William Hopkins

William Hopkins was an English mathematician and geologist born February 2, 1793, in Kingston-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire, England, who died October 13, 1866, in Cambridge, and who studied at St Peter College, Cambridge, graduating seventh wrangler in 1827, before becoming a private tutor who coached nearly two hundred Cambridge wranglers by 1849, including seventeen senior wranglers, earning the nickname senior-wrangler maker. Applying mathematics to the physical structure of the earth, he founded the discipline of physical geology, argued for a largely solid earth with a dynamic interior whose melting point increases with pressure, and made early contributions to the study of glaciers. He served as president of the Geological Society of London in 1851 and president of the British Association in 1853, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1837, and received the Wollaston Medal in 1850; the William Hopkins Prize was established in his honor after his death.