G. N. Watson

For other people named George Neville, see George Neville (disambiguation).
For other people named George Watson, see George Watson (disambiguation).

G. N. Watson
FRS FRSE
Born
George Neville Watson

(1886-01-31)31 January 1886
Westward Ho!, England
Died2 February 1965(1965-02-02) (aged 79)
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge
Known forWhittaker and Watson text
Watson's quintuple product identity
AwardsSmith's Prize (1909)
Sylvester Medal (1946)
De Morgan Medal (1947)
Fellow of the Royal Society[1]
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Birmingham
University of Cambridge
Doctoral advisorE. T. Whittaker[2]

George Neville Watson FRS FRSE (31 January 1886 – 2 February 1965) was an English mathematician, who applied complex analysis to the theory of special functions. His collaboration on the 1915 second edition of E. T. Whittaker's A Course of Modern Analysis (1902) produced the classic "Whittaker and Watson" text. In 1918 he proved a significant result known as Watson's lemma, that has many applications in the theory on the asymptotic behaviour of exponential integrals.[1][3][4]

  1. ^ a b Whittaker, J. M. (1966). "George Neville Watson 1886-1965". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 12: 520–526. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1966.0026. S2CID 129103196.
  2. ^ G. N. Watson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ^ Rankin, R. A. (1966). "George Neville Watson". Journal of the London Mathematical Society. s1-41: 551–565. doi:10.1112/jlms/s1-41.1.551.
  4. ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "G. N. Watson", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews