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George N. Watson
George Neville Watson (31 January 1886 – 2 February 1965) was an English mathematician, who applied complex analysis to the theory of special functions. His collaboration on the 1915 second edition of E. T. Whittaker's ''A Course of Modern Analysis'' (1902) produced the classic "Whittaker and Watson" text. In 1918 he proved a significant result known as Watson's lemma, that has many applications in the theory on the asymptotic behaviour of exponential integrals. Life He was born in Westward Ho! in Devon the son of George Wentworth Watson, a schoolmaster and genealogist, and his wife, Mary Justina Griffith. He was educated at St Paul's School in London, as a pupil of F. S. Macaulay. He then studied Mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. There he encountered E. T. Whittaker, though their overlap was only two years. From 1914 to 1918 he lectured in Mathematics at University College, London. He became Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Birmingham in 1918 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westward Ho!
Westward Ho! is a seaside village near Bideford in Devon, England. The A39 road provides access from the towns of Barnstaple, Bideford, and Bude. It lies at the south end of Northam Burrows and faces westward into Bideford Bay, opposite Saunton Sands and Braunton Burrows. There is an electoral ward with the same name. The population at the 2011 census was 2,112. Name Westward Ho! is noted for its unusual place name. The village name comes from the title of Charles Kingsley's novel ''Westward Ho!'' (1855), which was set in nearby Bideford. The book was a bestseller, and entrepreneurs saw the opportunity to develop tourism in the area. The Northam Burrows Hotel and Villa Building Company, chaired by Isaac Newton Wallop, 5th Earl of Portsmouth, was formed in 1863, and its prospectus stated: The hotel was named the Westward Ho!-tel, and the adjacent villas were also named after the book. As further development took place, the expanding settlement also acquired the name of Wes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exponential Integral
In mathematics, the exponential integral Ei is a special function on the complex plane. It is defined as one particular definite integral of the ratio between an exponential function and its argument. Definitions For real non-zero values of ''x'', the exponential integral Ei(''x'') is defined as : \operatorname(x) = -\int_^\infty \fract\,dt = \int_^x \fract\,dt. The Risch algorithm shows that Ei is not an elementary function. The definition above can be used for positive values of ''x'', but the integral has to be understood in terms of the Cauchy principal value due to the singularity of the integrand at zero. For complex values of the argument, the definition becomes ambiguous due to branch points at 0 and Instead of Ei, the following notation is used, :E_1(z) = \int_z^\infty \frac\, dt,\qquad, (z), 0. Properties Several properties of the exponential integral below, in certain cases, allow one to avoid its explicit evaluation through the definition abov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ramanujan's Lost Notebook
Ramanujan's lost notebook is the manuscript in which the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan recorded the mathematical discoveries of the last year (1919–1920) of his life. Its whereabouts were unknown to all but a few mathematicians until it was rediscovered by George Andrews in 1976, in a box of effects of G. N. Watson stored at the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge. The "notebook" is not a book, but consists of loose and unordered sheets of paper described as "more than one hundred pages written on 138 sides in Ramanujan's distinctive handwriting. The sheets contained over six hundred mathematical formulas listed consecutively without proofs." have published several books in which they give proofs for Ramanujan's formulas included in the notebook. Berndt says of the notebook's discovery: "The discovery of this 'Lost Notebook' caused roughly as much stir in the mathematical world as the discovery of Beethoven’s tenth symphony would cause in the musical world ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Q-Pochhammer Symbol
In mathematical area of combinatorics, the ''q''-Pochhammer symbol, also called the ''q''-shifted factorial, is the product (a;q)_n = \prod_^ (1-aq^k)=(1-a)(1-aq)(1-aq^2)\cdots(1-aq^), with (a;q)_0 = 1. It is a ''q''-analog of the Pochhammer symbol (x)_n = x(x+1)\dots(x+n-1), in the sense that \lim_ \frac = (x)_n. The ''q''-Pochhammer symbol is a major building block in the construction of ''q''-analogs; for instance, in the theory of basic hypergeometric series, it plays the role that the ordinary Pochhammer symbol plays in the theory of generalized hypergeometric series. Unlike the ordinary Pochhammer symbol, the ''q''-Pochhammer symbol can be extended to an infinite product: (a;q)_\infty = \prod_^ (1-aq^k). This is an analytic function of ''q'' in the interior of the unit disk, and can also be considered as a formal power series in ''q''. The special case \phi(q) = (q;q)_\infty=\prod_^\infty (1-q^k) is known as Euler's function, and is important in combinatorics, number theory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mock Theta Function
In mathematics, a mock modular form is the holomorphic part of a harmonic weak Maass form, and a mock theta function is essentially a mock modular form of weight . The first examples of mock theta functions were described by Srinivasa Ramanujan in his last 1920 letter to G. H. Hardy and in his lost notebook. Sander Zwegers discovered that adding certain non-holomorphic functions to them turns them into harmonic weak Maass forms. History Ramanujan's 12 January 1920 letter to Hardy listed 17 examples of functions that he called mock theta functions, and his lost notebook contained several more examples. (Ramanujan used the term "theta function" for what today would be called a modular form.) Ramanujan pointed out that they have an asymptotic expansion at the cusps, similar to that of modular forms of weight , possibly with poles at cusps, but cannot be expressed in terms of "ordinary" theta functions. He called functions with similar properties "mock theta functions". Zwegers lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modular Form
