Benjamin Robins

Benjamin Robins was a British scientist, Newtonian mathematician and military engineer, born in Bath in 1707 and dying at Fort St David in India in 1751. Born to Quaker parents in poor circumstances, he had little formal education and supported himself by teaching mathematics in London before turning to engineering and the study of fortification. His New Principles of Gunnery of 1742 introduced Newtonian science to military men for the first time, described his ballistic pendulum, and drew on experiments on the resistance of the air and on the force of gunpowder; Leonhard Euler translated it into German with a commentary of his own. He was an early enthusiast for rifled gun barrels, also wrote on Newton's method of fluxions, took an active part in politics, and in 1749 was appointed engineer general to the East India Company.