G. N. Watson

(George) Neville Watson (31 January1886 - 2 February1965) was an English mathematician, a noted master in the application of complex analysis to the theory of special functions. His collaboration on the 1915 second edition of E. T. Whittaker's A Course of Modern Analysis (1902) produced the classic Whittaker & Watson text.

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His Treatise on the theory of Bessel functions (1922) was a virtuoso display, in particular in the asymptotic expansions of Bessel functions (the expansion of

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:Jν(ν)

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being of a Kama Sutra standard of contortion). It also became a classic.

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He subsequently spent many years on Ramanujan's formulae in the area of complex multiplication and class numbers. This work was later taken up by other experts. His interests included solvable cases of the quintic equation.

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He was educated at St Paul's School, as a pupil of F. S. Macaulay, and Trinity College, Cambridge. There he encountered Whittaker, though their overlap was only two years. He became Professor at the University of Birmingham in 1918, where he remained until 1951.

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G. N. Watson related Images and Photos (experimental)

Jack Watson	Barry Watson	Barry Watson	Emily Watson
Johnny "Guitar" Watson - Lone Ranger	Johnny "Guitar" Watson - Lone Ranger	The Watson Twins: Fire Songs	The Watson Twins: Fire Songs
Models Inc. #3 Cover: Watson and Mary Jane	Mary Jane #3 Cover: Watson Mary Jane Thompson and Flash	Portrait of Charles Watson-Wentworth Second Marquis of Rockingham	The Sign of Four Holmes and Watson Examine Footprints in the Attic