THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



477 



SIR GEORGE GABRIEL STOKES. 

 In the death, on February 1, 1903, of 

 Sir George Gabriel Stokes, the mathe- 

 matico-physical sciences have lost one 

 of their most eminent representatives. 

 For sixty years he has been a leader 

 in the British school of mathematical 

 physicists, a school including as peers 

 and contemporaries George Green, Sir 

 William R. Hamilton, Sir George Airy, 



elected a fellow of Pembroke the same 

 year. In 1849 he became Lucasian 

 professor of mathematics at Cam- 

 bridge, and he held this position up 

 to the time of his death. He served 

 his college and university also in num- 

 erous other positions of honor, having 

 been master of Pembroke for many 

 years and a member of parliament for 

 Cambridge from 1887 to 1892. 



SIR GEORGE GABRIEL STOKES. 



James Clerke Maxwell, Lord Kelvin 

 and Lord Rayleigh. 



Stokes was born at Skreen, County 

 Sligo, Ireland, in 1819. He was edu- 

 cated at Bristol College, and at Pem- 

 broke College, Cambridge, where he 

 was senior wrangler in 1841. He was 



The fields of work to which Stokes 

 devoted his attention chiefly are those 

 of hydromechanics, including the 

 theories of fluid motion and sound; 

 the undulatory theory of light, includ- 

 ing among his more recent papers re- 

 searches on the X-rays; and physical 



