George Green
Green, George
Born July 14, 1793, in Sneinton, near Nottingham: died there Mar. 31, 1841. English mathematician.
Green studied mathematics on his own and only in 1837 graduated from Cambridge University. In his Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism (1828) he introduced the concept and term of “potential” and developed a theory of electricity and magnetism based on the relation he had found between the volume integral and the surface integral where the surface limits the volume. This work remained unknown until its republication in 1845. In 1839 he completed an important work on the reflection and refraction of light in crystalline media; in this work he also deduced the primary equations of the theory of elasticity.