Mathematician:George Gabriel Stokes

Mathematician

Mathematician and physicist who made important contributions to fluid dynamics, optics and mathematical physics.

Known for the Navier-Stokes equations and Stokes' theorem.

He was not the pioneer of the latter; it was named after him for his habit of setting its proof as an examination question.

Nationality

Irish (then part of Great Britain).

History

• Born: 13 Aug 1819, Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland
• Died: 1 Feb 1903, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England

Theorems and Definitions

• Stokes's Law
• Stokes's Theorem:
  • Kelvin-Stokes Theorem (with Lord Kelvin), regarding surfaces in 3-space and their boundaries, also known as the Classical Stokes' Theorem
  • General Stokes' Theorem, regarding arbitrary manifolds and their boundaries

• Stokes's Drag (or Stokes' Drag)
• Stokes' Equation or Stokes Equation, also known as Airy's Equation, for George Biddell Airy.

• Navier-Stokes Equations (with Claude-Louis Navier)

Results named for George Gabriel Stokes can be found here.

Definitions of concepts named for George Gabriel Stokes can be found here.

Also known as

Full name and title: Sir George Gabriel Stokes FRS.

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "George Gabriel Stokes": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Stokes, Sir George Gabriel (1819-1903)
• 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Stokes, Sir George Gabriel (1819-1903)
• 2014: Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Stokes, Sir George Gabriel FRS (1819-1903)