Robert Smith

Robert Smith was an English mathematician, born probably at Lea near Gainsborough about 16 October 1689 and dead at Trinity College on 2 February 1768. The son of a rector, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1708, became a minor fellow in 1714, a major fellow in 1715 and a senior fellow in 1739, and was chosen Master of the college in 1742 in succession to Richard Bentley. From 1716 to 1760 he was Plumian Professor of Astronomy, succeeding his cousin Roger Cotes, whose works he edited, and in 1719 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. His A Compleat System of Opticks of 1738 earned him the nickname Old Focus, and his Harmonics, or the Philosophy of Musical Sounds followed in 1749. He helped spread Newton's ideas in Europe, and in his will he left South Sea stock to the University of Cambridge, the income of which still funds the Smith's Prize and part of the Plumian chair.