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George Greenhill
Times obituary
A GREAT MATHEMATICIAN.
We regret to announce that Sir George Greenhill, great mathematician, famous for his work in aeronautics and gunnery, died on Thursday. He had an accident in alighting from an omnibus near the Athenaeum, where he was going, on December 20, and was for a time in a nursing home, being later removed to his brother's house at Penge, where he died.
Alfred George Greenhill was born on November 29, 1847. He gave early proof of his powers as a mathematician. At Christ's Hospital he won the Thompson Mathematical Gold Medal, and between the years 1867 and 1870 he was successively a Pitt Club exhibitioner, Somerset exhibitioner, foundation scholar, London University scholar, and Whitworth engineering scholar In 1870 he appeared as Second Wrangler, was bracketed with the Senior Wrangler for the Smith's prizes, and was elected a Fellow of St. John's. During that period, mathematics at Cambridge was studied for its own sake and for examinations, and was too often detached from application to industrial and service developments. Greenhill inwardly revolted against this aloofness, and although to the end of his teaching days he retained the academic outlook, the professorial manner, the scholarly precision of language, his life's effort was directed towards the elucidation of matters of practical importance, especially in the area of dynamics. His fame as a mathematician was universal.
From Cambridge he took an appointment as Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Royal Indian Engineering College, Coopers Hill, which was founded in 1871. His name is recorded on the list of the staff of that College for 1873, but from subsequent lists it is absent. The truth is that under the martial regime of Chesney, who was at that time President, Greenhill's independent spirit was ill at ease. Years afterwards, when referring to those days, he spoke nevertheless of Coopers Hill with delight and affection, and lamented the loss of the College to India and to the Empire as a disaster. In 1873 Cambridge claimed him again. He became a Fellow of Emmanuel College and a Mathematical Lecturer there, besides being one of the examiners for the Mathematical Tripos. He then began his association with the work for which he was most well known in this country: the teaching of mathematics to the advanced class of the Royal Artillery officers at Woolwich. The character of his activities is clearly evident in the scope and quality of the books and papers he published. These include his "Differential and Integral Calculus" (1885), "The Applications of Elliptic Functions" (1892), "Hydrostatics" (1804), "Notes on Dynamics" (1908), "The Theory of Stream Lines with Applications to an Aeroplane" (1910), (1916), "Dynamics of Mechanical Flight" (1912), and "Gyroscopic Theory" (1914). In 1919 he contributed a remarkable article to the Philosophical Magazine on the Bessel-Clifford Function, and in 1922 to the Messenger of Mathematics a note on the Transformation of the Elliptic Function of the Seventh Order. It was also in 1922 that he directed the preparation of the table of elliptic functions for the Smithsonian Collection. He was knighted in 1908 and was a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome.
Greenhill was a Newtonian to whom the "Principia" was an ever-open book. In his demonstrations there was usually a substratum of geometry; but with perfect knowledge he maintained an unrestricted choice of methods and functions. A peculiarity of his teaching, especially in problems concerned with the field of force due to the attraction of the Earth was his restricted use of the word mass. Thus, to define force he first defined acceleration and then weight—not mass—linking them directly by Newton's second law. Modern doctrines of relativity and atomic dynamics received his respect, though scarcely his assent; he bowed to them and passed on his way, unconvinced but tolerant.
In pure theory he found pleasure in his work concerning elliptic functions, a subject of infinite variety and practical significance which engaged his attention to the last. His devotion to applied mathematics is illustrated by his treatment of gyroscopic problems and ballistics in a half-century that thrived upon such knowledge in the development of the bicycle, the steam turbine, the motor car, aeronautics, and long-range gunnery: As he laboured rather for scholars than for the lazy-minded, some praised the lucidity of his writings while others pronounced them obscure. His object was as much to urge his readers to make discoveries for themselves as to explain to them just what to see. To students his admonition was that they should sometimes look out of the window; the window, however, was to them not always transparent. For general physics he retained his regard, and he envied those who had had seagoing experience in nautical astronomy. He said, as Maxwell had said before him, that "he was born after electricity." He maintained enthusiasm for the broadening influences of classical and English literature, and he found pleasure in music.
There was in his character a sense of humour, kindliness, and light-heartedness, but it was too often rendered wilder by his eccentricity. It is related that as far back as the seventies he astonished his two professorial companions on a walking tour in Surrey by setting out in silk hat and frock coat, his night attire being carried in a cardboard box. His friends knew that in general conversation it was best to avoid asking him a direct question. Inquiries regarding his health were responded to either by silence or by an expression of annoyance, roar or feigned anger that some mistook for disfavour and others disfavoured. To the question whether he would take tea or coffee his reply was a simple affirmative—a protest against ambiguity. The evening of his life was passed in comparative loneliness, in his quarters at Staple Inn. Yet his country did not neglect him, and his friends would have welcomed him. He was not a recluse, but he preferred to retain the option of seclusion and independence in the London of his boyhood. He had a broad knowledge of old London. He used to live in New Inn, and when that was destroyed, he took refuge in Staple Inn. There, with his books around him, his tables covered in neat disorder with innumerable scraps of material and apparatus to be used as dynamic models, his walls festooned with every variety of pendulum, simple or compound, contrived from articles purchased below a prescribed limit of cost at the local stores, upon his floor the treasured roll of Turkey carpet from his room of long ago at St. John's, and above his mantelpiece the portrait of his beloved teacher, Clerk Maxwell, smiling approval—with all these, and with the precious memories they recalled the scholar was content.
The funeral will be at Lewisham Cemetery at 12 o'clock on Wednesday. There will be a service at St. John's Church, Penge at 10 a.m.
