1. William Hopkins FRS was an English mathematician and geologist.
15 Facts About William Hopkins
1. 2.
William Hopkins made important contributions in asserting a solid, rather than fluid, interior for the Earth and explaining many geological phenomena in terms of his model.
3.
William Hopkins instead maintained himself as a private tutor, coaching the young mathematicians who sought the prestigious distinction of Senior Wrangler.
4.
William Hopkins to use a Cantab expression is a regular brick; tells funny stories connected with different problems and is no way Donnish; he rattles us on at a splendid pace and makes mathematics anything but a dry subject by entering thoroughly into its metaphysics.
5.
William Hopkins coached Edward Routh who went on to be Senior Wrangler and himself a prodigious "wrangler maker".
6.
In 1833, William Hopkins published Elements of Trigonometry and became distinguished for his mathematical knowledge.
7.
About 1833, through meeting Adam Sedgwick at Barmouth and joining him in several excursions, William Hopkins became intensely interested in geology.
8.
William Hopkins conceived of a largely solid but dynamic Earth threaded with cavities whereby hot vapours or fluids could create locally elevatory pressures.
9.
William Hopkins presented a series of papers at the Royal Society between 1838 and 1842 analysing the Earth's rotation, including its precession and nutation, and using observations to support his theory, contending that they were inconsistent with a fluid interior.
10.
William Hopkins interpreted earthquakes and volcanoes through the same model in an 1847 British Association report.
11.
William Hopkins further asserted that the cooling of the Earth had had no real impact on climate.
12.
William Hopkins wrote on the motion of glaciers and the transport of glacial erratics but trespassed on the sensitivities of JD Forbes who saw the subject as his personal fiefdom and was contemptuous of William Hopkins's lack of observational experience in the subject.
13.
William Hopkins spent the end of his life in a lunatic asylum in Stoke Newington.
14.
William Hopkins had, with his second wife, one son and three daughters, among them morality campaigner Ellice Hopkins.
15.
William Hopkins was mainly associated with Cambridge University Cricket Club and made 4 known appearances in first-class matches.