The theory of optical instruments

Historical Significance: Professor Sir Edmund Whittaker (1873-1956) FRS was Royal Astronomer of Ireland 1901 - 1906 Professor of Astronomy at the University of Dublin. Professor University of Edinburgh 1911 - 45. Whittaker is best known work is in numerical analysis, but he also worked on celestial mechanics and the history of applied mathematics and physics. He wrote papers on algebraic functions and automorphic functions. He found expressions for the Bessel functions as integrals involving Legendre functions. His results in partial differential equations included a general solution of the Laplace equation in three dimensions in a particular form and the solution of the wave equation. He was interested in relativity theory for many years. He also worked on electromagnetic theory giving a general solution of Maxwell 's equation. He received the De Morgan Medal of the London Mathematical Society in 1935. Extract from the President's address reads: 'Professor Whittaker is the author of some sixty papers as well as of five books. His papers concern such a diversity of themes as automorphic functions, the special functions of mathematical physics, the differential equations of dynamics, spectroscopy, integral equations, determinants, and the newer theories of space, gravitation and electromagnetic phenomena. Time does not permit reference to each individual paper, but I must not omit to mention the most sensational of them all which contained the general solutions of Laplace's Equation and of the Equation of Wave-motions.'