George Cunliffe McVittie (1904–1988) was a British mathematician and cosmologist. He is best known for his contributions towards radio astronomy.

Life

McVittie was born on 5 June 1904 in Smyrna in Turkey, where his father, Frank S. McVittie, was a merchant. His mother, Emily Caroline Weber, lived in Greece but was of British descent. George was raised bilingual in French and English. From 1923 he studied mathematics and physics at the University of Edinburgh receiving his degree (MA) in 1928. He then went to

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

where he studied for his doctorate (PhD) under Prof

Arthur Eddington Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He was also a philosopher of science and a populariser of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the lumin ...

. From 1930 to 1934 he was Assistant Lecturer at the University of Leeds, 1933-34 Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and 1936-1958 Reader at King's College, University of London. In 1933 he became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, being elected in 1933. During World War II he worked in the Meteorological Service, which also led to publications in meteorology. In 1943 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. His proposers were David Gibb,

Ivor Etherington Ivor Malcolm Haddon Etherington FRSE (8 February 1908 -1 January 1994) was a mathematician who worked initially on general relativity, and later on genetics and introduced genetic algebras. Life He was born in Lewisham in London the son of Annie ...

Robert Schlapp Robert Schlapp FRSE (18 July 1899 – 31 May 1991) was a 20th century British physicist and mathematician of German descent. He was affectionately known as Robin Schlapp. Life He was born in Edinburgh on 18 July 1899, the youngest of three ch ...

and

Alexander Aitken Alexander Craig "Alec" Aitken (1 April 1895 – 3 November 1967) was one of New Zealand's most eminent mathematicians. In a 1935 paper he introduced the concept of generalized least squares, along with now standard vector/matrix notation fo ...

. From 1948 he was a professor at Queen Mary's College, University of London. He then worked in America from 1952 to 1972 as professor at the

University of Illinois Observatory The University of Illinois Astronomical Observatory, located at 901 S. Mathews Avenue in Urbana, Illinois, on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was built in 1896, and was designed by Charles A. Gunn. It has been listed o ...

of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he built a small astronomy department, one of the leading in the country. He was awarded

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

s in 1962 and 1970. His administrative skills meant that he became secretary of the

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

. From 1972 to 1988 he held an honorary professorship at the University of Kent in Canterbury, where in 1985 he received an honorary doctorate. He died in Canterbury on 8 March 1988.

Legacy

Asteroid 2417, McVittie was named after him. The George C. McVittie Elementary School in Drayton Plains, Michigan was also named in his honor.

Family

In 1934, McVittie married Mildred Bond Strong (1906–1985) daughter of John Strong

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

(1868-1945).

Publications

*''Cosmological Theory'' (1937), (2nd Edition 1949
1952 reprint
*''General Relativity and Cosmology'' (1956), (2nd edition 1965) *''Fact and Theory in Cosmology'' (1961)

References

External links