Routh

Edward John Routh

Born: 20 Jan 1831 in Quebec, Canada
Died: 7 June 1907 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England

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Routh came to England in 1842 and studied under De Morgan in London. He entered Peterhouse at the same time as Maxwell but Maxwell transferred to Trinity (perhaps because he felt Routh was too strong competition). In 1854 Routh was Senior Wrangler, Maxwell was second, while the Smith Prize was divided between them (the first time the prize had been awarded jointly).

Routh became the most famous of the Cambridge coaches and he published famous advanced treatises which became standard applied mathematics texts such as A Treatise on Dynamics of Rigid Bodies (1860), A Treatise on Analytic Statistics (1891) and A Treatise on Dynamics of a Particle (1898).

Although he was most famed as a teacher, his work on mechanics was important and in 1877 Routh was awarded the Adams Prize for work on dynamic stability. He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on the strength of this work.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Edward John Routh, Proc. London Math. Soc. 5 (1907), 14-20.
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