The Rouse Ball Professorship of Mathematics is one of the senior chairs in the Mathematics Departments at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. The two positions were founded in 1927 by a bequest from the mathematician W. W. Rouse Ball. At Cambridge, this bequest was made with the "hope (but not making it in any way a condition) that it might be found practicable for such Professor or Reader to include in his or her lectures and treatment historical and philosophical aspects of the subject."
Contents
List of Rouse Ball Professors at Cambridge
1928–1950 John Edensor Littlewood
1950–1958 Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch
1958–1969 Harold Davenport
1971–1993 John G. Thompson
1994–1997 Nigel Hitchin
1998–2020 William Timothy Gowers
2023– Wendelin Werner
List of Rouse Ball Professors at Oxford
The chair at Oxford was established with a £25,000 bequest and was initially advertised by the University as a Chair in Mathematical Physics. The Rouse Ball Professor is now hosted at the university's Mathematical Institute, and holds a Fellowship at Wadham College.
1928–1950 E. A. Milne
1952–1972 Charles Coulson
1973–1999 Roger Penrose, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics
1999–2020 Philip Candelas, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics
2020– Luis Fernando Alday, currently Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics