Spouse Emily Lamb (m. 1866) Children 4 sons and 1 daughter | Name Norman Ferrers Role Mathematician | |
Born 11 August 1829
Prinknash Park, Upton St Leonards, Gloucestershire, England ( 1829-08-11 ) Alma mater Eton College, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Known for Ferrers diagram
Nonholonomic constraints Died January 31, 1903, Cambridge Education University of Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Eton College | ||
Norman Macleod Ferrers (11 August 1829 – 31 January 1903) was a British mathematician and university administrator and editor of a mathematical journal.
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Career and research
Ferrers was educated at Eton College before studying at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was Senior Wrangler in 1851. He was appointed to a Fellowship at the college in 1852, was called to the bar in 1855 and was ordained deacon in 1859 and priest in 1860. In 1880, he was appointed Master of the college, and served as vice-chancellor of Cambridge University from 1884 to 1885.
Ferrers made many contributions to mathematical literature. From 1855 to 1891 he worked with J. J. Sylvester as editors, with others, in publishing The Quarterly Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics. Ferrers assembled the papers of George Green for publication in 1871.
In 1861 he published "An Elementary Treatise on Trilinear Co-ordinates". One of his early contributions was on Sylvester's development of Poinsot's representation of the motion of a rigid body about a fixed point. He pointed out a conjugacy in integer partition diagrams, which are accordingly called Ferrers diagrams and are closely related to Young diagrams. In 1871 he first suggested to extend the equations of motion with nonholonomic constraints. His another treatise on "Spherical Harmonics," published in 1877, presented many original features. In 1881 he studied Kelvin's investigation of the law of distribution of electricity in equilibrium on an uninfluenced spherical bowl and made the addition of finding the potential at any point of space in zonal harmonics.
He died at the College Lodge on 31 January 1903.
Family
On 3 April 1866, he married Emily, daughter of John Lamb, dean of Bristol cathedral. They had four sons and one daughter.