500 a year and an
office in the Treasury. His task was
George Atwood was educated at Westminster School. He then attended Trinity College Cambridge, graduating in 1769. He became a Fellow of Trinity and taught there.
Atwood was a very popular lecturer giving many demonstrations in his lectures. He published details of these demonstrations in 1776. In the same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
William Pitt, British prime minister (1783-1801, 1804-06), gave
Atwood 500 a year and an
office in the Treasury. His task was
to devote a large portion of his time to financial calculation.
Atwood is best known for a work A Treatise on the Rectilinear Motion... (1784) which is a textbook on Newtonian mechanics. It describes a machine, now known as Atwood's machine, to demonstrate the laws of uniformly accelerated motion due to gravity.
Atwood also published on equations for the use of Hadley's quadrant. He extended theories of Euler and Bouguer on the stability of ships. He also wrote on the construction of arches (1801) and on the design of a new iron London Bridge over the Thames.
Atwood was a renowned chess-player and among other opponents played games against the famous French player Philidor. H E Bird records [2]:
Of the players who encountered Philidor, Sir Abraham Janssens, who died in 1775, seems to have been the best, Mr. George Atwood, a mathematician, one of Pitt's secretaries came , he was of a class which we should call third or two grades of odds below Philidor, a high standard of excellence to which but few amateurs attain.
Atwood was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society.