W. W. Rouse Ball was a British mathematician who lectured at Trinity College, Cambridge University, from 1878 to 1905, but is best known as a historian and as the author of the timeless classic Mathematical Recreations and Essays,¹ first published in 1892 and which ran to fourteen editions, the last four with revisions by the great geometer Harold Coxeter.

 

Reference

1. Ball, Walter William Rouse. Mathematical Recreations and Problems. London: Macmillan, 1892. (Ball, W. W. Rouse and Coxeter, H. S. M. Mathematical Recreations and Essays. Mineola, NY: Dover, 1987. Thirteenth Edition.)