George Green (mathematician)

George Green
Born(1793-07-14)14 July 1793
Sneinton, Nottinghamshire, England
Died31 May 1841(1841-05-31) (aged 47)
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England
Alma materGonville and Caius College, Cambridge
(BA, 1838)
Known forGreen measure
Green's deformation tensor
Green's function
Green's identities
Green's law
Green's matrix
Green's theorem
Liouville–Green method
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsGonville and Caius College, Cambridge[1]

George Green (14 July 1793 – 31 May 1841) was a British mathematical physicist who wrote An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism in 1828.[2][3] The essay introduced several important concepts, among them a theorem similar to the modern Green's theorem, the idea of potential functions as currently used in physics, and the concept of what are now called Green's functions. Green was the first person to create a mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism and his theory formed the foundation for the work of other scientists such as James Clerk Maxwell, William Thomson, and others. His work on potential theory ran parallel to that of Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Green's life story is remarkable in that he was almost entirely self-taught. He received only about one year of formal schooling as a child, between the ages of 8 and 9.

  1. ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "George Green (mathematician)", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
  2. ^ This 1828 essay can be found in Mathematical papers of the late George Green, edited by N. M. Ferrers. The website for this is given below.
  3. ^ Cannell, D.M. (1999). "George Green: An Enigmatic Mathematician". American Mathematical Monthly. 106 (2): 136–151. doi:10.2307/2589050. JSTOR 2589050.