Gresham Professor of Geometry

From computation to the history of mathematics, the Professorship in Geometry and Other Mathematical Sciences is now over 400 years old. Besides the illustrious modern incumbents, Gresham College is proud to boast Robert Hooke as one of our former Professors.

Latest lecture

Final Score

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Professor John D Barrow FRS

Current Professor

Professor John D Barrow FRS

Professor John D Barrow FRS has been a Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge since 1999, carrying out research in mathematical physics, with special interest in cosmology, gravitation, particle physics and associated applied mathematics.
Since its inception in 1999 John Barrow has been the director of the Millennium Mathematics Project which aims to improve the understanding and appreciation of mathematics and its applications amongst...

Past professors

1 Henry Briggs - 1596/97
2 Peter Turner - 1620
3 John Greaves - 1630/31
4 Ralph Button - 1643
5 Daniel Whistler - 1648
6 Laurence Rooke - 1657
7 Isaac Barrow - 1662
8 Arthur Dacres - 1664
9 Robert Hooke - 1664/65
10 Andrew Tooke - 1704
11 Thomas Tomlinson - 1729
12 George Newland - 1731/32
13 William Roman - 1749
14 Wilfred Clarke - 1759
15 S Kittleby - 1765

16 Samuel Birch - 1808
17 Robert Pitt Edkins - 1848
18 Benjamin Morgan Cowie - 1854
19 Karl Pearson - 1890
20 William Henry Wagstaff - 1894
21 Louis Melville Milne-Thomson - 1946
22 Thomas A A Broadbent - 1956
23 Sir Bryan Thwaites - 1969
24 Clive W Kilmister - 1972
25 Sir Christopher Zeeman - 1988
26 Ian Stewart - 1994
27 Sir Roger Penrose FRS - 1998
28 Harold Thimbleby - 2001
29 Robin Wilson - 2004

All Gresham Professor of Geometry lectures


Final Score	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 24 April 2012
On the Waterfront	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 27 March 2012
Let’s Twist Again: Throwing, Jumping, and Spinning	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 21 February 2012
Citius, Altius, Fortius: Records, Medals and Drug Taking	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 17 January 2012
David and Goliath: Strength and Power in Sport	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 13 December 2011
How Fast Can Usain Bolt Run?	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 15 November 2011
Doing Business in Interstellar Space	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 1 March 2011
Benford’s Very Strange Law	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 1 February 2011
The Uses of Irrationality: Paper Sizes and the Golden Ratio	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 11 January 2011
The Bounce of the Superball	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 7 December 2010
Continued Fractions	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 16 November 2010
Maths with Pictures	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 5 October 2010
Maths and Sport	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 9 March 2010
Trains and Boats and Planes	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 9 February 2010
Codebreaking in Everyday Life	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 12 January 2010
The Maths of Sorting Things Out	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 24 November 2009
Brilliant-cut diamonds and other tricks of the light	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 27 October 2009
A Sense of Balance	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 6 October 2009
How to be a Winner: The maths of race fixing and money laundering	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 3 March 2009
Some Interesting Curves	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Thursday 29 January 2009
The maths of pylon, art galleries and prisons under the spotlight	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Monday 12 January 2009
Harmonic things	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Thursday 11 December 2008
The importance of being peripheral	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Tuesday 25 November 2008
Not just about numbers	Professor John D Barrow FRS	Thursday 9 October 2008
400 years of geometry at Gresham College	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 14 May 2008
From Hilbert's problems to the future	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 27 February 2008
A millennium of mathematical puzzles	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 6 February 2008
Squaring the circle and other impossibilities	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 16 January 2008
4000 years of numbers	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 7 November 2007
4000 Years of Algebra	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 17 October 2007
4000 Years of Geometry	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 3 October 2007
Euler - 300th anniversary lecture	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 9 May 2007
The story of e	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 28 February 2007
The story of i	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 7 February 2007
The story of pi	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 17 January 2007
Mathematics in the 20th century: Chaos, codes and colouring	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 15 November 2006
Mathematics in the modern age - The 19th century: Revolution or evolution?	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 25 October 2006
Mathematics in the modern age - The 18th century: Crossing bridges	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 4 October 2006
YEA, WHY TRY HER RAW WET HAT?	Professor Robin Wilson	Tuesday 2 May 2006
Problems with schoolgirls	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 22 February 2006
How to grow trees	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 1 February 2006
Wallpaper patterns and buckyballs	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 18 January 2006
Who invented the calculus? - and other 17th century topics	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 16 November 2005
Who invented the equals sign?	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 26 October 2005
Who invented algebra?	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 5 October 2005
How hard is a hard problem?	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 9 March 2005
Prime-time mathematics	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 2 February 2005
Much ado about zero	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 17 November 2004
Here’s looking at Euclid	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 27 October 2004
Keep taking the tablets	Professor Robin Wilson	Wednesday 6 October 2004
Better programming	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 13 May 2004
Computer Circles	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 26 February 2004
Plugging Computers in	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 27 November 2003
Magic Pictures	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 30 October 2003
Unplugging computers	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 9 October 2003
Design by Symmetry	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 27 March 2003
Designing Anything: From Lego to Maths	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 13 March 2003
Designing for humans	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 13 February 2003
Designing Mobile Phones	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 28 November 2002
Designing Microwave Cookers	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 24 October 2002
The Computer Science of Everyday Things	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Tuesday 15 October 2002
Designing gadgets	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 26 September 2002
Computer Viruses	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 21 March 2002
Modern Crytography	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 28 February 2002
Conventional Cryptography	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 21 February 2002
Future Computers	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 24 January 2002
From Henry Briggs to Modern Calculators	Professor Harold Thimbleby	Thursday 29 November 2001
Queen Dido’s Hide	Professor Ian Stewart	Tuesday 10 March 1998
Why Have Sex?	Professor Ian Stewart	Wednesday 11 February 1998
The Geometry of Evolution	Professor Ian Stewart	Tuesday 20 January 1998
Beyond the Four Colour Theorem	Professor Ian Stewart	Wednesday 19 November 1997
Travels with my Ant	Professor Ian Stewart	Wednesday 29 October 1997
Hearing the Shape of a Drum	Professor Ian Stewart	Wednesday 15 October 1997
Chippendale’s Lost Geometry	Professor Ian Stewart	Wednesday 21 May 1997
Turing's Tiger	Professor Ian Stewart	Wednesday 9 April 1997
Four Centuries of Logarithms	Professor Ian Stewart	Monday 27 January 1997
Mathematics Applied to Dressmaking	Sir Christopher Zeeman	Tuesday 9 March 1993

Further information

Did you know... John Barrow, current Gresham Professor of Geometry, was formerly the Gresham Professor of Astronomy?
This is a feat achieved only once before, by Lawrence Rooke, Professor of Astronomy and then of Geometry in the mid 17th century.

For an overview of the early Professors of Geometry at Gresham College, please see this lecture by Professor Henry Briggs, Gresham Professor, 1597-1620 (courtesy of Professor Robin Wilson):

The event's page for this lecture can be accessed here: 400 Years of Geometry at Gresham College