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John Lighton Synge (; 23 March 1897 – 30 March 1995)
[ was an ]Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
mathematician and physicist, whose seven-decade career included significant periods in Ireland, Canada, and the USA. He was a prolific author and influential mentor, and is credited with the introduction of a new geometrical approach to the theory of relativity
The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in ...
.[
]
Background
Synge was born 1897 in Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
, Ireland, into a prominent Church of Ireland family. He attended St. Andrew's College, Dublin
St Andrew's College ( ga, Coláiste Naomh Aindriú) is a co-educational, inter-denominational, international Private day school, founded in 1894 by members of the Presbyterian community, and now located in Booterstown, Dún Laoghaire–Rath ...
and in 1915 entered Trinity College Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
(TCD). He was elected a Foundation Scholar his first year, which was unusual as it was normally won by more advanced students. While an undergraduate at TCD, he spotted a non-trivial error in ''Analytical Dynamics
In classical mechanics, analytical dynamics, also known as classical dynamics or simply dynamics, is concerned with the relationship between Motion (physics), motion of bodies and its causes, namely the force (physics), forces acting on the bodies ...
'', a textbook by E. T. Whittaker
Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker (24 October 1873 – 24 March 1956) was a British mathematician, physicist, and historian of science. Whittaker was a leading mathematical scholar of the early 20th-century who contributed widely to applied mathema ...
, who had recently taught there, and notified Whittaker of the error. In 1919 he was awarded a B.A. in Mathematics and Experimental Physics, and also a gold medal for outstanding merit. In 1922 he was awarded an M.A., and in 1926 a Sc.D., the latter upon submission of his published papers up to then.[
In 1918, Synge had married Elizabeth Eleanor Mabel Allen (1896–1985). She was another student at TCD, first of mathematics, then of history, but family finances forced her to leave without graduating. Their daughters Margaret (Pegeen), Cathleen and Isabel were born in 1921, 1923 and 1930 respectively. The middle girl grew up to become the distinguished Canadian mathematician ]Cathleen Synge Morawetz
Cathleen Synge Morawetz (May 5, 1923 – August 8, 2017) was a Canadian mathematician who spent much of her career in the United States. Morawetz's research was mainly in the study of the partial differential equations governing fluid flow, part ...
.[
Synge's uncle ]John Millington Synge
Edmund John Millington Synge (; 16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909) was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, collector of folklore, and a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival. His best known play ''The Playboy of the Western World'' was poorly r ...
was a famous playwright. He is more distantly related to the 1952 Nobel prizewinner in chemistry Richard Laurence Millington Synge
Richard Laurence Millington Synge FRS FRSE FRIC FRSC MRIA (Liverpool, 28 October 1914 – Norwich, 18 August 1994) was a British biochemist, and shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of partition chromatography with Arch ...
. He was a great-great-great-grandson of the mathematician and bishop Hugh Hamilton.[Florides (2008)]
His older brother, Edward Hutchinson Synge
Edward Hutchinson Synge (1 June 1890 – 26 May 1957) was an Irish physicist who published a complete theoretical description of the near-field scanning optical microscope, an instrument used in nanotechnology, several decades before it was expe ...
(1890-1957), who was known as Hutchie, also won a Foundation Scholarship in Trinity for Mathematics, though he never graduated. While Hutchie's later independent research was long overlooked, he is now recognised for his pioneering work in optics, particularly in near field optical imaging.
He died on 30 March 1995 in Dublin.
Career in mathematics and physics
Synge was appointed to the position of lecturer at Trinity College, and then accepted a position at the University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
in 1920. From 1920 until 1925, Synge was an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto. There he attended lectures by Ludwik Silberstein
Ludwik Silberstein (1872 – 1948) was a Polish-American physicist who helped make special relativity and general relativity staples of university coursework. His textbook '' The Theory of Relativity'' was published by Macmillan in 1914 with a se ...
on the theory of relativity
The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in ...
, stimulating him to contribute "A system of space-time co-ordinates", a letter in ''Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
'' in 1921.
Synge returned to Trinity College Dublin, in 1925, where he was elected to a fellowship and was appointed the University Professor of Natural Philosophy
Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science.
From the ancient wo ...
(the old name for physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
). He was a member of the American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...
and the London Mathematical Society. He was treasurer of the Royal Irish Academy in 1929. He went back to Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
in 1930, where he was appointed Professor of Applied Mathematics and became Head of the Department of Applied Mathematics. In 1940, he supervised three Chinese students, Guo Yonghuai
Guo Yonghuai, or Yung-huai Kuo (; April 4, 1909 – December 5, 1968) was a Chinese aerospace engineer. He was an expert in aerodynamics.
Biography
Guo was born in Rongcheng, Shandong, and graduated from the department of physics of Peking U ...
, Chien Wei-zang
Qian Weichang or Chien Wei-zang (; 9 October 1912 – 30 July 2010) was a Chinese physicist and applied mathematician, as well as academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He served as President of Shanghai University.
