Hector Munro Macdonald

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Hector Munro Macdonald (born January 19, 1865 in Edinburgh , † May 16, 1935 in Aberdeen ) was a Scottish applied mathematician and theoretical physicist .

Macdonald studied mathematics from 1882 at the University of Aberdeen . After graduating in 1886 he continued his studies at Clare College of the University of Cambridge , where he in 1889 as Fourth Wrangler in the Tripos (was first exams Gilbert Walker , Second Frank Dyson ) graduated and Fellow was his college. In 1891 he received one of the Smith Awards (for an essay Stress in the Dielectric ). In 1901 he won the Adams Prize with an essay on the theory of the propagation of electromagnetic waves ( Electric Waves , later published as a book) . In 1904 he became professor of mathematics at the University of Aberdeen.

As a mathematician, he mainly dealt with applied problems in electromagnetic theory and, related to this, with special functions of mathematical physics such as Bessel functions. He studied how radio waves propagate in the atmosphere by examining the problem of the diffraction of electromagnetic waves on a sphere. Guglielmo Marconi showed around 1902 the possibility of communication with radio waves across the Atlantic, which Macdonald's diffraction theory could not explain. Only the discovery of the reflection from high-lying conductive layers ( Heaviside layer ) in the atmosphere provided an explanation.

In 1901 he was elected to the Royal Society . In 1914 he became an Honorary Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. In 1916 he received the Royal Medal of the Royal Society. From 1916 to 1918 he was President of the London Mathematical Society. He was an honorary doctor of law from the University of Glasgow and since 1905 a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh .

Fonts

  • Electric Waves 1902
  • Electromagnetism 1934

Web links

References

  1. ↑ Predicted in 1902 by Arthur Edwin Kennelly and Oliver Heaviside , only discovered in 1924 by Edward Victor Appleton , who received the Nobel Prize for it.
  2. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed March 18, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Macdonald, Hector Munro
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Edinburgh
DATE OF DEATH May 16, 1935
Place of death Aberdeen