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Ebenezer Cunningham
Times obituary
Work on the Theory of Relativity
Mr. Ebenezer Cunningham, Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, has died at the age of 95. He was a pioneer in this country of the mathematical theory of relativity. His 1914 book, The Principle of Relativity, was the first in English to summarize those researches of Larmor, Lorentz, and Einstein which constituted what became known as the Special Theory of Relativity, as contrasted with Einstein's later General Theory. It had a significant influence in causing the theory to become accepted and better known in this country.
It gave due prominence to the origins of the special theory in connection with Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, but it also did justice to the brilliance of Einstein's investigations of 1905, which gave a simple direct derivation of the Lorentz formula connecting descriptions of events by observers in uniform relative motion and destroyed the old Kantian belief in the objectivity of simultaneity. In the same book, Cunningham introduced his readers to the four-dimensional calculus of Minkowski, which led to the notion of space-time.
Ebenezer Cunningham was born in London on May 7, 1881, and was educated at Owen's School, Islington, whence he won an open mathematical scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge. He was Senior Wrangler in 1902 and was placed in the second division of the first class in Part II of the Mathematical Tripos in 1903. In 1904 he was Smith's Prizeman and was elected into a Fellowship. After three years as a lecturer at Liverpool University, and four at University College London, he was recalled in 1911 to his old college, where he remained as mathematics lecturer until his retirement in 1946. As a teacher, especially of applied mathematics, he was most successful, and he gained the affection of pupils throughout the university. From 1923 to 1935 he was Steward and Tutorial Bursar of the College, and after his retirement he was persuaded to take on the office of Junior Bursar for two of the difficult post-war years.
A keenly religious man, Cunningham devoted a large amount of energy to the affairs of the Emmanuel Congregational Church, of which he was an office-bearer. He was chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales for 1953-54. The Boer War, which coincided with his undergraduate days, determined once and for all his attitude towards war; he was an uncompromising pacifist and, as such, his position during the First World War made him unpopular in many quarters, but his moderating influence with like-minded but hasty young men was highly beneficial, and his friends stuck to him. Later, he became greatly attracted by the Oxford Group movement, though never by its extravagances. Music played a great part in his life, and on at least one occasion, he electrified and humanized a somewhat solemn gathering at his house by sitting down at his piano and singing a comic song.
He was a man of patent sincerity and great kindness who served his college and university well.
Work on the Theory of Relativity
Mr. Ebenezer Cunningham, Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, has died at the age of 95. He was a pioneer in this country of the mathematical theory of relativity. His 1914 book, The Principle of Relativity, was the first in English to summarize those researches of Larmor, Lorentz, and Einstein which constituted what became known as the Special Theory of Relativity, as contrasted with Einstein's later General Theory. It had a significant influence in causing the theory to become accepted and better known in this country.
It gave due prominence to the origins of the special theory in connection with Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, but it also did justice to the brilliance of Einstein's investigations of 1905, which gave a simple direct derivation of the Lorentz formula connecting descriptions of events by observers in uniform relative motion and destroyed the old Kantian belief in the objectivity of simultaneity. In the same book, Cunningham introduced his readers to the four-dimensional calculus of Minkowski, which led to the notion of space-time.
Ebenezer Cunningham was born in London on May 7, 1881, and was educated at Owen's School, Islington, whence he won an open mathematical scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge. He was Senior Wrangler in 1902 and was placed in the second division of the first class in Part II of the Mathematical Tripos in 1903. In 1904 he was Smith's Prizeman and was elected into a Fellowship. After three years as a lecturer at Liverpool University, and four at University College London, he was recalled in 1911 to his old college, where he remained as mathematics lecturer until his retirement in 1946. As a teacher, especially of applied mathematics, he was most successful, and he gained the affection of pupils throughout the university. From 1923 to 1935 he was Steward and Tutorial Bursar of the College, and after his retirement he was persuaded to take on the office of Junior Bursar for two of the difficult post-war years.
A keenly religious man, Cunningham devoted a large amount of energy to the affairs of the Emmanuel Congregational Church, of which he was an office-bearer. He was chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales for 1953-54. The Boer War, which coincided with his undergraduate days, determined once and for all his attitude towards war; he was an uncompromising pacifist and, as such, his position during the First World War made him unpopular in many quarters, but his moderating influence with like-minded but hasty young men was highly beneficial, and his friends stuck to him. Later, he became greatly attracted by the Oxford Group movement, though never by its extravagances. Music played a great part in his life, and on at least one occasion, he electrified and humanized a somewhat solemn gathering at his house by sitting down at his piano and singing a comic song.
He was a man of patent sincerity and great kindness who served his college and university well.
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