Encyclopedia, Difference between revisions of "George Gabriel Stokes" - New World
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{{Infobox_Scientist | {{Infobox_Scientist | ||
| name = George Stokes | | name = George Stokes | ||
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| image_width = 200px | | image_width = 200px | ||
| caption = Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet | | caption = Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet | ||
| − | | birth_date = | + | | birth_date = 13 August 1819 |
| birth_place = [[Skreen]], [[County Sligo]], [[Ireland]] | | birth_place = [[Skreen]], [[County Sligo]], [[Ireland]] | ||
| − | | death_date = | + | | death_date = 1 February 1903 |
| death_place = [[Cambridge]], [[England]] | | death_place = [[Cambridge]], [[England]] | ||
| residence = [[Image:Flag of England (bordered).svg|20px|]] [[England]] | | residence = [[Image:Flag of England (bordered).svg|20px|]] [[England]] | ||
| Line 15: | Line 17: | ||
| doctoral_advisor = [[William Hopkins]] | | doctoral_advisor = [[William Hopkins]] | ||
| doctoral_students = <!--please insert—>; | | doctoral_students = <!--please insert—>; | ||
| − | | known_for = [[Stokes' law]]</ | + | | known_for = [[Stokes' law]]<br/>[[Stokes' theorem]]<br/>[[Stokes line]]<br/>[[Stokes relations]]<br/>[[Stokes shift]] |
| − | | prizes = [[Rumford Medal]] (1852)</ | + | | prizes = [[Rumford Medal]] (1852)<br/>[[Copley Medal]] (1893) |
| religion = [[Evangelicalism|Evangelical]] [[protestant]] | | religion = [[Evangelicalism|Evangelical]] [[protestant]] | ||
| footnotes = Stokes did not have a doctorate, however [[William Hopkins]] is considered to be his equivalent mentor. | | footnotes = Stokes did not have a doctorate, however [[William Hopkins]] is considered to be his equivalent mentor. | ||
}} | }} | ||
| − | '''Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet''' ( | + | '''Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet''' (13 August 1819–1 February 1903) was an [[Ireland|Irish]] [[mathematics|mathematician]] and [[physics|physicist]], who at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] made important contributions to [[fluid dynamics]] (including the [[Navier-Stokes equations]]), [[optics]], and mathematical physics (including [[Stokes' theorem]]). He was secretary, then president of the [[Royal Society]]. |
==Life== | ==Life== | ||
| − | George Stokes was the youngest son of the Reverend Gabriel Stokes, [[rector]] of [[Skreen]], [[County Sligo]], where he was born and brought up in an evangelical Protestant family. After attending schools in Screen, [[Dublin]] and [[Bristol]], he matriculated in | + | George Stokes was the youngest son of the Reverend Gabriel Stokes, [[rector]] of [[Skreen]], [[County Sligo]], where he was born and brought up in an evangelical Protestant family. After attending schools in Screen, [[Dublin]] and [[Bristol]], he matriculated in 1837 at [[Pembroke College, Cambridge|Pembroke College]], [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]], where four years later, on graduating as [[senior wrangler]] and first [[Smith's prize]]man, he was elected to a fellowship. In accordance with the college statutes, he had to resign the fellowship when he married in 1857, but twelve years later, under new statutes, he was re-elected. He retained his place on the foundation until 1902, when on the day before his 84th birthday, he was elected to the mastership. He did not enjoy this position for long, for he died at Cambridge on February 1 in the following year, and was buried in the Mill Road cemetery. |
| − | In | + | In 1849, he was appointed to the [[Lucasian Professor of Mathematics|Lucasian professor]]ship of mathematics in the university, and on June 1, 1899 the jubilee of his appointment was celebrated at Cambridge in a brilliant ceremony, which was attended by numerous delegates from European and American universities. A commemorative gold medal was presented to him by the chancellor of the university, and marble busts of him by [[Hamo Thornycroft]] were formally offered to Pembroke College and to the university by [[William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin|Lord Kelvin]]. Sir George Stokes, who was made a baronet in 1889, further served his university by representing it in parliament from 1887 to 1892 as one of the two members for the [[Cambridge University (UK Parliament constituency)|Cambridge University constituency]]. During a portion of this period (1885–1890) he was president of the [[Royal Society]], of which he had been one of the secretaries since 1854, and thus, being at the same time Lucasian professor, he united in himself three offices which had only once before been held by one man, Sir Isaac Newton, who, however, did not hold all three simultaneously. |
