Oxford's Savilian Professors of Astronomy The First 400 Years

by Wilson, Robin; Balbus, Steven

• ISBN13: 9780198894292
• ISBN10: 0198894295
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780198894315
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2026-03-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Author Biography

Robin Wilson, Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics, The Open University,Steven Balbus, Senior Research Fellow and Emeritus Savilian Professor of Astronomy, Oxford University

Robin Wilson is an Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics at the Open University, and of Geometry at Gresham College, London, and is a former Fellow of Keble College, Oxford University. A former President of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, he has written and edited over fifty books on mathematics and its history, including sixteen books for OUP. Involved with the popularization and communication of these subjects, he has received international awards for his 'outstanding expository writing' and for his outreach activities.


Steven Balbus is the Emeritus Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford University, a Senior Research Fellow at New College, and an Honorary Professor at University College London. He read mathematics and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his undergraduate studies and gained his PhD in theoretical astrophysics from the University of California, Berkeley. He has also held faculty positions at the University of Virginia, and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Widely recognised for his work in theoretical astrophysics, he is the recipient of the Shaw Prize in Astronomy, the Eddington Medal of the RAS, the Dirac Medal of the IOP, and is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Table of Contents

1. Sir Henry Savile and the early professors, Robert Goulding2. Interregnum and Restoration, Adam Jared Apt3. The Newtonians, Natasha Bailey4. James Bradley, John Fisher5. The Enlightenment professors, Rob Iliffe and Sarah Dry6. The Victorians, Roger Hutchins7. The 20th century, Lee Macdonald8. The golden age of cosmology, Pedro G. Ferreira9. Interview with Steven Balbus, Chris Lintott