Career
Qian was b ...
and Chia-Chiao Lin
Chia-Chiao Lin (; 7 July 1916 – 13 January 2013) was a Chinese-born American applied mathematician and Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Lin made major contributions to the theory of hydrodynamic stabilit ...
, who later became leading applied mathematicians in China and the United States.
He spent some of 1939 at Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
, and in 1941, he was a visiting professor at Brown University. In 1943 he was appointed as Chairman of the Mathematics Department of Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
. Three years later he became Head of the Mathematics Department of the Carnegie Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...
, where John Nash was one of his students. He spent a short time as a ballistic mathematician in the US Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sig ...
between 1944 and 1945.
He returned to Ireland in 1948, accepting the position of Senior Professor in the School of Theoretical Physics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) ( ga, Institiúid Ard-Léinn Bhaile Átha Cliath) is a statutory independent research institute in Ireland. It was established in 1940 on the initiative of the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, in Dub ...
. This school had been set up in 1940, and had several outstanding members, including Erwin Schrödinger
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (, ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist with Irish citizenship who developed a number of fundamental results in quantum theo ...
(who contributed to quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistr ...
), who was also a Senior Professor.
His contributions
Synge made outstanding contributions to different fields of work including classical mechanics
Classical mechanics is a physical theory describing the motion of macroscopic objects, from projectiles to parts of machinery, and astronomical objects, such as spacecraft, planets, stars, and galaxies. For objects governed by classi ...
, general mechanics and geometrical optics
Geometrical optics, or ray optics, is a model of optics that describes light propagation in terms of '' rays''. The ray in geometrical optics is an abstraction useful for approximating the paths along which light propagates under certain circumstan ...
, gas dynamics
Compressible flow (or gas dynamics) is the branch of fluid mechanics that deals with flows having significant changes in fluid density. While all flows are compressible, flows are usually treated as being incompressible when the Mach number (the ...
, hydrodynamics, elasticity, electrical networks, mathematical methods, differential geometry, and Einstein's theory of relativity
The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in ...
. He studied an extensive range of mathematical physics problems, but his best known work revolved around using geometrical methods in general relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...
.
He was one of the first physicists to seriously study the interior of a black hole, and his early work was cited by both Kruskal and Szekeres in their independent discoveries of the true (so-called maximal) structure of the Schwarzschild black hole. Synge's later derivation of the Szekeres-Kruskal metric solution, which was motivated by a desire to avoid "using 'bad' chwarzschildcoordinates to obtain 'good' zekeres-Kruskalcoordinates," has been generally under-appreciated in the literature, but was adopted by Chandrasekhar in his black hole monograph.
In pure mathematics, he is perhaps best known for Synge's theorem, which concerns the topology of closed orientable Riemannian manifold of positive sectional curvature In Riemannian geometry, the sectional curvature is one of the ways to describe the curvature of Riemannian manifolds. The sectional curvature ''K''(σ''p'') depends on a two-dimensional linear subspace σ''p'' of the tangent space at a poi ...
. When such a space is even-dimensional and orientable
In mathematics, orientability is a property of some topological spaces such as real vector spaces, Euclidean spaces, surfaces, and more generally manifolds that allows a consistent definition of "clockwise" and "counterclockwise". A space i ...
, the theorem says it must be simply connected. In odd dimensions, it instead says that such a space is necessarily orientable.
He also created the game of Vish in which players compete to find circularity ( vicious circles) in dictionary definitions
A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definiti ...
.
Fields Medal
While at Toronto, he was a colleague of John Charles Fields
John Charles Fields, FRS, FRSC (May 14, 1863 – August 9, 1932) was a Canadian mathematician and the founder of the Fields Medal for outstanding achievement in mathematics.
Career
Born in Hamilton, Ontario, to a leather shop owner, Fields ...
and acted as secretary to the 1924 International Mathematical Congress, which was hosted by Fields. Fields had been planning the creation of an award for mathematicians, however, when he became ill in 1932, Synge represented Fields at the 1932 International Mathematical Congress, where the medal was approved. After Fields death, Synge completed arrangements with the sculptor of the medal, R. Tait McKenzie and oversaw the disbursement of Fields' estate. The award is now known as the Fields Medal.
Honours
Synge received many honours for his works. He was elected as a 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 ...
in 1943. He was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and in 1943 was the first recipient of the society's Henry Marshall Tory Medal
The Henry Marshall Tory Medal is an award of the Royal Society of Canada "for outstanding research in a branch of astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, physics, or an allied science". It is named in honour of Henry Marshall Tory and is awarded bi-ann ...
, as one of the first mathematicians working in Canada to be internationally recognised for his research in mathematics. In 1954 he was elected an honorary fellow of Trinity College Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
. He was president of the Royal Irish Academy from 1961 until 1964. The Royal Society of Canada established the John L. Synge Award in his honour in 1986.
John Lighton Synge retired in 1972. During his time at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) ( ga, Institiúid Ard-Léinn Bhaile Átha Cliath) is a statutory independent research institute in Ireland. It was established in 1940 on the initiative of the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, in Dub ...
