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James Jeans

Sir James Hopwood Jeans
OM FRS
James Hopwood Jeans.jpg
Born (1877-09-11)11 September 1877
Southport (Ormskirk Registration District), Lancashire, England
Died 16 September 1946(1946-09-16) (aged 69)
Dorking, Surrey, England
Nationality British
Fields Astronomy, mathematics, physics
Institutions Trinity College, Cambridge; Princeton University
Alma mater Merchant Taylors' School; Cambridge University
Notable students Ronald Fisher
Known for Rayleigh–Jeans law
Jeans mass
Jeans length
Method of image charges
Notable awards Smith's Prize (1901)
Adams Prize (1917)
Royal Medal (1919)

Sir James Hopwood Jeans OM FRS (11 September 1877 – 16 September 1946) was an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician.

Born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, the son of William Tulloch Jeans, a parliamentary correspondent and author. Jeans was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, Wilson's Grammar School,Camberwell and Trinity College, Cambridge. As a gifted student, Jeans was counselled to take an aggressive approach to the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos competition:

Early in the Michaelmas term of 1896, Walker sent for Jeans and Hardy and advised them to take Part I of the Mathematical Tripos in two years. He told them that he could not guarantee that they would come out higher than fifteenth in the list of wranglers, but he understood that they would never regret it. They accepted his advice, and went to R. R. Webb, the most famous private coach of the period...At the end of his first year, [Jeans] told Walker that he had quarrelled with Webb, his coach. Walker accordingly took Jeans himself, and the result was a triumph:...Jeans was bracketed second wrangler with J. F. Cameron...R.W.H.T. Hudson was Senior Wrangler and G.H. Hardy fourth wrangler.

Jeans was elected Fellow of Trinity College in October 1901, and taught at Cambridge, but went to Princeton University in 1904 as a professor of applied mathematics. He returned to Cambridge in 1910.


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