The Rouse Ball Professorship of Mathematics is one of the senior

chairs A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. It may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or Upholstery, upholstered ...

in the Mathematics Departments at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. The two positions were founded in 1927 by a bequest from the mathematician

W. W. Rouse Ball Walter William Rouse Ball (14 August 1850 – 4 April 1925), known as W. W. Rouse Ball, was a British mathematician, lawyer, and fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1878 to 1905. He was also a keen amateur magician, and the founding ...

. At Cambridge, this bequest was made with the "hope (but not making it in any way a condition) that it might be found practicable for such Professor or Reader to include in his or her lectures and treatment historical and philosophical aspects of the subject."

List of Rouse Ball Professors at Cambridge

* 1928–1950

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

* 1950–1958

Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch (or Besikovitch; ; 23 January 1891 – 2 November 1970) was a Russian mathematician, who worked mainly in England. He was born in Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov (now in Ukraine) to a Karaite Jewish family. Life and ...

* 1958–1969

Harold Davenport Harold Davenport FRS (30 October 1907 – 9 June 1969) was an English mathematician, known for his extensive work in number theory. Early life and education Born on 30 October 1907 in Huncoat, Lancashire, Davenport was educated at Accringto ...

* 1971–1993

John G. Thompson John Griggs Thompson (born October 13, 1932) is an American mathematician at the University of Florida noted for his work in the field of finite groups. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970, the Wolf Prize in 1992, and the Abel Prize in 2008. ...

* 1994–1997

Nigel Hitchin Nigel James Hitchin FRS (born 2 August 1946) is a British mathematician working in the fields of differential geometry, gauge theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics. He is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of O ...

* 1998–2020

William Timothy Gowers Sir William Timothy Gowers, (; born 20 November 1963) is a British mathematician. He is the holder of the Combinatorics chair at the Collège de France, a director of research at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College, Camb ...

* 2023–

Wendelin Werner Wendelin Werner (born 23 September 1968) is a German-born French mathematician working on random processes such as self-avoiding random walks, Brownian motion, Schramm–Loewner evolution, and related theories in probability theory and mathematic ...

List of Rouse Ball Professors at Oxford

The chair at Oxford was established with a £25,000 bequest and was initially advertised by the University as a Chair in Mathematical Physics. The Rouse Ball Professor is now hosted at the university's Mathematical Institute, and holds a Fellowship at

Wadham College Wadham College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy Wadham, a ...

. * 1928–1950 E. A. Milne * 1952–1972

Charles Coulson Charles Alfred Coulson (13 December 1910 – 7 January 1974) was a British applied mathematician and theoretical chemist. Coulson's major scientific work was as a pioneer of the application of the quantum theory of valency to problems of ...

* 1973–1999

Roger Penrose Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, Philosophy of science, philosopher of science and Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics i ...

Emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics * 1999–2020

Philip Candelas Philip Candelas, (born 24 October 1951, London, UK) is a British physicist and mathematician. After 20 years at the University of Texas at Austin, he served as Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford until 2020 and is a F ...

Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics * 2020–

Luis Fernando Alday Luis Fernando Alday is presently Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Head of the Mathematical Physics Group. His research interests are bootstrap approach to conformal field theories and string theory, several asp ...

, currently Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics

References

{{Reflist Mathematics, Rouse Ball Mathematics, Rouse Ball Faculty of Mathematics, University of Cambridge Mathematics, Rouse Ball 1927 establishments in England Mathematics education in the United Kingdom Lists of people associated with the University of Oxford Rouse Ball Professors of Mathematics (University of Oxford)

List of Rouse Ball Professors at Cambridge

List of Rouse Ball Professors at Oxford

See also

References