Robert Stawell Ball

Sir Robert Stawell Ball, born in Dublin on 1 July 1840 and died in Cambridge on 25 November 1913, was an Irish mathematician and astronomer who was as well known for his popular lectures as for his research. Educated at Trinity College Dublin, he worked as tutor to the sons of the third Earl of Rosse at Birr Castle, where he used the great 72-inch reflecting telescope, and then became professor of applied mathematics and mechanics at the Royal College of Science in Dublin. His main mathematical subject was dynamics, in particular the theory of screws, which he set out in his 1876 book The Theory of Screws and which won the Cunningham medal of the Royal Irish Academy in 1879. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1873, became Royal Astronomer of Ireland at Dunsink Observatory in 1874, and in 1892 took the Lowndean chair of astronomy and geometry at Cambridge, where he later also directed the observatory. He was knighted in 1886 and wrote widely read books such as A Story of the Heavens.