Green

George Green

Born: July 1793 in Sneinton, Nottingham, England
Died: 31 May 1841 in Sneinton, Nottingham, England

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George Green's date of birth is unknown but he was baptised on 14 July 1793. His only schooling consisted of 4 terms in 1801/1802. He owned and worked a Nottingham windmill.

Green made major contributions to potential theory although where he learnt his mathematical skills is a mystery. The inventor of Green's functions, he used the method of sources and sinks in potential flows.

He published only 10 mathematical works, the first and most important being published at his own expense in 1828 An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism .

In 1833 he wrote 3 further papers. Two on electricity were published by the Cambridge Philosophical Society. One on hydrodynamics was published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (of which he was a Fellow) in 1836. He left his mill and became an undergraduate at Cambridge in 1833 at the age of 40, then a Fellow of Caius in 1839.

He had 2 papers on hydrodynamics (in particular wave motion in canals), 2 papers on reflection and refraction of light and 2 papers on reflection and refraction of sound published in Cambridge.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. D M Cannell, George Green Miller and Mathematician, City of Nottingham (Nottingham 1988).
  4. D M Cannell, George Green : Mathematician and Physicist 1793-1841 : The Background to His Life and Work (Athlone, 1993).
  5. D M Cannell and N J Lord, George Green, Mathematician and Physicist 1793-1841, Mathematical Gazette 66 (1993), 26-51.
  6. J Gray, There was a jolly miller, The New scientist 139 (1993), 24-27.
  7. I Grattan-Guinness, Why did George Green write his essay of 1828 on Electricity and Magnetism, Amer. Math. Monthly 102 (1995), 387-396.
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JOC/EFR February 1996