saunderson
Oct. 10th, 2012 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kestrellI just discovered that there is a LucasionChair.org Web site, with this biography of Nicholas Saunderson
http://www.lucasianchair.org/18/saunderson.html
who is one of my heroes. He became blind as a baby but became a wizard at mathematics and, being one of the few people who really understood what Newton was talking about, taught optics at Cambridge, which had turned him down years earlier when he applied to be a student. He also invented his own accessible calculating device and boards for demonstrating geometrical shapes in two dimensions and geometrical forms in three dimensions (I really wish these boards were still produced by some company). Saunderson's fame was actually mostly as a teacher, since he provided such clear explanations of cutting edge mathematics that everyone came to his classes to find out what Newton was actually going on about. I love this idea of a blind person explaining light and form to a packed room of sighted people.
Btw, if you are wondering what the Lucasion Chair is, it is the chair of mathematics at Cambridge University, occupied in the past by Isaac Newton, in the present by Stephen Hawking and, at some point in the future, by Data.
http://www.lucasianchair.org/18/saunderson.html
who is one of my heroes. He became blind as a baby but became a wizard at mathematics and, being one of the few people who really understood what Newton was talking about, taught optics at Cambridge, which had turned him down years earlier when he applied to be a student. He also invented his own accessible calculating device and boards for demonstrating geometrical shapes in two dimensions and geometrical forms in three dimensions (I really wish these boards were still produced by some company). Saunderson's fame was actually mostly as a teacher, since he provided such clear explanations of cutting edge mathematics that everyone came to his classes to find out what Newton was actually going on about. I love this idea of a blind person explaining light and form to a packed room of sighted people.
Btw, if you are wondering what the Lucasion Chair is, it is the chair of mathematics at Cambridge University, occupied in the past by Isaac Newton, in the present by Stephen Hawking and, at some point in the future, by Data.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-11 11:11 pm (UTC)