A GREAT MATHEMATICIAN.
We regret to announce that Sir George Greenhill, great mathematician, famous for his work in aeronautics and gunnery, died on Thursday. He had an accident in alighting from an omnibus near the Athenaeum, where he was going, on December 20, and was for a time in a nursing home, being later removed to his brother's house at Penge, where he died.
Alfred George Greenhill was born on November 29, 1847. He gave early proof of his powers as a mathematician. At Christ's Hospital he won the Thompson Mathematical Gold Medal, and between the years 1867 and 1870 he was successively a Pitt Club exhibitioner, Somerset exhibitioner, foundation scholar, London University scholar, and Whitworth engineering scholar In 1870 he appeared as Second Wrangler, was bracketed with the Senior Wrangler for the Smith's prizes, and was elected a Fellow of St. John's. During that period, mathematics at Cambridge was studied for its own sake and for examinations, and was too often detached from application to industrial and service developments. Greenhill inwardly revolted against this aloofness, and although to the end of his teaching days he retained the academic outlook, the professorial manner, the scholarly precision of language, his life's effort was directed towards the elucidation of matters of practical importance, especially in the area of dynamics. His fame as a mathematician was universal.
From Cambridge he took an appointment as Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Royal Indian Engineering College, Coopers Hill, which was founded in 1871. His name is recorded on the list of the staff of that College for 1873, but from subsequent lists it is absent. The truth is that under the martial regime of Chesney, who was at that time President, Greenhill's independent spirit was ill at ease. Years afterwards, when referring to those days, he spoke nevertheless of Coopers Hill with delight and affection, and lamented the loss of the College to India and to the Empire as a disaster. In 1873 Cambridge claimed him again. He became a Fellow of Emmanuel College and a Mathematical Lecturer there, besides being one of the examiners for the Mathematical Tripos. He then began his association with the work for which he was most well known in this country: the teaching of mathematics to the advanced class of the Royal Artillery officers at Woolwich. The character of his activities is clearly evident in the scope and quality of the books and papers he published. These include his "Differential and Integral Calculus" (1885), "The Applications of Elliptic Functions" (1892), "Hydrostatics" (1804), "Notes on Dynamics" (1908), "The Theory of Stream Lines with Applications to an Aeroplane" (1910), (1916), "Dynamics of Mechanical Flight" (1912), and "Gyroscopic Theory" (1914). In 1919 he contributed a remarkable article to the Philosophical Magazine on the Bessel-Clifford Function, and in 1922 to the Messenger of Mathematics a note on the Transformation of the Elliptic Function of the Seventh Order. It was also in 1922 that he directed the preparation of the table of elliptic functions for the Smithsonian Collection. He was knighted in 1908 and was a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome.
Greenhill was a Newtonian to whom the "Principia" was an ever-open book. In his demonstrations there was usually a substratum of geometry; but with perfect knowledge he maintained an unrestricted choice of methods and functions. A peculiarity of his teaching, especially in problems concerned with the field of force due to the attraction of the Earth was his restricted use of the word mass. Thus, to define force he first defined acceleration and then weight—not mass—linking them directly by Newton's second law. Modern doctrines of relativity and atomic dynamics received his respect, though scarcely his assent; he bowed to them and passed on his way, unconvinced but tolerant.
In pure theory he found pleasure in his work concerning elliptic functions, a subject of infinite variety and practical significance which engaged his attention to the last. His devotion to applied mathematics is illustrated by his treatment of gyroscopic problems and ballistics in a half-century that thrived upon such knowledge in the development of the bicycle, the steam turbine, the motor car, aeronautics, and long-range gunnery: As he laboured rather for scholars than for the lazy-minded, some praised the lucidity of his writings while others pronounced them obscure. His object was as much to urge his readers to make discoveries for themselves as to explain to them just what to see. To students his admonition was that they should sometimes look out of the window; the window, however, was to them not always transparent. For general physics he retained his regard, and he envied those who had had seagoing experience in nautical astronomy. He said, as Maxwell had said before him, that "he was born after electricity." He maintained enthusiasm for the broadening influences of classical and English literature, and he found pleasure in music.
There was in his character a sense of humour, kindliness, and light-heartedness, but it was too often rendered wilder by his eccentricity. It is related that as far back as the seventies he astonished his two professorial companions on a walking tour in Surrey by setting out in silk hat and frock coat, his night attire being carried in a cardboard box. His friends knew that in general conversation it was best to avoid asking him a direct question. Inquiries regarding his health were responded to either by silence or by an expression of annoyance, roar or feigned anger that some mistook for disfavour and others disfavoured. To the question whether he would take tea or coffee his reply was a simple affirmative—a protest against ambiguity. The evening of his life was passed in comparative loneliness, in his quarters at Staple Inn. Yet his country did not neglect him, and his friends would have welcomed him. He was not a recluse, but he preferred to retain the option of seclusion and independence in the London of his boyhood. He had a broad knowledge of old London. He used to live in New Inn, and when that was destroyed, he took refuge in Staple Inn. There, with his books around him, his tables covered in neat disorder with innumerable scraps of material and apparatus to be used as dynamic models, his walls festooned with every variety of pendulum, simple or compound, contrived from articles purchased below a prescribed limit of cost at the local stores, upon his floor the treasured roll of Turkey carpet from his room of long ago at St. John's, and above his mantelpiece the portrait of his beloved teacher, Clerk Maxwell, smiling approval—with all these, and with the precious memories they recalled the scholar was content.
The funeral will be at Lewisham Cemetery at 12 o'clock on Wednesday. There will be a service at St. John's Church, Penge at 10 a.m.
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