Samuel Vince

Samuel Vince (6 April 1749 – 28 November 1821) was an English clergyman, mathematician and astronomer at the University of Cambridge.

Samuel Vince
Vince at Cambridge

Life

He was born in Fressingfield. The son of a plasterer, Vince was admitted as a sizar to Caius College, Cambridge in 1771.[1] In 1775 he was Senior Wrangler, and Winner of the Smith Prize at Cambridge. Migrating to Sidney Sussex College in 1777, he gained his M.A. in 1778 and was ordained a clergyman in 1779.[1]

He was awarded the Copley Medal in 1780 and was Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge from 1796 until his death. He became Archdeacon of Bedford in 1809, and died in Ramsgate.[1]

Works

As a mathematician, Vince wrote on many aspects of his expertise, including logarithms and imaginary numbers. His Observations on the Theory of the Motion and Resistance of Fluids[2] and Experiments upon the Resistance of Bodies Moving in Fluids[3] had later importance to aviation history. He was also author of the influential A Complete System of Astronomy (3 vols. 1797-1808).

Vince also published the pamphlet The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, In Answer to Mr. Hume's Objections; In Two Discourses Preached Before the University of Cambridge by the Rev. S. Vince. In this work, Vince made an apology of the Christian religion and, like Charles Babbage, sought to present rational arguments in favor of the belief in miracles, against David Hume's criticism. A review of this work with direct quotations can be found in The British Critic, Volume 12, 1798.[4]

gollark: I got that far, but have no idea what that first block should be.
gollark: (I assume it's because there's no first block, but what am I meant to do?)
gollark: How do you start up a krist node <@173511059582222336>? I got most of the errors to go away, but I can't even mine because of```TypeError: Cannot read property 'id' of null at Function.Blocks.blockToJSON (/opt/Krist/src/blocks.js:200:17) at Function.BlocksController.blockToJSON (/opt/Krist/src/controllers/blocks.js:83:16) at /opt/Krist/src/routes/blocks.js:354:29 at <anonymous> at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:188:7)```
gollark: Someone bought lots of names.
gollark: If anyone knows how, they should probably PR it so that new nodes will actually work.

References
  1. "Samuel Vince (VN771S)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  2. Vince, Samuel (1795). "The Bakerian Lecture. Observations on the Theory of the Motion and Resistance of Fluids; With a Description of the Construction of Experiments, in Order to Obtain Some Fundamental Principles. By the Rev. Samuel Vince, A. M. F. R. S." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 85: 24–45. doi:10.1098/rstl.1795.0004. JSTOR 106943.
  3. Vince, Samuel (1798). "The Bakerian Lecture. Experiments upon the Resistance of Bodies Moving in Fluids. By the Rev. Samuel Vince, A. M. F. R. S. Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy in the University of Cambridge". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 88: 1–14. doi:10.1098/rstl.1798.0002. JSTOR 106967.
  4. The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. pp. 258-263.
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