Ebenezer Cunningham

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Ebenezer Cunningham (born May 7, 1881 in Hackney , † February 12, 1977 ) was a British mathematician and theoretical physicist .

life and work

Cunningham studied from 1899 on a scholarship at St. John's College of Cambridge University (among others with Henry Frederick Baker and Joseph Larmor ), where he was first in the Tripos exams in 1902 ( Senior Wrangler ). In 1904 he won the Smith Prize , became a fellow at St. John's College and was a lecturer at the University of Liverpool . From 1907 he was with Karl Pearson at University College in London. In 1911 he went back to St. John's College in Cambridge, where he was a lecturer from 1926 to 1946.

Under the influence of reading Larmor's "Aether and Matter" and Einstein's 1905 work, he dealt with the theory of relativity. An article by Cunningham from 1907 is the earliest mention of Einstein's work on special relativity in England. At about the same time as Harry Bateman, Cunningham proved the conformal invariance of Maxwell's equations ( spherical wave transformation ). In 1914 he wrote one of the first English-language textbooks on the theory of relativity, with others following in 1915 and 1921.

Cunningham had been a pacifist since the Boer War and refused military service during World War I. He also held leading positions within the Congregational Church, was a member of the Emmanuel Congregational Church and in 1953/54 chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. In this capacity he also took part in the coronation procession of Elizabeth II in 1953.

literature

  • Andrew Warwick Masters of Theory. Cambridge and the rise of mathematical physics , Chicago University Press 2003
  • McCrea Ebenezer Cunningham , Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society Vol. 10, 1978, p. 116.
  • José Sanchez-Ron: The reception of special relativity in Great Britain , in Thomas Glick (editor) The Comparative Reception of Relativity , Springer 2007 (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science Vol. 103)

Fonts

  1. ^ Cunningham: On the Electromagnetic Mass of a Moving Electron , Philosophical Magazine, Vol. 14, Oct. 1907, p. 538.
  2. ↑ Cunningham "The principle of relativity in electrodynamics and an extension thereof", Proc. London Mathematical Society, Vol. 8, 1910, p. 77.
  3. ^ Cunningham: The principle of relativity , 1914
  4. ^ Cunningham: Relativity and the electron theory , 1915
  5. ^ Cunningham: Relativity, the electron theory, and gravitation , 1921

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Cunningham, Ebenezer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British mathematician and theoretical physicist
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Hackney
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1977