Seth Ward (bishop of Salisbury)
Seth Ward ( * March 1617 in Aspenden, Hertfordshire, † January 6, 1689 in Knightsbridge, Middlesex ) was an English mathematician, astronomer, and bishop.
Ward came from a poor family and studied from 1632 at the University of Cambridge. His mathematical talents were on the first Savilian Professor of Astronomy John Bainbridge. 1637 he received his bachelor's degree. In 1640 he became a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, and in 1643 Professor ( Lecturer ) of Mathematics at Cambridge. In the same year he took private lessons in mathematics at William Oughtred and then used material from the textbook Clavis Mathematicae by Oughtred in his lectures. Since he did not recognize the Solemn League and Covenant, he lost his post in 1644 in Cambridge. He went to friends in London, Oughtred visited in Albury and was tutor to the family of Ralph Freeman in Aspenden. After the validity of the Solemn League and Covenant easing it in 1649 Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford. Cromwell had previously done the old Savilian Professor John Greaves year. Ward lived at Wadham College, where he established an observatory. He was the first who taught the Copernican system in Oxford.
He was one of the founding members of the Royal Society ( 1663 ) and previously a member of its predecessor organizations, the Oxford Philosophical Society. Other members were Robert Boyle, John Wilkins ( Head of Wadham College ), Thomas Willis, Jonathan Goddard, John Wallis, who were also the founding members of the Royal Society. Also in the Oxford Philosophical Society demonstration experiments were presented and collected papers of members for publication.
During his tenure as a professor at Oxford University, he published his major works on the theory of planetary motion in 1653 appeared in Ismaelis Bulli Aldi astronomiae philolaicae funda inquisitio brevis ( in which he encountered attacks by Ismael Boulliau on the Kepler 's laws of planetary motion) and 1656 Astronomia geometrica.
He also wrote mathematical works such as Idea trigonometriae demonstratae (1654 ). In the same year he defended John Wilkins in Vindiciae Academiarum the university scholars against the charge of army chaplain John Webster ( Academiarum exam 1654) to be blind arrested Aristotelianism and little to the advancement of contemporary science (mathematics and science ) to contribute, as opposed to mathematicians as Oughtred, John Napier and Henry Briggs. Even with Thomas Hobbes, who attacked the mathematics and the universities, there was a dispute at Thomae Hobbii philosophiam exercitation epistolica of 1656, responded to the Hobbes with his six Lessonts to the Savilian Professor of Mathematics in the same year.
1654 he received a degree in theology from Oxford University and in 1657 he was elected President of Jesus College, Oxford, the office but never served as Oliver Cromwell another preferred. In 1659 he became president of Trinity College, Oxford, but lost the post after the accession of Charles II. 1661 he joined the Office of the Savilian professor back ( he was succeeded by Christopher Wren ) and became Bishop of Exeter in 1662 ( the post of Dean of he had already Exeter). He was an opponent of the Nonconformists as a bishop and built the cathedral. In 1667 he became bishop in Salisbury, where he also restored the cathedral and the bishop's palace rebuilt. He is buried in the cathedral.