| − | Stokes was the oldest of the trio of natural philosophers, [[James Clerk Maxwell]] and [[William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin|Lord Kelvin]] being the other two, who especially contributed to the fame of the Cambridge school of mathematical physics in the middle of the [[19th century]]. His original work began about | + | Stokes was the oldest of the trio of natural philosophers, [[James Clerk Maxwell]] and [[William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin|Lord Kelvin]] being the other two, who especially contributed to the fame of the Cambridge school of mathematical physics in the middle of the [[19th century]]. His original work began about 1840, and from that date onwards the great extent of his output was only less remarkable than the brilliance of its quality. The Royal Society's catalogue of scientific, papers gives the titles of over a hundred memoirs by him published down to 1883. Some of these are only brief notes, others are short controversial or corrective statements, but many are long and elaborate treatises. |
==Contributions to science== | ==Contributions to science== | ||
| − | In content his work is distinguished by a certain definiteness and finality, and even of problems which, when he attacked them, were scarcely thought amenable to mathematical analysis, he has in many cases given solutions which once and for all settle the main principles. This fact must be ascribed to his extraordinary combination of mathematical power with experimental skill. From the time when in about | + | In content his work is distinguished by a certain definiteness and finality, and even of problems which, when he attacked them, were scarcely thought amenable to mathematical analysis, he has in many cases given solutions which once and for all settle the main principles. This fact must be ascribed to his extraordinary combination of mathematical power with experimental skill. From the time when in about 1840 he fitted up some simple physical apparatus in his rooms in Pembroke College, mathematics and experiment ever went hand in hand, aiding and checking each other. In scope his work covered a wide range of physical inquiry, but, as [[Marie Alfred Cornu]] remarked in his [[Rede lecture]] of 1899, the greater part of it was concerned with waves and the transformations imposed on them during their passage through various media. |
| − | His first published papers, which appeared in | + | His first published papers, which appeared in 1842 and 1843, were on the steady motion of incompressible [[fluid]]s and some cases of fluid motion. These were followed in 1845 by one on the friction of fluids in motion and the equilibrium and motion of elastic solids, and in 1850 by another on the effects of the internal friction of fluids on the motion of [[pendulum]]s. To the theory of [[sound]] he made several contributions, including a discussion of the effect of [[wind]] on the intensity of sound and an explanation of how the intensity is influenced by the nature of the gas in which the sound is produced. These inquiries together put the science of [[hydrodynamics]] on a new footing, and provided a key not only to the explanation of many natural phenomena, such as the suspension of [[cloud]]s in air, and the subsidence of ripples and waves in water, but also to the solution of practical problems, such as the flow of water in rivers and channels, and the skin resistance of ships. |
His work on fluid motion and [[viscosity]] led to his calculating the terminal velocity for a sphere falling in a viscous medium. This became known as [[Stokes' law]]. Later the [[CGS]] unit of viscosity was named a [[Stokes (unit)|Stokes]] after his work. | His work on fluid motion and [[viscosity]] led to his calculating the terminal velocity for a sphere falling in a viscous medium. This became known as [[Stokes' law]]. Later the [[CGS]] unit of viscosity was named a [[Stokes (unit)|Stokes]] after his work. | ||
| − | Perhaps his best-known researches are those which deal with the wave theory of [[light]]. His [[optics|optical]] work began at an early period in his scientific career. His first papers on the [[aberration of light]] appeared in | + | Perhaps his best-known researches are those which deal with the wave theory of [[light]]. His [[optics|optical]] work began at an early period in his scientific career. His first papers on the [[aberration of light]] appeared in 1845 and 1846, and were followed in 1848 by one on the theory of certain bands seen in the [[electromagnetic spectrum|spectrum]]. In 1849 he published a long paper on the dynamical theory of [[diffraction]], in which he showed that the plane of [[polarization]] must be perpendicular to the direction of propagation. Two years later he discussed the colours of thick plates. |
