The Council of Gresham College is pleased to announce that it has appointed
Professor Robin Wilson as its new Gresham Professor of Geometry.
Professor Wilson is well-known to Gresham College mathematics enthusiasts as
he has given a number of lectures on mathematics and its history at Gresham
College over the past four years. In response to the demand for such
lectures, as Gresham Professor of Geometry, he will take his audiences on a
journey through the entire history of mathematics from the earliest times up
the present day.
Professor Wilson's lecture series will begin this autumn and he will deliver
six lectures a year for three years. His plan is to devote his three autumn
lectures each year to the history of mathematics while other lectures will
feature contemporary issues in mathematics.
This coming autumn, he will illustrate a wide range of mathematical activity
from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, China, and the Mayan culture of Central
America. Other lectures in winter 2005 will focus on some unsolved problems
of mathematics.
Professor Wilson comments:
"Mathematics is, and has always been a central part of human culture, and I
do not believe that one can fully understand the subject if it is separated
from its historical roots. My proposed lectures are designed to support this
conviction."
"In order to provide variety, and to attract more diverse audiences, the two
series for each year will have different emphases - the first concentrating
primarily on historical and multicultural ideas and the second featuring
mathematical topics of current interest."
Professor Wilson succeeds Professor Harold Thimbleby whose Professorship ends
in May. Previous Chairs of Geometry have included Henry Briggs (co-inventor
of logarithms) and Robert Hooke (inventor of the microscope) in the
seventeenth century, and more recently Sir Christopher Zeeman, Professor Ian
Stewart and Sir Roger Penrose.
Further details about Professor Wilson's lectures and events will be
available on the Gresham College website at http://www.gresham.ac.uk over the next few months.
