James Whitbread Lee Glaisher FRS

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 ...

FRAS (5 November 1848,

Lewisham Lewisham () is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in the London Plan as one ...

– 7 December 1928,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

), son of James Glaisher and Cecilia Glaisher, was a prolific

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

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 ...

and astronomer. His large collection of (mostly) English ceramics was mostly left to the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th V ...

in Cambridge.

Life

He was born in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

on 5 November 1848 the son of the eminent astronomer James Glaisher and his wife, Cecilia Louisa Belville. His mother was a noted photographer. He was educated at St Paul's School from 1858. He became somewhat of a school celebrity in 1861 when he made two hot-air balloon ascents with his father to study the stratosphere. He won a Campden Exhibition Scholarship allowing him to study at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, where he was

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 Se ...

in 1871 and was made a Fellow of the college. Influential in his time on teaching at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, he is now remembered mostly for work in

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Ma ...

that anticipated later interest in the detailed properties of

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 of the modular group, and also satisfying a growth condition. The theory o ...

s. He published widely over other fields of mathematics. Glaisher was elected FRS in 1875. He was the editor-in-chief of '' Messenger of Mathematics''. He was also the 'tutor' of the philosopher

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian- British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is consi ...

(tutor being a non-academic role in Cambridge University). He was president of the

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

1886–1888 and 1901–1903. When

George Biddell Airy Sir George Biddell Airy (; 27 July 18012 January 1892) was an English mathematician and astronomer, and the seventh Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the E ...

retired as Astronomer Royal in 1881 it is said that Glaisher was offered the post but declined. He lived in a set of rooms at Trinity College. He died there on 7 December 1928. He was a keen cyclist but preferred his

penny-farthing The penny-farthing, also known as a high wheel, high wheeler or ordinary, is an early type of bicycle. It was popular in the 1870s and 1880s, with its large front wheel providing high speeds (owing to its travelling a large distance for every r ...

to the newer "safety" bicycles. He was President of Cambridge University Cycling Club 1882 to 1885. He was a keen collector of

English Delftware English delftware is tin-glazed pottery made in the British Isles between about 1550 and the late 18th century. The main centres of production were London, Bristol and Liverpool with smaller centres at Wincanton, Glasgow and Dublin. English ...

and other popular English pottery, much of it then below the notice of other collectors. The university indulged him by allowing him a room of the

to house his personal collection. He also amassed a collection of some 1,600 valentines, which he bequeathed to the museum.R. Virag. ''Valentines: Highlights from the Collection at The Fitzwilliam Museum.'' Cambridge: 2018.

Awards

*Honorary doctorate (DSc) from the

University of Dublin The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dub ...

in 1892 *Honorary doctorate (DSc) from

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

in 1902 *Winner of 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 in 1908 *Winner of the Royal Society's

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 1913

Publications

Glaisher published many papers and was editor and contributor to both the ''Messenger of Mathematics'' and the ''Quarterly Journal of Mathematics''.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Glaisher, James Whitbread Lee 1848 births 1928 deaths 19th-century English mathematicians 20th-century English mathematicians Number theorists Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge People educated at St Paul's School, London Second Wranglers Fellows of the Royal Society Honorary Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh People from Lewisham 19th-century British astronomers Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge De Morgan Medallists Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society James Whitbread Lee 20th-century British astronomers

Life

Awards

Publications

See also

References

External links