| − | In | + | In 1852, in his famous paper on the change of [[wavelength]] of light, he described the phenomenon of [[fluorescence]], as exhibited by [[fluorspar]] and [[uranium glass]], materials which he viewed as having the power to convert invisible [[ultra-violet radiation]] into radiation of longer wavelengths that are visible. The [[Stokes shift]], which describes this conversion, is named in Stokes' honor. A mechanical model, illustrating the dynamical principle of Stokes's explanation was shown. The offshoot of this, [[Stokes line]], is the basis of [[Raman scattering]]. In 1883, during a lecture at the [[Royal Institution]], Lord Kelvin said he had heard an account of it from Stokes many years before, and had repeatedly but vainly begged him to publish it. |
| − | In the same year, | + | In the same year, 1852, there appeared the paper on the composition and resolution of streams of polarized light from different sources, and in 1853 an investigation of the metallic [[Reflection (physics)|reflection]] exhibited by certain non-metallic substances. About 1860 he was engaged in an inquiry on the intensity of light reflected from, or transmitted through, a pile of plates; and in 1862 he prepared for the [[British Association for the Advancement of Science|British Association]] a valuable report on double refraction, which marks a period in the history of the subject in England. A paper on the long spectrum of the electric light bears the same date, and was followed by an inquiry into the [[absorption spectrum]] of [[blood]]. |
| − | The identification of [[organic compound|organic]] bodies by their optical properties was treated in | + | The identification of [[organic compound|organic]] bodies by their optical properties was treated in 1864; and later, in conjunction with the Rev. [[William Vernon Harcourt (scientist)|William Vernon Harcourt]], he investigated the relation between the chemical composition and the optical properties of various [[glass]]es, with reference to the conditions of [[transparency (optics)|transparency]] and the improvement of [[achromatic lens|achromatic]] [[telescope]]s. A still later paper connected with the construction of optical instruments discussed the theoretical limits to the aperture of microscope objectives. |
| − | In other departments of physics may be mentioned his paper on the [[thermal conductivity|conduction of heat]] in [[crystal]]s ( | + | In other departments of physics may be mentioned his paper on the [[thermal conductivity|conduction of heat]] in [[crystal]]s (1851) and his inquiries in connection with [[Crookes radiometer]]; his explanation of the light border frequently noticed in [[photograph]]s just outside the outline of a dark body seen against the sky (1883); and, still later, his theory of the [[x-ray]]s, which he suggested might be transverse waves travelling as innumerable solitary waves, not in regular trains. Two long papers published in 1840—one on attractions and [[Clairaut's theorem]], and the other on the variation of [[gravity]] at the surface of the earth—also demand notice, as do his mathematical memoirs on the critical values of sums of periodic series (1847) and on the numerical calculation of a class of definite [[integral]]s and [[infinite series]] (1850) and his discussion of a [[differential equation]] relating to the breaking of railway [[bridge]]s (1849). |
| − | But large as is the tale of Stokes's published work, it by no means represents the whole of his services in the advancement of science. Many of his discoveries were not published, or at least were only touched upon in the course of his oral lectures. An excellent example is his work in the theory of [[spectroscopy]]. In his presidential address to the British Association in | + | But large as is the tale of Stokes's published work, it by no means represents the whole of his services in the advancement of science. Many of his discoveries were not published, or at least were only touched upon in the course of his oral lectures. An excellent example is his work in the theory of [[spectroscopy]]. In his presidential address to the British Association in 1871, Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson, as he was then) stated his belief that the application of the prismatic analysis of light to solar and stellar chemistry had never been suggested directly or indirectly by anyone else when Stokes taught it to him in Cambridge some time prior to the summer of 1852, and he set forth the conclusions, theoretical and practical, which he learnt from Stokes at that time, and which he afterwards gave regularly in his public lectures at [[Glasgow]]. These statements, containing as they do the physical basis on which spectroscopy rests, and the way in which it is applicable to