Green, George

Green, George, 1793–1841, English mathematician and physicist. He was largely self-taught until, in 1833, he entered Caius College, Cambridge. In addition to making a number of contributions to the calculus, Green was especially interested in the equilibrium of fluids and was the first to introduce the potential in its application to the theories of the magnetic and electric fields. He also studied light and sound. His papers were edited, with a memoir, by N. M. Ferrers (1871).

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Green, George 

Born July 14, 1793, in Sneinton, near Nottingham: died there Mar. 31, 1841. English mathematician.

Green studied mathematics on his own and only in 1837 graduated from Cambridge University. In his Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism (1828) he introduced the concept and term of “potential” and developed a theory of electricity and magnetism based on the relation he had found between the volume integral and the surface integral where the surface limits the volume. This work remained unknown until its republication in 1845. In 1839 he completed an important work on the reflection and refraction of light in crystalline media; in this work he also deduced the primary equations of the theory of elasticity.

WORKS

The Mathematical Papers. London, 1871.

REFERENCE

Struik, D. J. Kratkii ocherk istorii matematiki. (Translated from German.) Moscow, 1964.