Whiston

William Whiston

Born: 9 Dec 1667 in Norton, Leicestershire, England
Died: 22 Aug 1752 in Lyndon, Rutland, England

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Whiston was ordained in 1693. From 1694 to 1698 he was chaplain to the bishop of Norwich. During this period he wrote A New Theory of the Earth (1696), in which he claimed that the biblical stories of the creation, flood etc. could be explained scientifically as descriptions of events with historical bases.

He was an assistant to Newton at Cambridge from 1701 and then succeeded him in 1703. He fell out with Newton over Bible chronology. His cosmology involved direct intervention by God.

Whiston's views were not popular and he was deprived of his chair in 1710. He left the Church of England in 1747 and joined the Baptists.

Other Web sites:

Rice University, USA
MIT, USA

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. P Casini, L'universo - macchina (Bari, 1969).
  4. J E Force, William Whiston : honest Newtonian (Cambridge, 1985).
  5. M Farrell, William Whiston (New York, 1981).
  6. E G R Taylor, The mathematical practitioners of Hanoverian England 1714-1840 (Cambridge, 1966),146-148. 
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JOC/EFR February 1996