The Blind Scientist

Fri, 14 May 2021

In this episode, Antiques Radio Show presenter, Jolyon Warwick James, reminds us to check the rich narratives which suffuse even the most mundane objects through the dramatis personae associated with them - from a well-connected beret, to some historic trousers, and a questionable tomb adornment. But the lead story revolves around the recent sale of a mezzotint version of a portrait by John Vanderbank of the great English scientist and mathematician, Nicholas Saunderson, whose life was turned into a musical, No Horizon, in 2016. It was instantly dubbed “The Yorkshire Les Miserables!" Saunderson, was born in 1682 and blinded by smallpox while still a baby. Nevertheless, he led an extraordinarily life as a public intellectual and family man. Long before the invention of braille, he apparently learned to read by tracing the names on tombstones. Saunderson received a classical education and went on to teach Mathematics, Astronomy and Optics at Cambridge. Like many sight-impaired people he developed an acute sense of sound and touch, famously inventing a calculating machine or abacus, by which he could perform complex arithmetical and algebraic operations which he called "palpable arithmetic". A friend and colleague of the great thinkers of his time, including Isaac Newtown, Saunderson also married and had two children. He died of scurvy in 1739. His book Elements of Algebra was published posthumously.

This episode of The Antiques Radio Show broadcasts 24.5.21 and 7.6.21