Augustus Edward Hough Love
FRS (17 April 1863,
Weston-super-Mare
Weston-super-Mare, also known simply as Weston, is a seaside town in North Somerset, England. It lies by the Bristol Channel south-west of Bristol between Worlebury Hill and Bleadon Hill. It includes the suburbs of Mead Vale, Milton, Oldmixon ...
– 5 June 1940,
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
), often known as A. E. H. Love, was a mathematician famous for his work on the mathematical theory of
elasticity. He also worked on wave propagation and his work on the structure of the Earth in ''Some Problems of
Geodynamics
Geodynamics is a subfield of geophysics dealing with dynamics of the Earth. It applies physics, chemistry and mathematics to the understanding of how mantle convection leads to plate tectonics and geologic phenomena such as seafloor spreading, mo ...
'' won for him the
Adams prize
The Adams Prize is one of the most prestigious prizes awarded by the University of Cambridge. It is awarded each year by the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and St John's College to a UK-based mathematician for distinguis ...
in 1911 when he developed a mathematical model of surface waves known as
Love wave
In elastodynamics, Love waves, named after Augustus Edward Hough Love, are horizontally polarized surface waves. The Love wave is a result of the interference of many shear waves (S-waves) guided by an elastic layer, which is ''welded'' to an e ...
s.
Love also contributed to the theory of
tidal locking
Tidal locking between a pair of co-orbiting astronomical bodies occurs when one of the objects reaches a state where there is no longer any net change in its rotation rate over the course of a complete orbit. In the case where a tidally locked b ...
and introduced the parameters known as
Love number
The Love numbers (''h'', ''k'', and ''l'') are dimensionless parameters that measure the rigidity of a planetary body and the susceptibility of its shape to change in response to a tidal potential.
In 1909, Augustus Edward Hough Love introduced ...
s, used in problems related to
Earth tides
Earth tide (also known as solid Earth tide, crustal tide, body tide, bodily tide or land tide) is the displacement of the solid earth's surface caused by the gravity of the Moon and Sun. Its main component has meter-level amplitude at periods of a ...
, the tidal deformation of the solid Earth due to the gravitational attraction of the Moon and Sun.
He was educated at
Wolverhampton Grammar School
Wolverhampton Grammar School is a co-educational independent school in Wolverhampton, England.
History
Initially a grammar school for boys, WGS was founded in 1512 by Sir Stephen Jenyns, a master of the ancient guild of Merchant Taylors, who ...
and in 1881 won a scholarship to
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...
, where he was at first undecided whether to study classics or mathematics. His successful progress (he was placed
Second Wrangler
At the University of Cambridge in England, a "Wrangler" is a student who gains first-class honours in the final year of the university's degree in mathematics. The highest-scoring student is the Senior Wrangler, the second highest is the Secon ...
) vindicated his choice of mathematics, and in 1886 he was elected Fellow of the college. In 1899 he was appointed
Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy
The Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy is the name of a chair at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford.
Overview
The Sedleian Chair was founded by Sir William Sedley who, by his will dated 20 October 1618, left the sum o ...
in the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
, a position which he retained until his death in 1940. He was also a Fellow of
Queen's College.
He authored the two volume classic, ''
A Treatise on the Mathematical Theory of Elasticity
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...
''. He was the author of several articles in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, including Elasticity and Infinitesimal Calculus
His other awards include the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
Royal Medal in 1909 and
Sylvester Medal
The Sylvester Medal is a bronze medal awarded by the Royal Society (London) for the encouragement of mathematical research, and accompanied by a £1,000 prize. It was named in honour of James Joseph Sylvester, the Savilian Professor of Geometry a ...
in 1937, the
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 S ...
De Morgan Medal
The De Morgan Medal is a prize for outstanding contribution to mathematics, awarded by the London Mathematical Society. The Society's most prestigious award, it is given in memory of Augustus De Morgan, who was the first President of the societ ...
in 1926. He was secretary to the London Mathematical Society between 1895 and 1910, and president for 1912–1913.
Further reading
*A.E.H. Love, "Theoretical mechanics, an introductory treatise on the principles of theoretical dynamics", 1897, Cambridge University Press
*A.E.H. Love, "Some problems of geodynamics", first published in 1911 by the Cambridge University Press and published again in 1967 by Dover, New York, USA.
See also
*
Twist (mathematics)
In differential geometry, the twist of a ''ribbon'' is its rate of axial rotation. Let a ribbon (X,U) be composted of space curve X=X(s), where s is the arc length of X, and U=U(s) the a unit normal vector, perpendicular at each point to X. Sinc ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Love, Augustus Edward Hough
1863 births
1940 deaths
People from Weston-super-Mare
19th-century British mathematicians
20th-century British mathematicians
Fellows of the Royal Society
Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge
Fellows of The Queen's College, Oxford
Sedleian Professors of Natural Philosophy
People educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School
Royal Medal winners
Second Wranglers
De Morgan Medallists
Geodynamics