Although he made a major positive impression on the faculty during his first semester as a fresh-man, his formal academic record was not exceptional; he did not believe that knowledge gained by cramming for examinations would be retained.

His doctoral thesis, a compilation of three distinct problems in structural mechanics, provides early indication of his penchant for problem-solving. One of the problems deals with desirable properties (intermediate "softness") of a matrix material in an anisotropic composite so that the stress of a rotating cylindrical flywheel is well distributed over all the fibres - a design concept perhaps yet to be fully appreciated.

An accomplished clarinet and ocarina player, he organised a swing band at Cornell; he also was houseman at a local pool hall. When George contracted tuberculosis and had to spend a year in a sanatorium, he studied books on advanced mathematics. He then returned to graduate school where he taught courses in drawing and mechanisms and the first advanced course in applied mathematics for engineers at Cornell. Two students in the latter course, Julian Cole and Ivar Stackgold, said they first heard about asymptotic perturbations and similarity in that course and believed that experience had shaped their careers (they both became distinguished professors of applied mathematics).

George helped design and build a high-speed cascade wind tunnel for the study of jet engine turbines and compressor blades. He was a good experimenter, but his extraordinary mathematical-modelling and analysis capabilities set him apart. Emmons proposed him for a faculty position but was overruled by the rather formal Professor Richard von Mises who thought George was "too much of a wise guy." So George went off to Brown University, where he quickly set the academic world on fire.

I should define what I mean by the core of applied mathematics; I shall do so by describing the objectives, abilities and educational needs of the men who populate this core. Their objective is to understand scientific phenomena quantitatively. To do so, such men must be so thoroughly informed in the fundamentals of some broad segment of the sciences (be they physical, biological, economic, or whatnot) that they can pose the question or family of questions they pursue as a mathematical query using, as the occasion demands, either time-honoured and well established scientific laws (as in mechanics) or carefully conjectured models (as in younger sciences). Such an applied mathematician must also have an understanding of mathematics, a knowledge of technique, and such skill that he can use either rigorously founded techniques or heuristically motivated methods to resolve the mathematical problem, and he must do so with a full realisation as to the implications of each with regard to reliability and interpretation of results. In particular, the applied mathematician must be very skilful at finding that question (or family of questions) such that the answer will fill the scientific need while the extraction of the answer and its interpretation are not prohibitively expensive. I must emphasise that such an individual is not a mathematician nor, ordinarily, is he a specialist in a particular branch of science; he is distinguished from these primarily by his attitude and his objectives, but also by the scope of the scientific and mathematical disciplines on which he must draw.

... a minimum of exposition, a maximum of guidance, leaving students to derive key results for themselves and then infer how to proceed from there. This is the way George taught himself complex variables, essentially developing the subject for himself, with minimal reference to any text; he felt that he thereby achieved a depth of understanding ...

... any intelligent reader who does not wish to be merely told of these facts would find it difficult and time-consuming to learn and understand the theory from this book. Indeed, there is no dearth of much better written texts on complex function theory today.

George was widely considered one of the best applied mathematicians the United States ever produced. He loved applied problems with complex mathematical models, for which he found ingenious approximations and asymptotic results. He had a quick mind and remarkable physical intuition, which made him much sought after as a consultant to business and government. He could listen to the description of a problem and come up with the solution or an effective approach to the solution in minutes. Almost every summer for 40 years, he was a consultant to either the Los Alamos National Laboratory or the Space and Defense Group at TRW in California; both organisations considered him the ideal consultant.

What was the experience of attending one of George's classes, and what advice did he have for young investigators? He taught energetically, usually without notes, at break-neck pace (drop your pencil and you missed Fourier series), and cared little for algebraic precision. If the topic were (say) boundary-layer methods, he dwelled only briefly on theory, and concentrated on demonstrating technique. Problem formulation, solution methodology, and engineering interpretation were a seamless fusion, whether the course was billed as applied mathematics or fluid mechanics or wave motion.

As a thesis adviser, he did not arrange regular meetings; presumably the student would drop by when ready to talk. He cautioned against young engineers seeking too much freedom to pursue whatever topics they wanted, because few had mature judgment concerning choice of problem. He thought that consulting-for-industry experience substantially benefited the lectures of an applied mathematics professor. His accounts of his own such activities enhanced his students' intuition about which techniques suited a particular problem.

... outstanding and distinguished contributions to the field of applied mathematical sciences and for the effective communication of these ideas to the community.

For his achievement and leadership in the mathematical modelling of significant problems of engineering science and geophysics, and their solution by the application of innovative and powerful analytical techniques.

George had boundless energy, a cheerful nature, and was master of his emotions. He knew how to put a fractious committee at ease with a light-hearted remark. He had no appetite for prestige, position, or wealth. He was unfailingly honest, always did what he thought was right, and was quick to admit when he was wrong or made a mistake. He chose to work on technical problems for their usefulness and for the fun he could have. Despite his extraordinary accomplishments, he managed to remain modest and "human." He served Harvard as a member of the Administrative Board of the College, as acting dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and as chair of the Committee on Applied Mathematics for many years. In 2005 a fellowship was established in his honour, to be awarded "to a scholar of engineering and applied sciences with a special emphasis in widely applied mathematics."

George was also known for his high jinks. On one occasion, he arranged to have the Dean of Engineering arrested for a parking violation during the annual Christmas party. On another occasion, during a seminar on guided missiles, he and a prestigious MIT professor "arrested" the speaker and carried him out of the room for revealing "classified information." He was a fan of the Marx Brothers and shared with colleagues his joy for outrageous puns. He loved gardening and building things at his home in Wayland, playing catch with his sons, and dancing with his wife in the living room to a Benny Goodman record. Evenings he enjoyed watching Perry Mason on TV, but after a few minutes his mind would drift, and he would take out a yellow pad of paper and begin writing equations at a furious pace. That way he was able to enjoy Perry Mason for 40 years, according to his son Mark, because he could never remember "who done it."

Mary travelled extensively around the world and established several temporary houses for her family in places as distant as Perth, Western Australia. During the 1970's she worked at the Wayland Antique Exchange. Mary ... enjoyed family gatherings and bargain hunting with her sister Eileen.