Edmund Halley
(1656-1742):

The most famous of English mathematicians and astronomers, Edmund Halley attended Queen's College, Oxford. In 1683, Halley published his theory of the variation of the magnet. In 1684, Halley conferred with Newton as to whether the centripetal force in the solar system varies inversely as the square of the distance. In 1686, he wrote on the trade winds and the monsoons. In his three voyages during 1698-1701, Halley was to test his magnetic variation theory, after which he was to become a professor of Geometry at Oxford. At the age of 64, he invented the diving bell. Halley died a venerated old man, at Greenwich in 1742. [I am fortunate, for among my books I have The Three Voyages of Edmund Halley in the Paramore: 1698-1701; edited by Norman J. W. Thrower; portraiture as Fp.; (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1981).]