Robert Alfred Herman (1861–1927) was a

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

, who coached many students to a high wrangler rank in the

Cambridge Mathematical Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. It is the oldest Tripos examined at the University. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was a ...

. Herman was

senior wrangler The Senior Frog Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain." Specifically, it is the person who a ...

in 1882. In the early days of Tripos, coaches were in private business in rooms off-campus. In the 1880s and 1890s instruction at college improved to the point that coaches merely supervised their students’ progress. Under these conditions the tradition of private coaching fell away, and fellows such as Herman coached students. In 1895 C. Godfrey, who counted Herman as coach, ranked fourth wrangler, and in 1897 when P. H. Ezechiel also came in fourth. In 1898 Herman coached A. H. Pocck who came eighth and C. S. Lloyd who came tenth. In 1899 his students included seventh, ninth, and tenth wranglers. In 1900 senior wrangler J. E. Wright was his student, and his textbook ''A Treatise on Geometrical Optics'' was published. In 1903

Harry Bateman Harry Bateman FRS (29 May 1882 – 21 January 1946) was an English mathematician with a specialty in differential equations of mathematical physics. With Ebenezer Cunningham, he expanded the views of spacetime symmetry of Lorentz and Poincare ...

was senior, P. E. Marrak second, and G. F. S. Hills fifth under Herman’s coaching.

Arthur Eddington Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He was also a philosopher of science and a populariser of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the lumin ...

was senior wrangler in 1904, and Herman had four other students in the ranks of the top ten wranglers.

J. E. Littlewood John Edensor Littlewood (9 June 1885 – 6 September 1977) was a British mathematician. He worked on topics relating to mathematical analysis, analysis, number theory, and differential equations, and had lengthy collaborations with G. H. H ...

(1905) and Arunachala Tyaga Rajan (1906) were senior wranglers,

E. H. Neville Eric Harold Neville, known as E. H. Neville (1 January 1889 London, England – 22 August 1961 Reading, Berkshire, England) was an English mathematician. A heavily fictionalised portrayal of his life is rendered in the 2007 novel ''The Indian ...

came second in 1909, and many other students of Herman made it into the top ranks of wranglers before the ranking was abolished. Each year Herman gave a course in

differential geometry Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and multili ...

. His students

James Jeans Sir James Hopwood Jeans (11 September 187716 September 1946) was an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician. Early life Born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, the son of William Tulloch Jeans, a parliamentary correspondent and author. Jeans was ...

, Harry Bateman, and Arthur Eddington, among others, later proved their facility with methods of differential geometry as they developed the theories of

electromagnetism In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge. It is the second-strongest of the four fundamental interactions, after the strong force, and it is the dominant force in the interactions of a ...

and relativity of spacetime.

Andrew Forsyth Andrew Russell Forsyth, FRS, FRSE (18 June 1858, Glasgow – 2 June 1942, South Kensington) was a British mathematician. Life Forsyth was born in Glasgow on 18 June 1858, the son of John Forsyth, a marine engineer, and his wife Christina ...

reviewed the history of Tripos, and wrote, "my old friend, R. A. Herman, who died a few years ago, a man of unusual manipulative skill, a great and stimulating teacher, the last of the great coaches."

(1935
Old Tripos Days in Cambridge

Mathematical Gazette ''The Mathematical Gazette'' is an academic journal of mathematics education, published three times yearly, that publishes "articles about the teaching and learning of mathematics with a focus on the 15–20 age range and expositions of attractive ...

19: 162-179

Personal life

Herman married in 1888 and died in 1927.

References

* E.H. Neville (1928) "Robert Alfred Herman", ''The Cambridge Review'', 10 February, pp 237 to 9. {{DEFAULTSORT:Herman, Robert Alfred 1861 births 1927 deaths Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge 19th-century English mathematicians Differential geometers