Lucasian Chair.org

The 1600s were a transitional time for many facets of English life including government and politics. The first fifty years were more or less characterized by the traditional government by the king, until the Civil Wars in the 1640s and the execution of Charles I in 1649. From then until 1660, the government was either a republic or a protectorate under Oliver Cromwell (with one year under Cromwell's son). Times were difficult, but with the calling of King Charles II by Parliament in 1660, the crown was restored and the government stabilized. It also meant the restoration of the authority of the Anglican church, and a decline in toleration for non-Anglicans, especially Puritans. ¹

King Charles II reigned until 1685, followed by James II for three years, after which came the ``Interregnum" lasting only a few months. Parliament then made a deal with William and Mary to become king and queen, a reign which lasted until 1694 (the Glorious Revolution). William ruled alone from 1694 to 1702.

During the reign of William and Mary, a number of legislative acts were passed by Parliament that directly affected religion and the universities. The Clarendon Code, consisting of the Corporation Act (1661), the Act of Conformity (1662), the Conventicle Act (1664) and the Five Mile Act (1665), was intended to keep religious nonconformists out of authority.²

In 1673, King Charles II issued a Declaration of Indulgence for Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters. Parliament passed the Test Act requiring any civil or military office holder to declare loyalty to the Church of England and denounce Catholicism.³ The power struggle continued between Parliament and the king, which was really a battle between the Church of England and Catholicism.

With the succession of King James II, the struggle for power continued. James placed Catholics in positions of power in military and civil offices. His Court Commission of Ecclesiastical Causes required the acceptance of Catholics at both Oxford and Cambridge. Many fellows were forced to leave because they were Anglicans.⁴

Another Declaration of Indulgence was issued in 1687 to allow dissenters to worship publicly, and still another in 1688. After a few more provocative events, William of Orange was invited to invade England in order to dispense with James. In response, James restored the fellows who had been dismissed, returned Protestants to power and abolished the Ecclesiastical Court, but to no avail. William conquered England in 1688 and ruled until his death in 1702.

Each change of the crown brought parliament closer to becoming the governing force in England. Each time, the new crown accepted more limits as the underlying philosophical argument of the divine right of kings was pummeled until it was defeated. During this time, the Tories and Whigs were locked in battle, creating ripples that were felt not only at Cambridge, but in the village pulpit as well.

The religious setting was complicated. Unlike the rest of Europe, the Catholics were weak in England. The Protestants were divided into a number of groups operating outside the authority of the Anglican Church of England, which was a source of difficulties. Congregationalists, Baptists and Presbyterians were labeled ``Non-conformists" or ``Dissenters" and other radicals such as ``primitive Christians" and Latitudinarians were on the scene.

The various groups were differentiated by both religious beliefs and political affiliation. Fundamental differences existed over the doctrine of transubstantiation and the Trinity (hence Unitarians) on the religious side. The political battles were fought by kings, Whigs and Tories. Since religion was such an integral part of daily life, it cannot be separated from politics, jobs or education. Daily life was affected by the changes in power. Parliament controlled what it could through the king's dependency on it for financial support, but the king received help from foreign governments. External wars were fought to gain internal control, and then the king would dismiss parliament. The Anglican Church would periodically lose then regain status. By 1660, England was the center of a revolution that affected every phase of public and private life.

Just as the period just prior to the founding of the Lucasian chair was a complicated time when one looks at the state of science, religion, politics and the university, the period from 1663 through the turn of the century was also complicated by significant events affecting the status quo.

Religious tests were part of university life from the beginning and lasted for a long time. To be admitted to a degree, the student was compelled to subscribe to the ecclesiastical supremacy of the crown, the Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of the Church of England. An act of parliament in the first year of Queen Elizabeth's reign compelled anyone receiving a degree to take the Oath of Supremacy. In 1604 the canons required all lecturers and readers in divinity to subscribe to the Articles as well.

In 1613, James I demanded that in addition to recipients of the bachelor's degree of divinity, everyone receiving a doctor's degree would also subscribe to all three articles. In 1616, he demanded that everyone receiving a degree of any kind subscribe to the articles.⁵ Changing the requirement from including only the divinity degree recipients to including all degree recipients and from a general acknowledgement of the articles to including a swearing of an oath, set the stage for centuries of disputes and endless efforts to win dispensations from the requirements.

