George Gabriel Stokes

Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet FRS (13 August 1819–1 February 1903), was a mathematician and physicist, who at Cambridge made important contributions to fluid dynamics (including the Navier–Stokes equations), optics, and mathematical physics (including Stokes' theorem). He was secretary, then president, of the Royal Society. George Stokes was the youngest son of the Reverend Gabriel Stokes, rector of Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland, where h... more

Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet FRS (13 August 1819–1 February 1903), was a mathematician and physicist, who at Cambridge made important contributions to fluid dynamics (including the Navier–Stokes equations), optics, and mathematical physics (including Stokes' theorem). He was secretary, then president, of the Royal Society. George Stokes was the youngest son of the Reverend Gabriel Stokes, rector of Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland, where he was born and brought up in an evangelical Protestant family. After attending schools in Skreen, Dublin, and Bristol, he matriculated in 1837 at University of Cambridge, where four years later, on graduating as senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman, he was elected to a fellowship. In accordance with the college statutes, he had to resign the fellowship when he married in 1857, but twelve years later, under new statutes, he was re-elected. He retained his place on the foundation until 1902, when on the day before his 83rd birthday, he was... less