H. F. Baker

This article is about Henry Frederick Baker, the mathematician. For Frederick Baker the film director, see Frederick Baker (director).
Professor Henry Baker

Henry Frederick Baker (1866-1956)
Born Henry Frederick Baker
(1866-07-03)3 July 1866
Cambridge, England
Died 17 March 1956(1956-03-17) (aged 89)
Cambridge, England
Residence United Kingdom
Nationality British
Fields
Institutions University of Cambridge
Alma mater St John's College, Cambridge
Doctoral advisor Arthur Cayley[1]
Doctoral students
Notable awards

Henry Frederick Baker FRS[2] FRSE (3 July 1866 – 17 March 1956) was a British mathematician, working mainly in algebraic geometry, but also remembered for contributions to partial differential equations (related to what would become known as solitons), and Lie groups.[3]

Early life

He was born in Cambridge the son of Henty Baker, a butler, and Sarah Ann Britham.[4]

Education

He was educated at The Perse School before winning a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge in October 1884. Baker graduated as Senior Wrangler in 1887, bracketed with 3 others.[5]

Career

Baker was elected Fellow of St John's in 1888 where he remained for 68 years.

In June, 1898 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[2][6] In 1911, he gave the presidential address to the London Mathematical Society.

In January 1914 he was appointed Lowndean Professor of Astronomy.

Gordon Welchman recalled that in the 1930s before the war Dennis Babbage and himself were members of a group of geometers known as Professor Baker’s "Tea Party", who met once a week to discuss the areas of research in which we were all interested. .[7]

He married twice. Firstly in 1893 to Lilly Isabella Hamfield Klopp, who died in 1903, then he remarried in 1913, to Muriel Irene Woodyard.

He died in Cambridge and is buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground, with his second wife Muriel (1885 - 1956).

See also

Publications

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, March 08, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.