Nicholas Saunderson: The blind Lucasian professor (Q1206484)

The author describes life and career of Nicholas Saunderson (1682-1739). Although Saunderson was blinded by smallpox at the age of one he became a successful teacher. In 1711 he was elected the fourth Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge though I. Newton had favoured another candidate. It was one of the very rare cases in which the man Newton supported did not get the job. Saunderson wrote two successful mathematical textbooks, invented a palpable arithmetic and gave popular descriptive lectures on natural sciences. The article is closed by some remarks on the literary digestion of Saunderson's death bed scene by D. Diderot and other writers.