the identification of substances existing in the sun and stars, make it appear that Stokes anticipated [[Gustav Robert Kirchhoff|Kirchhoff]] by at least seven or eight years. Stokes, however, in a letter published some years after the delivery of this address, stated that he had failed to take one essential step in the argument—not perceiving that emission of light of definite wavelength not merely permitted, but necessitated, absorption of light of the same wavelength. He modestly disclaimed "any part of Kirchhoff's admirable discovery," adding that he felt some of his friends had been over-zealous in his cause. It must be said, however, that English men of science have not accepted this disclaimer in all its fullness, and still attribute to Stokes the credit of having first enunciated the fundamental principles of spectroscopy. |
In another way, too, Stokes did much for the progress of mathematical physics. Soon after he was elected to the Lucasian chair he announced that he regarded it as part of his professional duties to help any member of the university in difficulties he might encounter in his mathematical studies, and the assistance rendered was so real that pupils were glad to consult him, even after they had become colleagues, on mathematical and physical problems in which they found themselves at a loss. Then during the thirty years he acted as secretary of the Royal Society he exercised an enormous if inconspicuous influence on the advancement of mathematical and physical science, not only directly by his own investigations, but indirectly by suggesting problems for inquiry and inciting men to attack them, and by his readiness to give encouragement and help. | In another way, too, Stokes did much for the progress of mathematical physics. Soon after he was elected to the Lucasian chair he announced that he regarded it as part of his professional duties to help any member of the university in difficulties he might encounter in his mathematical studies, and the assistance rendered was so real that pupils were glad to consult him, even after they had become colleagues, on mathematical and physical problems in which they found themselves at a loss. Then during the thirty years he acted as secretary of the Royal Society he exercised an enormous if inconspicuous influence on the advancement of mathematical and physical science, not only directly by his own investigations, but indirectly by suggesting problems for inquiry and inciting men to attack them, and by his readiness to give encouragement and help. | ||
| Line 66: | Line 68: | ||
==Honours== | ==Honours== | ||
In addition to the honours mentioned above: | In addition to the honours mentioned above: | ||
| − | *From the [[Royal Society]], of which he became a fellow in | + | *From the [[Royal Society]], of which he became a fellow in 1851, he received the [[Rumford Medal]] in 1852 in recognition of his inquiries into the wavelength of light, and later, in 1893, the [[Copley Medal]]. |
| − | *In | + | *In 1869 he presided over the [[Exeter, England|Exeter]] meeting of the British Association. |
| − | *From | + | *From 1883 to 1885 he was Burnett lecturer at [[Aberdeen University|Aberdeen]], his lectures on light, which were published in 1884–1887, dealing with its nature, its use as a means of investigation, and its beneficial effects. |
| − | *In | + | *In 1889 he was made a [[baronet]]. |
| − | *In | + | *In 1891, as [[Gifford Lectures|Gifford]] lecturer, he published a volume on Natural Theology. |
*His academic distinctions included honorary degrees from many universities, together with membership of the [[Prussia]]n Order Pour le Mérite. | *His academic distinctions included honorary degrees from many universities, together with membership of the [[Prussia]]n Order Pour le Mérite. | ||
==Published works== | ==Published works== | ||
| − | Sir George Stokes's mathematical and physical papers (see external links) were published in a collected form in five volumes; the first three (Cambridge, | + | Sir George Stokes's mathematical and physical papers (see external links) were published in a collected form in five volumes; the first three (Cambridge, 1880, 1883, and 1901) under his own editorship, and the two last (Cambridge, 1904 and 1905) under that of Sir [[Joseph Larmor]], who also selected and arranged the ''Memoir and Scientific Correspondence of Stokes'' published at Cambridge in 1907. |
==References== | ==References== | ||
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|ALTERNATIVE NAMES= | |ALTERNATIVE NAMES= | ||
|SHORT DESCRIPTION= [[Mathematician]] and [[physicist]] | |SHORT DESCRIPTION= [[Mathematician]] and [[physicist]] | ||
| − | |DATE OF BIRTH= | + | |DATE OF BIRTH= 13 August 1819 |
|PLACE OF BIRTH= [[Skreen]], [[County Sligo]], [[Ireland]] | |PLACE OF BIRTH= [[Skreen]], [[County Sligo]], [[Ireland]] | ||