In mathematics, a modular form is a (complex) analytic function on the upper half-plane satisfying a certain kind of functional equation with respect to the Group action (mathematics), group action of the modular group, and also satisfying a growth condition. The theory of modular forms therefore belongs to complex analysis but the main importance of the theory has traditionally been in its connections with number theory. Modular forms appear in other areas, such as algebraic topology, sphere packing, and string theory. A modular function is a function that is invariant with respect to the modular group, but without the condition that be Holomorphic function, holomorphic in the upper half-plane (among other requirements). Instead, modular functions are Meromorphic function, meromorphic (that is, they are holomorphic on the complement of a set of isolated points, which are poles of the function). Modular form theory is a special case of the more general theory of automorphic form ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bessel Function
Bessel functions, first defined by the mathematician Daniel Bernoulli and then generalized by Friedrich Bessel, are canonical solutions of Bessel's differential equation x^2 \frac + x \frac + \left(x^2 - \alpha^2 \right)y = 0 for an arbitrary complex number \alpha, the ''order'' of the Bessel function. Although \alpha and -\alpha produce the same differential equation, it is conventional to define different Bessel functions for these two values in such a way that the Bessel functions are mostly smooth functions of \alpha. The most important cases are when \alpha is an integer or half-integer. Bessel functions for integer \alpha are also known as cylinder functions or the cylindrical harmonics because they appear in the solution to Laplace's equation in cylindrical coordinates. Spherical Bessel functions with half-integer \alpha are obtained when the Helmholtz equation is solved in spherical coordinates. Applications of Bessel functions The Bessel function is a generalizat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asymptotic Expansion
In mathematics, an asymptotic expansion, asymptotic series or Poincaré expansion (after Henri Poincaré) is a formal series of functions which has the property that truncating the series after a finite number of terms provides an approximation to a given function as the argument of the function tends towards a particular, often infinite, point. Investigations by revealed that the divergent part of an asymptotic expansion is latently meaningful, i.e. contains information about the exact value of the expanded function. The most common type of asymptotic expansion is a power series in either positive or negative powers. Methods of generating such expansions include the Euler–Maclaurin summation formula and integral transforms such as the Laplace and Mellin transforms. Repeated integration by parts will often lead to an asymptotic expansion. Since a '' convergent'' Taylor series fits the definition of asymptotic expansion as well, the phrase "asymptotic series" usually implies a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Mathematical Society
The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh Mathematical Society and the Operational Research Society (ORS). History The Society was established on 16 January 1865, the first president being Augustus De Morgan. The earliest meetings were held in University College, but the Society soon moved into Burlington House, Piccadilly. The initial activities of the Society included talks and publication of a journal. The LMS was used as a model for the establishment of the American Mathematical Society in 1888. Mary Cartwright was the first woman to be President of the LMS (in 1961–62). The Society was granted a royal charter in 1965, a century after its foundation. In 1998 the Society moved from rooms in Burlington House into De Morgan House (named after the society's first president), at 57–5 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honorary Degree
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad honorem '' ("to the honour"). The degree is typically a doctorate or, less commonly, a master's degree, and may be awarded to someone who has no prior connection with the academic institution or no previous postsecondary education. An example of identifying a recipient of this award is as follows: Doctorate in Business Administration (''Hon. Causa''). The degree is often conferred as a way of honouring a distinguished visitor's contributions to a specific field or to society in general. It is sometimes recommended that such degrees be listed in one's curriculum vitae (CV) as an award, and not in the education section. With regard to the use of this honorific, the policies of institutions of higher education generally ask that recipients ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University College, London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = £1.544 billion (2019/20) , chancellor = Anne, Princess Royal(as Chancellor of the University of London) , provost = Michael Spence , head_label = Chair of the council , head = Victor L. L. Chu , free_label = Visitor , free = Sir Geoffrey Vos , academic_staff = 9,100 (2020/21) , administrative_staff = 5,855 (2020/21) , students = () , undergrad = () , postgrad = () , coordinates = , campus = Urban , city = London, England , affiliations = , colours = Purple and blue celeste , nickname ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
