While the Professorship is now a high-profile research post in applied mathematics, it has previously been held by physicians, an astronomer, and several people in the eighteenth century whose credentials in natural philosophy are much less clear.
This edited volume traces the varied history of the chair through the first four centuries of its existence, combining specialised contributions from historians of medicine, of science, of mathematics, and of universities, together with personal reminiscences of some of the more recent holders of the post.