Edmund Taylor Whittaker (24 October1873 - 24 March1956) was an English mathematician, who contributed widely to applied mathematics, mathematical physics and the theory of special functions. He had a particular interest in numerical analysis, but also worked on celestial mechanics and the history of applied mathematics and the history of physics. He was born in Southport, Lancashire, England.

He is remembered as the author of A Course of Modern Analysis (1902), which in its 1915 second edition in collaboration with George Neville Watson became Whittaker & Watson, one of the handful of mathematics texts of its era to become indispensable.

He is the eponym of the Whittaker function or Whittaker integral , in the theory of confluent hypergeometric functions. This makes him also the eponym of the Whittaker model in the local theory of automorphic representations. He published also on algebraic functions and automorphic functions. He gave expressions for the Bessel functions as integrals involving Legendre functions.

In the theory of partial differential equations, Whittaker developed a general solution of the Laplace equation in three dimensions and the solution of the wave equation. He developed the electrical potential field as a bi-directional flow of energy (sometimes referred to as alternating currents). Whittaker's pair of papers in 1903 and 1904 indicated that any potential can be analyzed by a Fourier-like series of waves, such as a planet's gravitational field point-charge. The superpositions of inward and outward wave pairs produce the "static" fields (or scalar potential). These were harmonically-related. By this conception, the structure of electric potential is created from two opposite, though balanced, parts. Whittaker suggested that gravity possessed a wavelike "undulatory" character.

He wrote The Calculus of Observations: a treatise on numerical mathematics (1924) and Treatise on the Analytical Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies: With an Introduction to the Problem of Three Bodies (1937). He was the editor of Eddington's Fundamental Theory (1946), and wrote From Euclid to Eddington, A Study of Conceptions of the External World (1949), including a first scholarly account of some of the research between 1900 to 1925. He wrote also A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity in two volumes.

He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge from 1892. He graduated as Second Wrangler in the examination in 1895. In 1896, Whittaker was elected as a fellow of Trinity College. Between 1906 and 1911 he was the Irish Astronomer Royal and taught mathematical physics at Trinity College Dublin. He became professor at Edinburgh University in 1911, where he served out his academic career.

Whittaker was a Christian and became a convert to the Roman Catholic Church (1930). Whittaker was, in 1954, selected by the scientific Fellows of the Society to receive the Copley Medal award, the highest award granted by the Royal Society of London. Whittaker died in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The mathematician John Macnaughten Whittaker (1905-1984) was his son.

See also: Magnetogravity

Publications

• Whittaker, Edmund, "The Calculus of Observations: a treatise on numerical mathematics". 1924.
• Whittaker, Edmund, "On an expression of the electromagnetic field due to electrons by means of two scalar potential functions". November, 1904.
• Whittaker, Edmund, "A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, from the Age of Descartes to the Close of the Nineteenth Century". 1910. ISBN 0486261263

References

• Aitken, A. C., "The contributions of E T Whittaker to algebra and numerical analysis". Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathical Society, 1958.
• Dingle, H., "Edmund T Whittaker, mathematician and historian". Science, 1956.
• Temple, G. F. J., "Edmund Taylor Whittaker". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London, 1956.
• "Whittaker Memorial Volume". Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathical Society, 1958.
• Bearden, T. E., "Gravitobiology : Conception of Edmund Whittaker (papers of 1903-1904)". Tesla Book Co., Chula Vista, CA, USA.

External links