Curator:
Will Shire—Deputy Librarian, New College, Oxford
For this online exhibition Will edited and expanded on the text used in the Geometry and Astronomy in New College, Oxford publication, produced for the quatercentenary celebrations of the Savilian Chairs in 2019. Extracts were taken from parts of the text of this book, whilst other parts were adapted to make them more suitable for online publication. Like New College’s first online exhibition, this second online exhibition will help to showcase New College’s outstanding collections with as wide an audience as possible, complementing the Library’s successful physical exhibitions programme each year.
Thanks:
This online exhibition would not have been possible without the support of Olamalu, who designed the website, and Colin Dunn from Scriptura, who produced many of the digital images as well as the design of the physical publication that the online exhibition is based on.
This exhibition adapts text written by:
Prof Steven Balbus, Savilian Professor of Astronomy, New College, Oxford
Dr Felix Flicker, former Astor Junior Research Fellow in Physics, New College, Oxford
Anna-Lujz Gilbert, former Library Visiting Student, New College, Oxford
Prof Frances Kirwan, former Savilian Professor of Geometry, New College, Oxford
Alexandra Plane, former Special Collections Curatorial Assistant, New College, Oxford
Dr Will Poole, Fellow Librarian, New College, Oxford
Dr Christopher Skelton-Foord, Librarian, New College, Oxford
Publication:
For those interested in discovering more, the physical publication that this online exhibition is based upon is available for purchase. Details of the book and how to purchase it are available here.
Images:
Unless otherwise indicated, all images are in the public domain or are © Courtesy of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford. If you wish to reproduce an image in any way or have any questions about the images, please contact the Librarian.
Further Reading:
This online exhibition is based on and includes excerpts from the following publication, published in 2019 to celebrate the quatercentenary of the Savilian Professorships:
W. Poole and C. Skelton-Foord (ed.), Geometry and Astronomy in New College, Oxford: On the Quatercentenary of the Savilian Professorships, 1619–2019 (Oxford: New College Library and Archives, 2019)
Other sources consulted include:
G. Cottrell, Observational Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023)
M. Dunajski, Geometry: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022)
A. Hanslmeier, Introduction to Astronomy and Astrophysics (Heidelberg: Springer Berlin, 2023)
D. W. Henderson and D. Taimina, Experiencing Geometry: Euclidean and Non-Euclidean with History (London: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2020)
M. Hoskin, The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
I. S. McLean, Electronic Imagining in Astronomy: Detectors and Instrumentation (Heidelberg: Springer Berlin, 2008)
J. Prest, The Illustrated History of Oxford University (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023)
A. Rubin, Surface/Volume: How Geometry Explains Why Grain Elevators Explode, Hummingbirds Hover, and Asteroids are Colder than Ice (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2023)
T. H. Trinh, Y. Wu, Q. V. Le et al, Solving Olympiad Geometry without Human Demonstrations, Nature 625 (2024), pp. 476-482
R. Wilson (ed.), Oxford’s Savilian Professors of Geometry: The First 400 Years (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022)
