18 Facts About Edward Waring

Edward Waring entered Magdalene College, Cambridge as a sizar and became Senior wrangler in 1757.

Edward Waring was elected a Fellow of Magdalene and in 1760 Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, holding the chair until his death.

Edward Waring made the assertion known as Waring's problem without proof in his writings Meditationes Algebraicae.

Edward Waring was the eldest son of John and Elizabeth Edward Waring, a prosperous farming couple.

Edward Waring belonged to the Hyson Club, whose members included William Paley.

In fact Edward Waring was very young and did not hold the MA, necessary for qualifying for the Lucasian chair, but this was granted him in 1760 by royal mandate.

Edward Waring was awarded its Copley Medal in 1784 but withdrew from the society in 1795, after he had reached sixty, 'on account of [his] age'.

Edward Waring was a member of the academies of sciences of Gottingen and Bologna.

Edward Waring carried out dissections with Richard Watson, professor of chemistry and later bishop of Llandaff.

Edward Waring had a younger brother, Humphrey, who obtained a fellowship at Magdalene in 1775.

Edward Waring wrote a number of papers in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, dealing with the resolution of algebraic equations, number theory, series, approximation of roots, interpolation, the geometry of conic sections, and dynamics.

Lagrange had proved that every positive integer is the sum of not more than four squares; Edward Waring suggested that every positive integer is either a cube or the sum of not more than nine cubes.

Edward Waring published a theorem, due to his friend John Wilson, concerning prime numbers; it was later proven rigorously by Lagrange.

In Proprietates Algebraicarum Curvarum Edward Waring reissued in a much revised form the first four chapters of the second part of Miscellanea Analytica.

Edward Waring devoted himself to the classification of higher plane curves, improving results obtained by Isaac Newton, James Stirling, Leonhard Euler, and Gabriel Cramer.

Edward Waring's work was known both in Britain and on the continent, but it is difficult to evaluate his impact on the development of mathematics.

Edward Waring's style is not systematic and his exposition is often obscure.

Edward Waring was buried in the churchyard at Fitz, Shropshire.