Henry Cabourn Pocklington

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Henry Cabourn Pocklington (born January 28, 1870 in Exeter , † May 15, 1952 in Leeds ) was a British mathematician and physicist who is best known today for his contributions to number theory .

His father Henry Pocklington (1842-1913) was known in the insurance industry and as an amateur scientist, especially in microscopy.

Pocklington graduated from Cambridge University with an MA and later received an Honorary Doctorate (D.Sc.) from the University of London.

Pocklington was a teacher in Leeds (head of the physics department at Central High School) and continued in the profession when he was a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is portrayed as a loner who was only interested in physics, mathematics and astronomy and did not seek any personal contact (except with his father and sister Ida). As a teacher, he patiently devoted himself to students in whom he discovered scientific interests, but could not control classes as a whole, what his students were taking advantage of. He ignored the teasing of his students and was only able to jump out of his skin for a short time if he was being played tricks on in physical experiments. Despite these external failures as a teacher, he turned down other offers, such as a chair in mathematics at the University of Cape Town. He also turned down an offer to move to Cambridge University when he became a Fellow of St. John's College. The reason was the necessary social contacts with other fellows there.

He is known for a primality test named after him (and often Derrick Henry Lehmer ) (1914). He also developed an algorithm named after him (1917) for solving the equation (where a is a quadratic residual, we are looking for x). He is also considered a pioneer of the mathematical treatment of the theory of antennas (1897), for which he derived an integral equation. He also dealt with the problem of hollow vertebra (Hollow Vertex) in conformal mappings (with applications in fluid mechanics, for example, the cyclone eye). A work by him from 1905 derived properties of the optical materials later known as metamaterial .

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society .

Fonts

  • The determination of the prime or composite nature of large numbers by Fermat's theorem, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Volume 18, 1914, pp. 29-30.
  • Electrical oscillations in wires, Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc., Vol. 9, 1897, pp. 324-332
  • The complete system of the periods of a hollow vortex ring, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., Volume 186, 1895, p. 603, Archives

literature

  • L. Rosenhead: Henry Cabourn Pocklington. 1870-1952, Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, Volume 8, 1953, p. 555

References and comments

  1. ^ Brian Stevenson, Henry Pocklington 1842-1913, pdf
  2. ↑ In the obituary in the Royal Society: His pupils used to plague him unmercifully, cruelly, sometimes even wittily, but he hardly ever appeared to notice.
  3. ↑ Pocklington, Growth of a Wave-group when the Group-velocity is Negative, Nature, Volume 71, 1905, pp. 607-608
personal data
SURNAME Pocklington, Henry Cabourn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British mathematician and physicist
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Exeter
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 1952
Place of death Leeds