| − | |DATE OF DEATH= | + | |DATE OF DEATH= 1 February 1903 |
|PLACE OF DEATH= [[Cambridge]], [[England]] | |PLACE OF DEATH= [[Cambridge]], [[England]] | ||
}} | }} | ||
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Revision as of 17:54, 17 July 2007
|
George Stokes | |
|---|---|
| File:Gstokes.jpg Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet | |
| Born |
13 August 1819 |
| Died | 1 February 1903 Cambridge, England |
| Residence | .svg){kind=small} England
|
| Nationality |  Irish
|
| Field | Mathematician and physicist |
| Institutions | University of Cambridge |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Academic advisor | William Hopkins |
| Notable students | ; |
| Known for | Stokes' law Stokes' theorem Stokes line Stokes relations Stokes shift |
| Notable prizes | Rumford Medal (1852) Copley Medal (1893) |
| Religious stance | Evangelical protestant |
| Stokes did not have a doctorate, however William Hopkins is considered to be his equivalent mentor. | |
Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet (13 August 1819–1 February 1903) was an Irish mathematician and physicist, who at Cambridge made important contributions to fluid dynamics (including the Navier-Stokes equations), optics, and mathematical physics (including Stokes' theorem). He was secretary, then president of the Royal Society.
Life
George Stokes was the youngest son of the Reverend Gabriel Stokes, rector of Skreen, County Sligo, where he was born and brought up in an evangelical Protestant family. After attending schools in Screen, Dublin and Bristol, he matriculated in 1837 at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where four years later, on graduating as senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman, he was elected to a fellowship. In accordance with the college statutes, he had to resign the fellowship when he married in 1857, but twelve years later, under new statutes, he was re-elected. He retained his place on the foundation until 1902, when on the day before his 84th birthday, he was elected to the mastership. He did not enjoy this position for long, for he died at Cambridge on February 1 in the following year, and was buried in the Mill Road cemetery.
In 1849, he was appointed to the Lucasian professorship of mathematics in the university, and on June 1, 1899 the jubilee of his appointment was celebrated at Cambridge in a brilliant ceremony, which was attended by numerous delegates from European and American universities. A commemorative gold medal was presented to him by the chancellor of the university, and marble busts of him by Hamo Thornycroft were formally offered to Pembroke College and to the university by Lord Kelvin. Sir George Stokes, who was made a baronet in 1889, further served his university by representing it in parliament from 1887 to 1892 as one of the two members for the Cambridge University constituency. During a portion of this period (1885–1890) he was president of the Royal Society, of which he had been one of the secretaries since 1854, and thus, being at the same time Lucasian professor, he united in himself three offices which had only once before been held by one man, Sir Isaac Newton, who, however, did not hold all three simultaneously.
Stokes was the oldest of the trio of natural philosophers, James Clerk Maxwell and Lord Kelvin being the other two, who especially contributed to the fame of the Cambridge school of mathematical physics in the middle of the 19th century. His original work began about 1840, and from that date onwards the great extent of his output was only less remarkable than the brilliance of its quality. The Royal Society's catalogue of scientific, papers gives the titles of over a hundred memoirs by him published down to 1883. Some of these are only brief notes, others are short controversial or corrective statements, but many are long and elaborate treatises.
Contributions to science
In content his work is distinguished by a certain definiteness and finality, and even of problems which, when he attacked them, were scarcely thought amenable to mathematical analysis, he has in many cases given solutions which once and for all settle the main principles. This fact must be ascribed to his extraordinary combination of mathematical power with experimental skill. From the time when in about 1840 he fitted up some simple physical apparatus in his rooms in Pembroke College, mathematics and experiment ever went hand in hand, aiding and checking each other. In scope his work covered a wide range of physical inquiry, but, as Marie Alfred Cornu remarked in his Rede lecture of 1899, the greater part of it was concerned with waves and the transformations imposed on them during their passage through various media.
