Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T03:56:32.093Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Contributions of E. T. Whittaker to Algebra and Numerical Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

A. C. Aitken
A. C. Aitken
Affiliation:
The Mathematical Institute, The University Edinburgh
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Whittaker's contributions to algebra are not numerous and are confined to special problems ; in one or two cases they are rediscoveries, of the kind that add a certain illumination to the original. His outlook on algebra was that of his time ; one might characterise it by referring to the spirit and content of Perron's Algebra, as contrasted with the Moderne Algebra of van der Waerden. Bred in the Cayley-Sylvester tradition of matrix algebra and the invariant theory of forms, he was expert also in the manipulation of continued fractions and determinants. His lectures to honours classes in Edinburgh always included a course on matrices, vector analysis and invariants, historical reference being made to Grassmann, Cayley and Sylvester; it is to such a course that the writer owes his first acquaintance with matrix algebra. In later years, from about 1925, Whittaker acquired an adequate knowledge, though never a marked taste, for those parts of modern abstract algebra, in particular the representation of groups and algebras, that serve a purpose in mathematical physics; his courses of research lectures, which he kept up until a late period in his tenure of the chair, bore witness of this.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , June 1958 , pp. 31 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Edinburgh Mathematical Society 1958

References

REFERENCES

1On the continued fractions which represent the functions of Hermite, Proc. Edin. Math. Soc., 32 (1914), 65–74.Google Scholar
2On the theory of continued fractions, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 36 (1916), 243–255.Google Scholar
3On the latent roots of compound determinants and Brill's determinants, Proc. Edin. Math. Soc., 35 (1917), 2–9.Google Scholar
4On the numerical solution of integral equations, Proc. Roy. Soc., 94 (1918), 367–383.Google Scholar
5A formula for the solution of algebraic and transcendental equations, Proc. Edin. Math. Soc., 36 (1918), 103–106.Google Scholar
6On deterrninants whose elements are determinants, Proc. Edin. Math. Soc., 36 (1918), 107–115.Google Scholar
7On a new method of graduation, Proc. Edin. Math. Soc., 41 (1923), 63–75.Google Scholar
8On the theory of graduation, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 44 (1924), 77–83.Google Scholar
9The Calculus of Observations: a Treatise on Numerical Mathematics (with Robinson, G.) (Blackie, 1924).Google Scholar