On many occasions Cambridge University suffered directly from political events, that had underlying religious motivations. For example, from 1660 to 1662 forty--seven people were ejected for non--conformity. This was fewer than Oxford, but the purge was still a serious intrusion into academic life.⁶

In terms of mathematics, Cambridge had little to offer before 1660. There was only one mathematical reader in 1600. In 1625, a Cambridge report pointed out that mathematics was all but totally neglected. A few years later in 1631, William Oughtred of Cambridge produced a book on arithmetic and algebra that marked the beginning of the rise of mathematics at Cambridge. From then to 1660, only a few more mathematicians appeared, but all prepared the way for the Lucasian Chair and Sir Isaac Newton.⁷ Cambridge was just waiting for the great changes that were about to happen.

Some Cambridge University vocabulary should be explained at this point in the discussion. The term sizar describes a poor student admitted to the university with an exemption from some expenses. For example, he would not be required to pay for meals, but as a consequence, he would dine after everyone else on the leftovers. Generally, he came from a family of small farmers, poor clergy or petty tradesmen.⁸

A pensioner was the next step up the social strata. Generally he was a student from a poor background, and often he was the second or third son to attend Cambridge. The first son could be admitted as a fellow-commoner , the third step in the social ladder. Expenses became a problem when more than one child attended at the same time, so the eldest son enjoyed a higher status than his younger brothers.

The top of the social structure was occupied by the noblemen. They paid much higher fees than the other classes, but they also enjoyed privileges at meals, were permitted to skip the lectures and still pass, and were protected when indiscretions occurred. It was not unusual for these students to waste their time at Cambridge.

Another important term is wrangler. The highest level is senior wrangler , the winner of an academic competition just before graduation, and the best mathematics student of the year. The competition was intense with the prestigious title bestowed upon victory. The term wrangler comes from the idea that the examiner and the student would wrangle in Latin under the direction of a moderator. To start the competition, a student would announce three theses that he was prepared to defend in the wrangle. Examiners were appointed to oppose the theses in public. This method of examination was discontinued in 1830 after it became common for arguments to be prepared in advance.

The Smith's Prize first given in 1769,⁹ was a separate competition in which students provided written answers to difficult questions, which in turn were evaluated by a special committee. Often the senior wrangler won the Smith's Prize. Eight Lucasian professors were winners of the Smith's Prize, from Isaac Milner through Joseph Larmor. The chain was broken with Paul Dirac, who received his undergraduate degree from the University of Bristol before coming to Cambridge.

These terms are important because many Lucasian professors were the best of their class, senior wranglers and winners of the Smith's Prize. Several of them, including Isaac Barrow, Sir Isaac Newton and Sir George Airy were even sizars, starting out life quite poor and disadvantaged, nevertheless rising to great heights.

Mathematics and science in the seventeenth century passed through an unprecedented period of transition. Galileo and Bruno, who suffered for their public declarations of science over superstition, were the basis for Newton's revolution. Barrow and Newton supplied the foundation for the Lucasian Chair. Barrow provided the transition from classical education and thinking to an established post of excellence, and Newton provided the explanation of why the earlier, persecuted scientists were correct. These two men created the road that is followed today.

The period from Galileo to Newton is known as The Scientific Revolution for good reason. Although characterized as a triumph of science over religion, that was not entirely the case. It was just as much, if not more, an age when the proper understanding of the universe became available to anyone who wanted to have it. The rise in the level of awareness for the people of Europe was not unlike the individual who comes to truly understand something for the first time. Once principles are discovered, the knowledge that follows is far easier to gain. The limiting factor to acquiring the new knowledge becomes the availability of the resources, but the connection between the principles and the knowledge are much clearer. One no longer needs to spend energy trying to understand. The principles can be transmitted to others who can use them in their own way for their own purposes. Breakthrough periods such as the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-eighteenth century are rare. The understanding gained during this time is what makes it so special.

