Gilbert Walker (physicist)

For the 19th-century provisional governor of Virginia, see Gilbert Carlton Walker. For the English cricketer, see Gilbert Walker (cricketer).

Sir
Gilbert Walker
Born
Gilbert Thomas Walker

(1868-06-14)14 June 1868
Rochdale, Lancashire, England
Died4 November 1958(1958-11-04) (aged 90)
Coulsdon, Surrey, England
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge
AwardsFellow of the Royal Society[1]
Adams Prize (1899)
Knight Bachelor (1924)
Symons Gold Medal (1934)
Scientific career
FieldsMeteorology, Statistician
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge, India Meteorological Department
Imperial College London

Sir Gilbert Thomas Walker CSI FRS (14 June 1868 – 4 November 1958) was an English physicist and statistician of the 20th century. Walker studied mathematics and applied it to a variety of fields including aerodynamics, electromagnetism and the analysis of time-series data before taking up a teaching position at the University of Cambridge. Although he had no experience in meteorology, he was recruited for a post in the Indian Meteorological Department where he worked on statistical approaches to predict the monsoons. He developed the methods in the analysis of time-series data that are now called the Yule-Walker equations. He is known for his groundbreaking description of the Southern Oscillation,[2] a major phenomenon of global climate, and for discovering what is named after him as the Walker circulation, and for greatly advancing the study of climate in general. He was also instrumental in aiding the early career of the Indian mathematical prodigy, Srinivasa Ramanujan.

  1. ^ Taylor, G. I. (1962). "Gilbert Thomas Walker 1868–1958". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 8: 166–174. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1962.0013. S2CID 71525583.
  2. ^ Walker, G. T. (1924). "Correlation in seasonal variations of weather. IX. A further study of world weather". Memoirs of the Indian Meteorological Department. 24: 275–332. From p. 283: "There is also a slight tendency two-quarters later towards an increase of pressure in S. America and of Peninsula [i.e., Indian] rainfall, and a decrease of pressure in Australia : this is part of the main oscillation described in the previous paper* which will in future be called the 'southern' oscillation." Available at: Royal Meteorological Society Archived 18 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine