THE 2019 BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS / GRESHAM COLLEGE ANNUAL LECTURE
The event will focus upon mathematical expeditions, outlining how the use of mathematics has been instrumental to the success of historical voyages of exploration.
The main speaker, Professor Ana Simões, will discuss A Global History of the Eclipse of 29 May 1919 (6pm). This will be preceded by shorter presentations by Dr Stephen Johnson on Privateer and Mathematician: the Voyages of Edward Wright (4pm) and by Dr Rebekah Higgitt on Mathematical Practice and 18th-Century British Voyages of Scientific Exploration (4:45pm).
Rebekah is a Senior Lecturer at the School of History, University of Kent. From 2008 to 2013 she was Curator of History of Science and Technology at the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
She is currently leading a research project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, ‘Metropolitan Science: Places, Objects and Cultures of Practice and Knowledge in London, 1600-1800'. She is the author of Recreating Newton: Newtonian Biography and the Making of Nineteenth-Century History of Science (2007) and co-author of Finding Longitude (2014) and Maskelyne: Astronomer Royal (2014).
