Edmund Taylor Whittaker

Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker (1873 to 1956) was a British mathematician, physicist and historian of science, born in Southport in Lancashire and dying in Edinburgh. Educated at Manchester Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge, he graduated as Second Wrangler in 1895 and became a fellow of Trinity in 1896. He served as Royal Astronomer of Ireland from 1906 through 1912 and then held the chair of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh for three decades. His research ranged across applied mathematics, mathematical physics and numerical analysis, including the theory of special functions, celestial mechanics, the history of physics and digital signal processing. His books include A Course of Modern Analysis, better known as Whittaker and Watson, Analytical Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies, and A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity. The last of these credited Henri Poincaré and Hendrik Lorentz with developing special relativity, which began a priority dispute that has lasted decades although scientific consensus has stayed with Einstein. Late in his career he received the Copley Medal and was knighted.