Mathematical and Physical Papers

The collected papers of Sir George Stokes, the outstanding and influential nineteenth-century Cambridge mathematician.

George Gabriel Stokes (Author)

9781108002639, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

380 pages
21.6 x 2.1 x 14 cm, 0.48 kg

Sir George Stokes (1819–1903) established the science of hydrodynamics with his law of viscosity describing the velocity of a small sphere through a viscous fluid. He published no books, but was a prolific lecturer and writer of papers for the Royal Society, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the Victoria Institute and other mathematical and scientific institutions. These collected papers (issued between 1880 and 1905) are therefore the only readily available record of the work of an outstanding and influential mathematician, who was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in Cambridge for over fifty years, Master of Pembroke College, President of the Royal Society (1885–1890), Associate Secretary of the Royal Commission on the University of Cambridge and a Member of Parliament for the University.

1. Notes on hydrodynamics, III
2. On the constitution of the luminiferous ether
3. On the theory of certain bands seen in the spectrum
4. Notes on hydrodynamics, IV
5. On a difficulty in the theory of sound
6. On the formation of the central spot of Newton's Rings beyond the critical angle
7. On some points in the received theory of sound
8. On the perfect blackness of the central spot of Newton's Rings, and on the verification of Fresnel's formulae for the intensities of reflected and refracted rays
9. On attractions, and on Clairaut's theorem
10. On the variation of gravity at the surface of the Earth
11. On a mode of measuring the astigmatism of a defective eye
12. On the determination of the wave length corresponding with any point of the spectrum
13. Discussion of a differential equation relating to the breaking of railway bridges
14. Notes on hydrodynamics, VI
14. On the dynamical theory of diffraction
15. On the numerical calculation of a class of definite integrals and infinite series
16. On the mode of disappearance of Newton's Rings in passing the angle of total internal reflection
17. On metallic reflection
18. On a fictitious displacement of fringes of interference
19. On Haidinger's Brushes
Index.

Subject Areas: Mathematics [PB]