, about 12% of all workers in the relativity theory
The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in ...
studied there. Professor Hermann Bondi
Sir Hermann Bondi (1 November 1919 – 10 September 2005) was an Austrian- British mathematician and cosmologist.
He is best known for developing the steady state model of the universe with Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold as an alternative to the ...
, who gave the first J. L. Synge Public Lecture in 1992, had this to say: "Every one of the other 88% has been deeply influenced by his geometric vision and the clarity of his expression". He was awarded the Boyle Medal
Boyle is an English, Irish and Scottish surname of Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon or Norman origin. In the northwest of Ireland it is one of the most common family names. Notable people with the surname include:
Disambiguation
*Adam Boyle (disambiguation), ...
by the Royal Dublin Society in 1972.
During his long scientific career, Synge published over 200 papers and 11 books. He proved the result now known as Synge's theorem.
Selected publications
;Papers
*
*
*
*
*
*
;Books
* 1931 ''The Mathematical Papers of Sir William Rowan Hamilton: Volume 1, Geometrical Optics''; Pub: Cambridge
* 1937 ''Geometrical Optics: An Introduction to Hamilton's Method''; Pub: Cambridge
* 1942 ''Geometrical Mechanics and de Broglie Waves''; Pub: Cambridge''
* 1942 ''Principles of Mechanics (with Byron A. Griffith)''; Pub: McGraw Hill
* 1949 ''Tensor Calculus (with Alfred Schild
Alfred Schild (September 7, 1921 – May 24, 1977) was a leading Austrian American physicist, well known for his contributions to the Golden age of general relativity (1960–1975).
Biography
Schild was born in Istanbul on September 7, 1921. His ...
)'' Mathematical Exposition #5 from University of Toronto Press
The University of Toronto Press is a Canadian university press founded in 1901. Although it was founded in 1901, the press did not actually publish any books until 1911.
The press originally printed only examination books and the university cale ...
[John DeCicco (1951]
Review: J. L. Synge & Alfred Schild ''Tensor Calculus''
Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society
The ''Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society'' is a quarterly mathematical journal published by the American Mathematical Society.
Scope
It publishes surveys on contemporary research topics, written at a level accessible to non-experts. I ...
57(6):500-2 via Project Euclid Project Euclid is a collaborative partnership between Cornell University Library and Duke University Press which seeks to advance scholarly communication in theoretical and applied mathematics and statistics through partnerships with independent an ...
* 1951 ''Science: Sense and Nonsense''; Pub: Norton / Jonathan Cape
* 1952 ''Jump Conditions at Discontinuities in General Relativity (with Stephen O'Brien)''; Pub: DIAS (Communications of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 9, Series A)
* 1956 ''Relativity: The Special Theory''; Pub: North-Holland
* 1956 ''Geometrical Optics in Moving Dispersive Media''; Pub: DIAS (Communications of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 12, Series A)
* 1957 ''The Relativistic Gas''; Pub: New Holland
* 1957 ''The Hypercircle in Mathematical Physics''; Pub: Cambridge
* 1957 ''Kandelman's Krim: A Realistic Fantasy''; Pub: Jonathan Cape
* 1960 ''Relativity: The General Theory''; Pub: North-Holland
* 1961 ''Notes on the Schwarzschild Line-Element'' (with Petros S. Florides); Pub: DIAS (Communications of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 14, Series A)
* 1964 ''The Petrov Classification of Gravitational Fields''; Pub: DIAS (Communications of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 15, Series A)
* 1970 ''Talking About Relativity''; Pub: North-Holland
* 1972 ''Quaternions, Lorentz Transformations and the Conway-Dirac-Eddington Matrices''; Pub: DIAS (Communications of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 21, Series A)
* 1972 ''General Relativity: Papers in Honour of J. L. Synge'' (editor Lochlainn O'Raifeartaigh); Pub: Clarendon/Oxford
See also
*Synge's world function In general relativity, Synge's world function is a smooth locally defined function of pairs of points in a smooth spacetime M with smooth Lorentzian metric g . Let x, x' be two points in spacetime, and suppose x belongs to a convex normal neighbor ...
References
Sources
* Florides, Petros Serghiou (2008)
John Lighton Synge
by Petros Serghiou Florides
Petros Serghiou Florides is a Greek Cypriot mathematical physicist whose career has been based in Ireland.
He was born in Lapithos, Cyprus, and in 1958 received his bachelor's degree from the University of London. His 1960 PhD from Royal Holl ...
, School of Mathematics, Trinity College Dublin
*
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worldcat
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worldcat
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Synge, John Lighton
1897 births
1995 deaths
Academics of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
Academics of Trinity College Dublin
Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
Fellows of the Royal Society
Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
Fellows of Trinity College Dublin
Honorary Fellows of Trinity College Dublin
Irish mathematicians
Irish relativity theorists
Members of the Royal Irish Academy
Ohio State University faculty
People educated at St Andrew's College, Dublin
People from County Dublin
Scholars of Trinity College Dublin
20th-century Irish people
University of Toronto faculty