Eric Harold Neville
Encyclopedia
Eric Harold Neville, known as E. H. Neville (January 1, 1889 London
, England
– August 22, 1961 Reading
, Berkshire
, England) was an English
mathematician
. A heavily fictionalized portrayal of his life is rendered in the 2007 novel The Indian Clerk
.
, where his mathematical abilities were recognised and encouraged by his mathematics teacher, T. P. Nunn. In 1907, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge
.
While there he became acquainted with other Cambridge fellows, most notably Bertrand Russell and G. H. Hardy.
In 1914, as a visiting lecturer, he travelled to India, where, in response to a request from Hardy, he managed to persuade the Indian mathematician Ramanujan to accompany him back to England, thus playing a vital role in the initiation of one of the most celebrated mathematical collaborations of the last hundred years.
Neville did not join the army when the First World War erupted in the summer of 1914. Poor eyesight would have prevented him from active service, but he declared his opposition to the conflict and refused to fight. It was probably this pacifist declaration that resulted in the non-renewal of his Trinity fellowship in 1919.
Neville had a keen interest in elliptic functions, having taught the subject to postgraduate students at Reading since the 1920s. He believed that the subject's recent decline in popularity was due to its dependence on a mass of complicated formulae, a variety of differing and confusing notations, and an artificial definition relying on a familiarity with theta functions. A period of recuperation from an illness in 1940 gave him the opportunity to put several years of lecture notes into publishable form. The result was his best-known work: Jacobian elliptic functions (1944).
By starting with the Weierstrass P-function and associating with it a group of doubly-periodic functions with two simple poles, he was able to give a simple derivation of the Jacobian elliptic functions, as well as modifying the existing notation to provide a more systematic approach to the subject. Unfortunately, it failed to achieve its author's stated intention "to restore the Jacobian functions to the elementary curriculum" (NEVILLE 1951, vi) and its appearance came too late to have any real effect on the dominance of the classical approach to elliptic functions.
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
– August 22, 1961 Reading
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
, Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, England) was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
mathematician
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
. A heavily fictionalized portrayal of his life is rendered in the 2007 novel The Indian Clerk
The Indian Clerk
The Indian Clerk is a novel by David Leavitt, published in 2007. It is inspired by the career of the self-taught mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, as seen mainly through the eyes of his mentor and collaborator G.H. Hardy, a British mathematics professor at Cambridge University...
.
Early life and education
Eric Harold Neville was born in London on 1 January, 1889. He attended the William Ellis SchoolWilliam Ellis School
William Ellis School is a United Kingdom secondary comprehensive school for boys in Highgate, London.-Admissions:It is a specialist Language College. The School's motto is 'Rather Use Than Fame'. The school is over-subscribed, usually an indicator of a popular school. It is situated just west of...
, where his mathematical abilities were recognised and encouraged by his mathematics teacher, T. P. Nunn. In 1907, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
.
While there he became acquainted with other Cambridge fellows, most notably Bertrand Russell and G. H. Hardy.
Career
Neville's principal areas of expertise were geometrical, with differential geometry dominating much of his early work. Early on in his Trinity fellowship, in a dissertation on moving axes, he extended Darboux's method of the moving triad and coefficients of spin by removing the restriction of the orthogonal frame. He later wrote on how to generalise concepts and operations of 3-space into the four-dimensional arena. During his time in Cambridge, he had been greatly influenced by Bertrand Russell's work on the logical foundations of mathematics and in 1922 he published his Prolegomena to Analytical Geometry. It is a detailed treatise on foundations of analytical geometry, providing an axiomatic development of the subject.In 1914, as a visiting lecturer, he travelled to India, where, in response to a request from Hardy, he managed to persuade the Indian mathematician Ramanujan to accompany him back to England, thus playing a vital role in the initiation of one of the most celebrated mathematical collaborations of the last hundred years.
Neville did not join the army when the First World War erupted in the summer of 1914. Poor eyesight would have prevented him from active service, but he declared his opposition to the conflict and refused to fight. It was probably this pacifist declaration that resulted in the non-renewal of his Trinity fellowship in 1919.
Chairmanship at Reading
On leaving Cambridge, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics at University College, Reading. In a few years, his work enabled the institution to receive a university charter and award its own degrees from 1926.Neville had a keen interest in elliptic functions, having taught the subject to postgraduate students at Reading since the 1920s. He believed that the subject's recent decline in popularity was due to its dependence on a mass of complicated formulae, a variety of differing and confusing notations, and an artificial definition relying on a familiarity with theta functions. A period of recuperation from an illness in 1940 gave him the opportunity to put several years of lecture notes into publishable form. The result was his best-known work: Jacobian elliptic functions (1944).
By starting with the Weierstrass P-function and associating with it a group of doubly-periodic functions with two simple poles, he was able to give a simple derivation of the Jacobian elliptic functions, as well as modifying the existing notation to provide a more systematic approach to the subject. Unfortunately, it failed to achieve its author's stated intention "to restore the Jacobian functions to the elementary curriculum" (NEVILLE 1951, vi) and its appearance came too late to have any real effect on the dominance of the classical approach to elliptic functions.
Professional Memberships & Honors
Neville was an active member of several mathematical and scientific bodies. Elected to membership of the London Mathematical Society in 1913, he served on its council from 1926 to 1931. He regularly attended meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, being President of Section A (Mathematics and Physics) in 1950. He also chaired its Mathematical Tables Committee from 1931 to 1947 and, when it came under the auspices of the Royal Society, he contributed two sets of tables, on Farey series of order 1025 (1950) and Rectangular-polar conversion tables (1956).Later Work
Neville published many papers, but the vast majority were short items, focusing on concise and succinctly-solved problems, often in the Mathematical Gazette, to which he was a frequent contributor. As with all of his writings, they were focused and highly polished, yet, as one obituary says with regret, "so brilliant and versatile a talent could have been harnessed to some major mathematical investigation" (BROADBENT 1962, 482).Retirement & Demise
Neville retired from the University of Reading in 1954, after which he continued to publish papers in the Mathematical Gazette. He was working on a sequel to his book on elliptic functions when he died on 22 August 1961.External links
- Prof. E. H. Neville, "Srinivasa Ramanujan"
- A brief biography of Neville"