Jeans

Sir James Hopwood Jeans

Born: 11 Sept 1877 in Ormskirk, Lancashire, England
Died: 16 Sept 1946 in Dorking, Surrey, England

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Jeans' family moved to Brighton, then when he was 3 years old they moved to London. Jeans went to Trinity College Cambridge in 1896 and fellow student G H Hardy was in the same year. Jeans was taught as an undergraduate at Cambridge by J W L Glaisher, W W Rouse Ball, A N Whitehead, R A Herman and E T Whittaker. Both Jeans and Hardy were awarded a Smith's prize in 1901 with unspecified relative merit. That year Jeans became a Fellow of Trinity. Jeans lectured at Princeton from 1905 until 1909. During this period, in 1907, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1909 Jeans returned to England and the following year he was appointed Stokes Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Cambridge. He only held this post until 1912 when he retired to Guildford to devote himself to mathematical research. During his career he taught in Cambridge, England and Princeton, USA and undertook research at the Mt Wilson Observatory, Pasadena, California. His work in astronomy led him to believe that Laplace's nebular hypothesis for the creation of the solar system was incorrect. Instead he proposed a tidal theory based on a star passing close to the Sun and pulling matter out which condensed into the planets. Jeans also worked on thermodynamics, heat and other aspects of radiation. Among his best known books are The Dynamical Theory of Gases (1904), Theoretical Mechanics (1906), The Mathematical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism (1908), and Introduction to the Kinetic Theory of Gases (1940). He also wrote popular texts such as The Universe Around Us (1929) and Through Space and Time (1934). References:
  1. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  2. E A Milne, Sir James Jeans : a biography (Cambridge, 1952).
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JOC/EFR March 1996