His first published papers, which appeared in 1842 and 1843, were on the steady motion of incompressible fluids and some cases of fluid motion. These were followed in 1845 by one on the friction of fluids in motion and the equilibrium and motion of elastic solids, and in 1850 by another on the effects of the internal friction of fluids on the motion of pendulums. To the theory of sound he made several contributions, including a discussion of the effect of wind on the intensity of sound and an explanation of how the intensity is influenced by the nature of the gas in which the sound is produced. These inquiries together put the science of hydrodynamics on a new footing, and provided a key not only to the explanation of many natural phenomena, such as the suspension of clouds in air, and the subsidence of ripples and waves in water, but also to the solution of practical problems, such as the flow of water in rivers and channels, and the skin resistance of ships. His work on fluid motion and viscosity led to his calculating the terminal velocity for a sphere falling in a viscous medium. This became known as Stokes' law. Later the CGS unit of viscosity was named a Stokes after his work.
Perhaps his best-known researches are those which deal with the wave theory of light. His optical work began at an early period in his scientific career. His first papers on the aberration of light appeared in 1845 and 1846, and were followed in 1848 by one on the theory of certain bands seen in the spectrum. In 1849 he published a long paper on the dynamical theory of diffraction, in which he showed that the plane of polarization must be perpendicular to the direction of propagation. Two years later he discussed the colours of thick plates.
In 1852, in his famous paper on the change of wavelength of light, he described the phenomenon of fluorescence, as exhibited by fluorspar and uranium glass, materials which he viewed as having the power to convert invisible ultra-violet radiation into radiation of longer wavelengths that are visible. The Stokes shift, which describes this conversion, is named in Stokes' honor. A mechanical model, illustrating the dynamical principle of Stokes's explanation was shown. The offshoot of this, Stokes line, is the basis of Raman scattering. In 1883, during a lecture at the Royal Institution, Lord Kelvin said he had heard an account of it from Stokes many years before, and had repeatedly but vainly begged him to publish it.
In the same year, 1852, there appeared the paper on the composition and resolution of streams of polarized light from different sources, and in 1853 an investigation of the metallic reflection exhibited by certain non-metallic substances. About 1860 he was engaged in an inquiry on the intensity of light reflected from, or transmitted through, a pile of plates; and in 1862 he prepared for the British Association a valuable report on double refraction, which marks a period in the history of the subject in England. A paper on the long spectrum of the electric light bears the same date, and was followed by an inquiry into the absorption spectrum of blood.
The identification of organic bodies by their optical properties was treated in 1864; and later, in conjunction with the Rev. William Vernon Harcourt, he investigated the relation between the chemical composition and the optical properties of various glasses, with reference to the conditions of transparency and the improvement of achromatic telescopes. A still later paper connected with the construction of optical instruments discussed the theoretical limits to the aperture of microscope objectives.
In other departments of physics may be mentioned his paper on the conduction of heat in crystals (1851) and his inquiries in connection with Crookes radiometer; his explanation of the light border frequently noticed in photographs just outside the outline of a dark body seen against the sky (1883); and, still later, his theory of the x-rays, which he suggested might be transverse waves travelling as innumerable solitary waves, not in regular trains. Two long papers published in 1840—one on attractions and Clairaut's theorem, and the other on the variation of gravity at the surface of the earth—also demand notice, as do his mathematical memoirs on the critical values of sums of periodic series (1847) and on the numerical calculation of a class of definite integrals and infinite series (1850) and his discussion of a differential equation relating to the breaking of railway bridges (1849).
