William Whiston

William Whiston ( born December 9, 1667 Norton in the County of Leicestershire, † August 22 1752 in Kensington ) was an English theologian and physicist.

Life

Whiston enjoyed a private school education, partly because of his fragile health, in part because he served his blind father, an Anglican clergyman to help you write. After the death of his father he entered the Clare College in Cambridge, where he studied theology, but also more and more employed with mathematics. In 1693 he received a scholarship from the university. Thereafter, however, he was first minister under John Moore (1646-1714), bishop of Ely, of which he was in 1698 used as provost of Lowestoft.

In 1701 he resigned his church position to become the deputy Newton in Cambridge, whom he succeeded two years later on the Luca -sian chair of mathematics. Here he conducted joint research with his Junior Professor Roger Cotes.

For several years he wrote and continued to preach with considerable success on mathematical and theological topics. His studies, probably inspired by Isaac Newton, brought him to the conviction that Arianism was the faith of the early church. In contrast to Newton and other colleagues who communicated this knowledge only in the inner circle, went for Whiston opinion formation and release hand in hand. He was soon notorious for his heretical beliefs. Since all professors had to confess to the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity in writing, he was dismissed from his professorship and expelled from the university. The rest of his life he spent in ceaseless dispute theological, mathematical, chronological and other kinds So he challenged Newton's chronological system of the Bible with success.

After losing the professorship he moved to London and lived on the income from an estate. To improve the financial situation he teamed up with Francis Hauksbee. From 1713 she gave lectures on mechanics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, optics in London coffee houses. They were very popular, partly because they were associated with experimental demonstrations. The 1714 published course manual even served as a template for courses at the University of Oxford.

Whistons last release were his three-volume memoirs (1749-1750), which did not get the attention it deserves. This work was mainly a collection of strange anecdotes and descriptions of religious and moral tendencies of the age. In 1747 he left the Anglican Church and joined the Baptists. He died on August 22, 1752 in the house of Samuel Barker, the husband of his daughter Sarah. His wife Ruth was deceased in 1751.

Work

William Whiston is the author of A New Theory of the Earth, a treatise on Creationism and the Geology of flooding. In it, he claimed that the biblical accounts in Genesis are scientifically explainable on the Flood and possess a historical core. It was based on new scientific evidence as the celestial mechanics of Newton and geological theories, which were then developed to prove the Bible. For example, he explains the Flood by directed by God comets, ideas, inter alia, were revived by Immanuel Velikovsky. This essay was praised by both Isaac Newton and John Locke high. He was held by Edmund Halley one of the first, the comet for periodic phenomena. In his essay, Astronomical Principles of Religion, he represented Halley hollow earth theory and found out about Halley continuous evidence from the Bible that the inner worlds are also inhabited.

In 1736 he spread excitement among London residents, when he predicted that the world on 13 October in the year under was leaving because a comet would strike the earth. The Archbishop of Canterbury had to deny this prediction publicly to reassure the public. Nevertheless, many Londoners went to Hampstead to see the demise of London as a prelude to the Last Judgment. A humorous description can be found in Jonathan Swift.

He was also known for his translations of the annotated Antiquitates Judaicae and other works of Flavius ​​Josephus.

Longitude problem

On the solution of the linear problem, however, he tried unsuccessfully. In 1714 he had together with the London mathematician Humphry Ditton appealed to the Parliament with a proposal to organize a cash prize for solving the longitude problem. Newton, Samuel Clarke, Cotes and Halley supported the petition and the Parliament began with the Longitude Act of 20,000 pounds reward. The 1714 submitted by Whiston and Ditton proposals were unworkable, including a method with the magnetic declination. In 1718 he learned of the German geographer Christoph Eberhard originally developed by Christoph Semler method using the magnetic inclination. Supported by private patrons he could test the method on sea voyages, but it proved not to be applicable. The mathematical method developed by him for the preparation of the isoclinic maps of southern England were far ahead of their time.

Publications

  • A New Theory of the Earth, From its Original, to the Consummation of All Things, Where the Creation of the World in Six Days, the Universal Deluge, And the General Conflagration, As laid down in the Holy Scriptures, are shewn to be perfectly Are agreeable to Reason and Philosophy. , London 1696
  • A Short View of the Chronology of the Old Testament, and of the Harmony of the Four Evangelists, Cambridge, 1702
  • An Essay on the Revelation of Saint John, So Far as Concerns the Past and Present Times, 1706
  • Arithmetica universalis, 1707, edition of Newton's lectures
  • Praelectiones astronomicae Cantabrigiae in Scholis Habitae, London, 1707
  • Sermons and Essays, 1709
  • Praelectiones Physico - mathematicae Cantabrigiae in Scholis Publicis Habitae, 1710
  • Primitive Christianity Revived, 1711-1712
  • Wilhelm Whistons ... Nova tellvris theoria, that is, consideration of the New Earth: according to their Ersprung and progress bit to bring forth all things, or, A thorough, clear and furnished by beygefügten breaks idea ..., translated from the English by MMSVDM (Michael Swen ), Franckfurt: Ludwig,
  • Astronomical Lectures, 1715
  • Astronomical Principles of Religion, Natural and reveal'd, 1717
  • The longitude and latitude found by the inclinatory or dipping needle: Wherein the laws of magnetism are therefore Discovered; To Which is prefix'd, an historical preface; and to Which is subjoin'd, Mr.Robert Norman's New attractive, or account of the first invention of the dipping needle, London 1721
  • Life of Samuel Clarke, 1730
  • The Astronomical Year: Or an Account of the Great Year MDCCXXXVI. Particularly of the Late Comet, Which was foretold by Sir Isaac Newton ..., London, 1737
  • Primitive New Testament, 1745
  • Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr. William Whiston. London, 1753
  • 1 and 2: Elementa Euclidea Geometriae Planae AC solidae selecta EX Archimede theoremata ejusdemque Trigonometria plana, Venice 1746 (together with Andreas Tacquet )
  • The Works of Flavius ​​Josephus, the Learned and Authentic Jewish Historian and Celebrated Warrior
  • An Experimental Course of Astronomy; Proposed by Mr. Whiston and Mr. Hauksbee

Credentials

  • RJ Howarth: Fitting geomagnetic fields before the invention of least squares. II William Whiston 's isoclinic maps of southern England ( 1719 and 1721), Ann. of Sci. 60 (1 ) (2003 ), 63-84.
Clare College, Cambridge Lucasian Professor of Mathematics Book of Genesis Flood myth Magnetic dip Isocline Integrated Authority File
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