Henry Wilbraham (25 July 1825 – 13 February 1883) was an English mathematician. He is known for discovering and explaining the

Gibbs phenomenon In mathematics, the Gibbs phenomenon, discovered by Available on-line at:National Chiao Tung University: Open Course Ware: Hewitt & Hewitt, 1979. and rediscovered by , is the oscillatory behavior of the Fourier series of a piecewise continuousl ...

nearly fifty years before

J. Willard Gibbs Josiah Willard Gibbs (; February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American scientist who made significant theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in t ...

did. Gibbs and Maxime Bôcher, as well as nearly everyone else, were unaware of Wilbraham's paper on the Gibbs phenomenon.

Biography

Henry Wilbraham was born to George and Lady Anne Wilbraham at Delamere, Cheshire. His family was privileged, with his father a parliamentarian and his mother the daughter of the Earl Fortescue. He attended Harrow School before being admitted to

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. ...

at the age of 16. He received a BA in 1846 and an MA in 1849 from Cambridge. At the age of 22 he published his paper on the Gibbs phenomenon. He remained at Trinity as a Fellow until 1856. In 1864 he married Mary Jane Marriott, and together they had seven children. In the last years of his life, he was the District

Registrar A registrar is an official keeper of records made in a register. The term may refer to: Education * Registrar (education), an official in an academic institution who handles student records * Registrar of the University of Oxford, one of the se ...

of the Chancery Court at

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

References

* Paul J. Nahin, ''Dr. Euler's Fabulous Formula,'' Princeton University Press, 2006. Ch. 4, Sect. 4. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilbraham, Henry 1825 births 1883 deaths 19th-century English mathematicians Mathematical analysts People educated at Harrow School Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge People from Cheshire