William Davidson Niven

WD Niven

Sir William Davidson Niven (born March 24, 1842 in Peterhead , † May 29, 1917 in Sidcup ) was a Scottish physicist.

Niven studied at the University of Aberdeen (with top grades) and from 1862 at Trinity College, Cambridge University, and became third Wrangler in the Tripos exams in 1866 and a Fellow of Trinity College in 1867. He was also an assistant tutor at Trinity College, where he was a student of James Clerk Maxwell . He later became a math professor at the Royal Indian Engineering College at Coopers Hill and soon after at the Artillery School in Woolwich, where he also studied ballistics. In 1822 he succeeded Thomas Archer Hirst as director of studies at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich. In 1903 he retired and lived in Sidcup, Kent.

Niven published the collection of scientific papers by James Clerk Maxwell after his death (Scientific Papers 1890) and in 1881 the second edition of his major work A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism , on which Maxwell had been working before his death. Alfred North Whitehead was one of his students .

Niven was inducted into the Order of the Bath as a Companion in 1897 and knighted as Knight Commander of the same order in 1903 . He was a Fellow of the Royal Society .

His brother Charles Niven (1845-1923) was a professor of theoretical physics in Aberdeen. He was Senior Wrangler in the Cambridge Tripos in 1867 (before William Kingdon Clifford ). Another brother, James Niven, became a doctor and head of public health at the University of Manchester.

Web links

• Obituary by Joseph Larmor , Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, Volume 16, 1917, pp. XXXVIII

References and comments

1. ↑ First (senior) Wrangler was a Scot named Morton who died early. The previous year, Lord Rayleigh was Senior Wrangler.