George Harvey, Esq., (died 29 October 1834) was an English

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, known for his scientific and engineering writings, on

meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...

ship building Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to befor ...

, and

colour blindness Color blindness or color vision deficiency (CVD) is the decreased ability to see color or differences in color. It can impair tasks such as selecting ripe fruit, choosing clothing, and reading traffic lights. Color blindness may make some aca ...

Life

Harvey was based in

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...

, where he trained as a physician before specialising in mathematics. He tutored

William Yolland William Yolland CB, FRS FRSA (17 March 1810 – 4 September 1885) was an English military surveyor, astronomer and engineer, and was Britain's Chief Inspector of Railways from 1877 until his death. He was a redoubtable campaigner for railway s ...

in mathematics. Later he became a lecturer in mathematics at the

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of Sig ...

. Around 1826 his name was mentioned in correspondence about a professorial post at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

, between

Francis Walker Gilmer Francis may refer to: People *Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State and Bishop of Rome *Francis (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters *Francis (surname) Places *Rural Mu ...

and Peter Barlow. The chair went in the end to

Charles Bonnycastle Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

. Harvey became 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 ...

in 1824 his proposer being

Thomas Frederick Colby Thomas Frederick Colby FRS FRSE FGS FRGS (1 September 17849 October 1852), was a British major-general and director of the Ordnance Survey (OS). A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and Royal Society, Colby was one of the leading geogra ...

. Next year he became Fellow of the

Royal Society of London 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 ...

. He was also a

Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (Whatever shines should be observed) , predecessor = , successor = , formation = , founder = , extinction = , merger = , merged = , type = NGO ...

Geological Society The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

and

Linnaean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

. During his last years, Harvey was Local Secretary at Plymouth for the

Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK) was founded in London in 1826, mainly at the instigation of Whig MP Henry Brougham, with the object of publishing information to people who were unable to obtain formal teaching or who pr ...

. In 1834 ''

The Literary Gazette ''The Literary Gazette'' was a British literary magazine, established in London in 1817 with its full title being ''The Literary Gazette, and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences''. Sometimes it appeared with the caption title, "London Lit ...

'' reported his death at Plymouth, "where he fell by his own hand while under the influence of a melancholy deprivation of reason." The notice remarks that he was among the ablest mathematicians of our age and country, and of a noble disposition, intensely awake to the sufferings of his fellow human beings. The writer suspects this acute sensibility lay behind the overwrought condition which led to the tragedy. He was an intimate friend of the Devon poet

Nicholas Toms Carrington Nicholas Toms Carrington (also Noel Thomas) (1777–1830) was an English schoolmaster and poet. Life The son of a retail grocer at Plymouth, Carrington was born there. Shortly his parents moved to Plymouth Dock, and for some time he was employed ...

and of the Cornish engineer and author

Davies Gilbert Davies Gilbert (born Davies Giddy, 6 March 1767 – 24 December 1839) was an English engineer, author, and politician. He was elected to the Royal Society on 17 November 1791 and served as President of the Royal Society from 1827 to 1830. He c ...

Works

Harvey was friends with

Charles Babbage Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered ...

and interested in French mathematics. He translated from the French work on the

method of least squares The method of least squares is a standard approach in regression analysis to approximate the solution of overdetermined systems (sets of equations in which there are more equations than unknowns) by minimizing the sum of the squares of the res ...

Adrien-Marie Legendre Adrien-Marie Legendre (; ; 18 September 1752 – 9 January 1833) was a French mathematician who made numerous contributions to mathematics. Well-known and important concepts such as the Legendre polynomials and Legendre transformation are named ...

, and on the

calculus of variations The calculus of variations (or Variational Calculus) is a field of mathematical analysis that uses variations, which are small changes in functions and functionals, to find maxima and minima of functionals: mappings from a set of functions t ...

Charles Bossut Charles Bossut (11 August 1730 – 14 January 1814) was a French mathematician and ''confrère'' of the Encyclopaedists. He was born at Tartaras, Loire, and died in Paris. Works * ''Traité élémentaire d'hydrodynamique'' (1771) later rew ...

Harvey's article on meteorology for the ''

Encyclopædia Metropolitana ''The Encyclopædia Metropolitana'' was an encyclopedic work published in London, from 1817 to 1845, by part publication. In all it came to quarto, 30 vols., having been issued in 59 parts (22,426 pages, 565 plates). Origins Initially the proje ...

'' (Mixed Sciences vol. III) was printed separately (1834), and reissued in the 1848 ''Encyclopaedia of Experimental Philosophy'', with works by Peter Barlow,

Peter Mark Roget Peter Mark Roget ( ; 18 January 1779 – 12 September 1869) was a British physician, natural theologian, lexicographer and founding secretary of The Portico Library. He is best known for publishing, in 1852, the '' Thesaurus of English Words ...

and Francis Lunn; his remark that

folk wisdom Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging fr ...

came out ahead of science in the matter of

weather forecast Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the conditions of the atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia and formally since the 19th centu ...

s was noted later. Harvey also wrote on "Naval Architecture" for the ''Metropolitana''. He wrote for the ''

Edinburgh Encyclopædia The ''Edinburgh Encyclopædia'' is an encyclopaedia in 18 volumes, printed and published by William Blackwood and edited by David Brewster between 1808 and 1830. In competition with the Edinburgh-published ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', the ''Edin ...

'' on Plymouth and naval topics; the article "Ship-building" earned Harvey a diamond ring from the Tsar of Russia, presented by Prince Lieven. At the 1832 meeting of the

British Association The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chie ...

, Harvey stated that British naval design was falling behind in mathematical theory, whatever the advantages brought by

Robert Seppings Sir Robert Seppings, FRS (11 December 176725 April 1840) was an English naval architect. His experiments with diagonal trusses in the construction of ships led to his appointment as Surveyor of the Navy in 1813, a position he held until 1835. Bi ...

in internal design. He published two papers in the ''

Philosophical Transactions ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a private venture of the Royal Society's secretary. It was established in 1665, making it the first journa ...

'' for 1824. They dealt with the accuracy of chronometers and the

magnetic compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with ...

. A paper by Harvey on

from 1824.''On an Anomalous Case of Vision with regard to Colours'', has been regarded as pioneering, for its use of a table of

Patrick Syme Patrick Syme (1774–1845) was a Scottish flower-painter. Life Syme was born in Edinburgh on 17 September 1774, and educated there. In the Scottish public exhibitions, which began in 1808, his flower-pieces were much admired. In 1803 Syme took ...

. The table was from Syme's 1814 edition of the ''Nomenclature of Colours'' by

Abraham Gottlob Werner Abraham Gottlob Werner (; 25 September 174930 June 1817) was a German geologist who set out an early theory about the stratification of the Earth's crust and propounded a history of the Earth that came to be known as Neptunism. While most tenet ...

; its use moved studies of the condition on from the case history to the

standardised test A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a predete ...

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harvey, George Year of birth missing 1834 deaths 19th-century English mathematicians Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Scientists from Plymouth, Devon