The jump in the level of understanding is more important than even what was understood. The knowledge created during this time has been refined over the centuries. For example, Newton's mechanics have been shown to be limited to speeds that do not approach the speed of light. At relativistic speeds, objects behave differently. But that is not important: it is in fact expected that discoveries will be improved. In our century, we have the example of the airplane. Although the Wright brothers airplane flown at Kitty Hawk in 1903 cannot be compared to today's space shuttle or commercial passenger aircraft, the important feature was that the Wright brothers understood the principles and they solved the problem. After them, anyone could make an airplane. Many did just that with great success, helping to develop the technology and the industry that was built up around it.

Galileo provided a breakthrough with his understanding that motion is a general characteristic of all things, especially the earth. His publications caused him great difficulty that is now legendary, but the point here is not the difficulty, but rather the step that he took on the path toward understanding the universe. He showed that the earth could move. Another important contribution was the experimental approach that he employed. He did not simply think about how things should be; he tried them out. While he may not have dropped objects from the tower at Pisa, as the story goes, he certainly did use an inclined plane to make measurements of falling bodies. He also used the telescope to see into the heavens. He accepted what he saw as real and did not ignore what appeared to be true, even when it conflicted with conventional beliefs.

Galileo was not the only one making progress during the seventeenth century. As he was looking at the sky through the telescope, others such as Anton van Leeuwenhoek were looking at the invisible world of the very small through the microscope, discovering, for example, spermatozoa.¹⁰ Biology and medicine were making advances in the understanding of life, with discoveries such as the circulation of blood by William Harvey.¹¹

In chemistry, Robert Boyle discovered the relationship of gas volume and pressure, known as Boyle's Law. It was an important advance in scientific methodology that made his discovery through experiments and analysis of their results using mathematics.¹²

In the field of mathematics and philosophy Gottfried Leibniz of Germany, Blaise Pascal and Rene Descartes of France made outstanding contributions.¹³ Descartes is the founder of analytic geometry.¹⁴ Leibniz shares in the discovery of calculus, and it is his notation that we use today.¹⁵ The crowning achievement was Newton's work at the end of the century, which acted as a catalyst for the science of the eighteenth century.

One of the more useful advances during the seveteeenth century was the formation of scientific societies which published scientific journals. The societies themselves did not produce the scientific revolution; they were its product, but over time they provided an environment that allowed individuals to make progress by communicating with colleagues within circles that were otherwise difficult to contact.

The first German scientific society was the Societas Erenutica founded in 1622. The Royal Society was founded in England in 1660, followed five years later by the publication of its journal Philosophical Transactions. The British Museum opened its doors soon afterwards in 1676. In Italy, the Accademia del Cimento began its work in 1657. The French instituted the Academie des Sciences in 1666. Not all of these societies shared equally in success, but each was part of a movement that went beyond the individuals of the time.¹⁶

A few short years after the founding of the Royal Society of London, the Lucasian Chair was established. The Lucasian Chair was part of the general movement of the seventeenth century, but unlike the groups of men who composed the societies, the Chair was the realm of the individual. The Chair only transcended the individual through the tradition established by Isaac Barrow.

Footnotes

1. George Trevelyan, English Social History (London: Longman Group, 1978), 222.
2. Christopher Hill, The Century of Revolution, 1603-1714 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980), 167.
3. Hill, 169.
4. Hill, 170.
5. Winstanley, Unreformed Cambridge, 302.
6. John Gascoigne, Cambridge in the Age of the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 30.
7. Robert Gunther, Early Science in Cambridge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937), 35.
8. Winstanley, Unreformed Cambridge, 201.
9. June Barrow-Green
10. Rene Taton, The Beginnings of Modern Science (New York: Basic Books, 1964), 349.
11. Taton, The Beginnings of Modern Science, 349.
12. Taton, The Beginnings of Modern Science, 251.
13. Taton, The Beginnings of Modern Science, 195.
14. Taton, The Beginnings of Modern Science, 204.
15. A. Rupert Hall, From Galileo to Newton (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1963), 98.
16. Taton, The Beginnings of Modern Science, 181.