Robert Woodhouse (28 April 177323 December 1827) was a British mathematician and astronomer.
Biography
Early life and education
Robert Woodhouse was born on 28 April 1773 in
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
,
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
, the son of Robert Woodhouse,
linen draper, and Judith Alderson, the daughter of a
Unitarian minister from
Lowestoft.
Robert junior was baptised at
St George's Church, Colegate, Norwich, on 19 May, 1773. A younger son, John Thomas Woodhouse, was born in 1780. The brothers were educated at the
Paston School in
North Walsham
North Walsham is a market town and civil parish in Norfolk, England, within the North Norfolk district.
Demography
The civil parish has an area of and in the 2011 census had a population of 12,634. For the purposes of local government, the pa ...
, north of Norwich.
In May 1790 Woodhouse was admitted to
Gonville and Caius College
Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of th ...
,
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
,
the college where Paston pupils were traditionally sent.
In 1795 he graduated as the
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 ...
(ranked first among the mathematics undergraduates at the university), and took the First
Smith's Prize.
He obtained his
Master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice. at Cambridge in 1798.
Marriage and career at Cambridge
Woodhouse 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 ...
of the college from 1798 to 1823, after which he resigned so as to be able to marry Harriet, the daughter of William Wilkin, a Norwich architect.
They were married on 20 February 1823; the marriage produced a son, also named Robert.
Harriet Woodhouse died at Cambridge on 31 March 1826.
Woodhouse was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...
on 16 December 1802.
His earliest work, entitled the ''Principles of Analytical Calculation'', was published at Cambridge in 1803. In this he explained the
differential notation and strongly pressed the employment of it; but he severely criticised the methods used by continental writers, and their constant assumption of non-evident principles.
In 1809 Woodhouse published a textbook covering
planar trigonometry and
spherical trigonometry
Spherical trigonometry is the branch of spherical geometry that deals with the metrical relationships between the sides and angles of spherical triangles, traditionally expressed using trigonometric functions. On the sphere, geodesics are grea ...
and the next year a historical
treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions." Tre ...
on the
calculus of variations and
isoperimetrical problems. He next produced an
astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...
; of which the first book (usually bound in two volumes), on practical and descriptive astronomy, was issued in 1812, and the second book, containing an account of the treatment of physical astronomy by
Pierre-Simon Laplace
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He summarized ...
and other continental writers, was issued in 1818.
Woodhouse became the
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics
The Lucasian Chair of Mathematics () is a mathematics professorship in the University of Cambridge, England; its holder is known as the Lucasian Professor. The post was founded in 1663 by Henry Lucas, who was Cambridge University's Member of Pa ...
in 1820, but the small income caused him to resign the professorship in 1822 and instead accept the better paid post as the
Plumian professor in the university.
As Plumian Professor he was responsible for installing and adjusting the transit instruments and clocks at the
Cambridge Observatory.
Woodhouse did not exercise much influence on the majority of his contemporaries, and the movement might have died away for the time being if it had not been for the advocacy of
George Peacock,
Charles Babbage, and
John Herschel, who formed the
Analytical Society, with the object of advocating the general use in the university of analytical methods and of the differential notation. Woodhouse was the first director of the newly built
observatory at Cambridge, a post he held until his death in 1827.
On his death in Cambridge he was buried in
Caius College
Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...
chapel.
Notes
References
Sources
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Further reading
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External links
Facsimile of Woodhouse's certificate of election to the Royal Society
Works
* 1803:
Principles of Analytical Calculation'
* 1809:
A Treatise on Plane and Spherical Trigonometry' (5th edition 1827)
* 1810:
A Treatise on Isoperimetric Problems and the Calculus of Variations'
* 1818:
An Elementary Treatise on Physical Astronomy, volume 1'
* 1818:
An Elementary Treatise on Astronomy, volume 2'
* 1821:
A Treatise on Astronomy, Theoretical and Practical'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Woodhouse, Robert
1773 births
1827 deaths
Burials in Cambridgeshire
People from Norwich
19th-century English mathematicians
Lucasian Professors of Mathematics
Mathematical analysts
Senior Wranglers
Fellows of the Royal Society
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Plumian Professors of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy