Sir George Howard Darwin, F.R.S. (July 9 1845 – December 7 1912) was a British astronomer and mathematician, the second son and fifth child of Charles and Emma Darwin. He was born at Down House. He studied under Charles Pritchard, went on to study at Cambridge University, where his tutor was Edward John Routh, was admitted to the bar, but returned to science. In 1883 he became Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge University. He studied tidal forces involving the Sun, Moon, and Earth, and formulated the fission theory of Moon formation. [1] He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1892, and also later served as president of that organization. Darwin married Martha (Maud) du Puy of Philadelphia. They had two sons and two daughters:
- Gwen Raverat (1885-1957), artist.
- Charles Galton Darwin (1887-1962), physicist.
- Margaret Elizabeth Darwin (1890-1974), married Sir Geoffrey Keynes.
- William Robert Darwin (1894-?)
References
Works by G. H. Darwin
- The tides and kindred phenomena in the solar system (Boston, Houghton, 1899)
- Problems connected with the tides of a viscous spheroid (London, Harrison and Sons, 1879-1882)
- Scientific papers (Volume 1): Oceanic tides and lunar disturbances of gravity (Cambridge : University Press, 1907)
- Scientific papers (Volume 2): Tidal friction and cosmogony. (Cambridge : University Press, 1908)
- Scientific papers (Volume 3): Figures of equilibrium of rotating liquid and geophysical investigations. (Cambridge : University Press, 1908)
- Scientific papers (Volume 4): Periodic orbits and miscellaneous papers. (Cambridge : University Press, 1911)
- Scientific papers (Volume 5) Supplementary volume, containing biographical memoirs by Sir Francis Darwin and Professor E. W. Brown, lectures on Hill's lunar theory, etc... (Cambridge : University Press, 1916)
External links
- O'Connor, John J; Edmund F. Robertson "George Darwin". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
- "The Genesis of Double Stars" - by George Darwin, from A.C. Seward's Darwin and Modern Science (1909).
- details of correspondence
