Professor Robin Wilson appointed as new Gresham Professor of Geometry

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.