Silvanus P. Thompson

Silvanus Phillips Thompson (1851–1916) was an English physicist, engineer and teacher. Born into a Quaker family in York, he was professor of physics at University College, Bristol, and from 1885 principal of the Finsbury Technical College in London, which he made a model of practical scientific education. His research covered optics, magnetism and electrical machinery, and his textbooks on dynamo-electric machinery and elementary electricity were used around the world. He wrote lives of Faraday, Kelvin and Gilbert, and in 1910, under the initials F.R.S., published Calculus Made Easy, a plain-spoken introduction that offended mathematicians and has sold steadily ever since. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1891.