Harry Bateman

Harry Bateman (* May 29, 1882 in Manchester, † January 21, 1946 in Pasadena ) was a British mathematician who worked on analysis and mathematical physics.

Life and work

Bateman was the son of a pharmaceutical sales representative and went to school in Manchester. From 1900 he studied with a scholarship mathematics at Cambridge, where he cut in 1903 as the first (Senior Wrangler ) in the Tripos examinations. In 1905 he won the Smith Prize for an essay on differential equations and became a Fellow of Trinity College. 1905/ 06 he attended the universities of Paris and Göttingen and went there with the work of the school of David Hilbert on integral equations familiar. In 1906 he was a lecturer at the University of Liverpool in 1907 and Reader in mathematical physics in Manchester. In 1910 he went to the USA, first at Bryn Mawr College, and from 1912 at the Johns Hopkins University, where he also in 1913 his then not absolutely necessary in England for an academic career doctorate caught up ("The quartic curve and its inscribed configurations", in Frank Morley ). In 1917 he became a professor at the later California Institute of Technology (then Throop College), where he remained for the rest of his career.

Bateman has been dealing with partial differential equations of mathematical physics ( with particular applications in electrodynamics and hydrodynamics ), integral transforms and special functions, but also with geometry. He also studied applied mathematics, such as the stability of aircraft, wave resistance of ships and integral equations in the propagation of seismic waves. Even as a student in the early semesters, he published mathematical work and remained throughout his life very productive. His posthumous works resulted in the Bateman Manuscript Project, Tables of special functions and integral transforms, which were issued at Caltech by Arthur Erdélyi, Fritz upper Hettinger, Wilhelm Magnus, Francesco Tricomi.

In 1909 he showed at the same time Ebenezer Cunningham, the invariance of the Maxwell equations under conformal transformations generalize the invariance under the Lorentz group.

In 1928 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1930 a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. In 1935, he was vice president of the American Mathematical Society. He should get a prize from the Institute of Aeronautical Science in New York, when he died of a heart ailment at the train.

Bateman was married since 1912 and had a ( died young ) son and a daughter. He was also an excellent chess player.

Writings

  • The Conformal Transformations of a Space of Four Dimensions and their Applications to Geometrical Optics, 1908, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 7, 70-89
  • The mathematical analysis of electrical and optical wave -motion on the basis of Maxwell's equations, Cambridge University Press, 1915, Dover 1955
  • Partial differential equations of mathematical physics, Cambridge University Press 1932, Dover 1944, 1959
  • With Albert A. Bennett, William E. Milne: Numerical integration of differential equations, Bulletin of the National Research Council, 1933, Dover 1956
  • Hydrodynamics, National Research Council, Washington DC, 1932, 1956
  • Differential equations, Longmans, Green, London 1918 Reprint Chelsea 1966
  • Bateman Manuscript Project: Higher transcendental functions, 3 volumes, McGraw Hill 1953 to 1955, Warrior 1981
  • Bateman Manuscript Project: Tables of Integral Transforms, 2 volumes, McGraw Hill 1954
Pasadena, California Eric Temple Bell Integrated Authority File
376712
de