Lucasian professor
The incumbent of the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, the Lucasian professor is the holder of a mathematical professorship at Cambridge University. The post was founded in 1663 by Henry Lucas, who was Cambridge University's Member of Parliament from 1639–1640, and was officially established by King Charles II on January 18, 1664. Lucas, in his will, bequeathed his library of 4,000 volumes to the University and left instruction for the purchase of land whose yielding would provide £100 a year for the founding of a professorship. One of the requirements in Lucas' will was that the holder of the professorship should not be active in the church. Isaac Newton would later appeal to King Charles II that this requirement excused him from taking holy orders, which was compulsory for all Fellows of the University at that time, but which would have been incompatible with his Arian beliefs. The King supported Newton and excused all holders of the professorship, in perpetuity, from the requirement to take holy orders.
List of Lucasian Professors 1664 Isaac Barrow1669 Sir Isaac Newton1702 William Whiston1711 Nicolas Saunderson1739 John Colson1760 Edward Waring1798 Isaac Milner1820 Robert Woodhouse1822 Thomas Turton1826 Sir George Airy1828 Charles Babbage1839 Joshua King1849 Sir George Stokes1903 Sir Joseph Larmor1932 Paul Dirac1969 Sir M. James Lighthill1980 Stephen Hawking In the last episode of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the android Data (one of the main characters on the show) holds the Lucasian Chair. This episode is set around the year 2395.
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