Clifford_1

Clifford, William Kingdon (1845-1879), an English mathematician and writer on philosophical and mathematical subjects. The son of a bookseller at Exeter, he was educated at that town, at King's College, London, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which society he became a fellow in 1868, after coming out in the Tripos as Second Wrangler. Besides writing and lecturing he was professor of mathematics and mechanics at University College, London, from 1871 till his death in 1879. He united great originality as a thinker with an exceptional power of clear exposition. Originally an ardent High Churchman, he afterwards attacked Christianity and Theism. His lectures and essays have been collected and edited by Sir F. Pollock. Among his other works are The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences, and valuable mathematical papers.