But large as is the tale of Stokes's published work, it by no means represents the whole of his services in the advancement of science. Many of his discoveries were not published, or at least were only touched upon in the course of his oral lectures. An excellent example is his work in the theory of spectroscopy. In his presidential address to the British Association in 1871, Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson, as he was then) stated his belief that the application of the prismatic analysis of light to solar and stellar chemistry had never been suggested directly or indirectly by anyone else when Stokes taught it to him in Cambridge some time prior to the summer of 1852, and he set forth the conclusions, theoretical and practical, which he learnt from Stokes at that time, and which he afterwards gave regularly in his public lectures at Glasgow. These statements, containing as they do the physical basis on which spectroscopy rests, and the way in which it is applicable to the identification of substances existing in the sun and stars, make it appear that Stokes anticipated Kirchhoff by at least seven or eight years. Stokes, however, in a letter published some years after the delivery of this address, stated that he had failed to take one essential step in the argument—not perceiving that emission of light of definite wavelength not merely permitted, but necessitated, absorption of light of the same wavelength. He modestly disclaimed "any part of Kirchhoff's admirable discovery," adding that he felt some of his friends had been over-zealous in his cause. It must be said, however, that English men of science have not accepted this disclaimer in all its fullness, and still attribute to Stokes the credit of having first enunciated the fundamental principles of spectroscopy.
In another way, too, Stokes did much for the progress of mathematical physics. Soon after he was elected to the Lucasian chair he announced that he regarded it as part of his professional duties to help any member of the university in difficulties he might encounter in his mathematical studies, and the assistance rendered was so real that pupils were glad to consult him, even after they had become colleagues, on mathematical and physical problems in which they found themselves at a loss. Then during the thirty years he acted as secretary of the Royal Society he exercised an enormous if inconspicuous influence on the advancement of mathematical and physical science, not only directly by his own investigations, but indirectly by suggesting problems for inquiry and inciting men to attack them, and by his readiness to give encouragement and help.
List of Stokes eponyms
- Stokes' law, in fluid dynamics
- Stokes radius in biochemistry
- Stokes' theorem, in differential geometry
- Stokes line, in Raman scattering
- Stokes relations, relating the phase of light reflected from a non-absorbing boundary
- Stokes shift, in fluorescence
- Navier-Stokes equations, in fluid dynamics
- Stokes (unit), a unit of viscosity
- Stokes parameters and Stokes vector, used to quantify the polarisation of electromagnetic waves
- Campbell-Stokes recorder, an instrument for recording sunshine improved by Stokes, and still widely used today
- Stokes (lunar crater)
- Stokes (crater on Mars)
Honours
In addition to the honours mentioned above:
- From the Royal Society, of which he became a fellow in 1851, he received the Rumford Medal in 1852 in recognition of his inquiries into the wavelength of light, and later, in 1893, the Copley Medal.
- In 1869 he presided over the Exeter meeting of the British Association.
- From 1883 to 1885 he was Burnett lecturer at Aberdeen, his lectures on light, which were published in 1884–1887, dealing with its nature, its use as a means of investigation, and its beneficial effects.
- In 1889 he was made a baronet.
- In 1891, as Gifford lecturer, he published a volume on Natural Theology.
- His academic distinctions included honorary degrees from many universities, together with membership of the Prussian Order Pour le Mérite.
Published works
Sir George Stokes's mathematical and physical papers (see external links) were published in a collected form in five volumes; the first three (Cambridge, 1880, 1883, and 1901) under his own editorship, and the two last (Cambridge, 1904 and 1905) under that of Sir Joseph Larmor, who also selected and arranged the Memoir and Scientific Correspondence of Stokes published at Cambridge in 1907.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- Wilson, David B., Kelvin and Stokes A Comparative Study in Victorian Physics, (1987) ISBN 0-85274-526-5
External links
- John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson. George Gabriel Stokes at the MacTutor archive
- Biography on Dublin City University Web site
- Mathematical and physical papers volume 1 and volume 2 from the Internet Archive
- Life and work of Stokes
| Honorary Titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Joshua King |
Lucasian Professor at Cambridge University 1849–1903 |
Succeeded by: Sir Joseph Larmor |
| Preceded by: Thomas Henry Huxley |
President of the Royal Society 1885–1890 |
Succeeded by: The Lord Kelvin |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stokes, George |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Mathematician and physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 13 August 1819 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1 February 1903 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Cambridge, England |
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