Saunderson, NICHOLAS

Saunderson, NICHOLAS, the blind mathematician, was born at Thurlstone in Yorkshire in January 1682. He lost his eyesight from smallpox at the age of twelve months, but received a good education in both classics and mathematics. In 1707 he proceeded to Cambridge, and there delivered a series of lectures on the Newtonian philosophy, including Newton's theory of optics. Four years afterwards he was appointed to succeed Whiston as Lucasian professor of Mathematics. He was on friendly terms with Newton, Demoiivre, Halley, and other eminent mathematicians amongst his contemporaries. He died 19th April 1739. A Life is prefixed to his Elements of Algebra (2 vols. 1740); another treatise by him on Fluxions, including a discussion of the principal propositions in Newton's Principia, appeared in 1756. It is said that, in spite of his blindness, he understood the rules of perspective, the projections of the sphere, and some of the more recondite propositions of solid geometry.