George Harvey (FRS)

George Harvey, Esq., FRS FRSE FLS FGS FRAS (died 29 October 1834) was an English mathematician, known for his scientific and engineering writings, on meteorology, ship building, and colour blindness.

Life

Harvey was based in Plymouth, where he trained as a physician before specialising in mathematics.

He tutored William Yolland in mathematics.[1] Later he became a lecturer in mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.[2] Around 1826 his name was mentioned in correspondence about a professorial post at the University of Virginia, between Francis Walker Gilmer and Peter Barlow. The chair went in the end to Charles Bonnycastle.[3]

Harvey became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1824[4] his proposer being Thomas Frederick Colby.[5] Next year he became Fellow of the Royal Society of London.[2] He was also a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, Geological Society and Linnaean Society.[6]

During his last years, Harvey was Local Secretary at Plymouth for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In 1834 The Literary Gazette reported his death at Plymouth, "where he fell by his own hand while under the influence of a melancholy deprivation of reason." The notice remarks that he was among the ablest mathematicians of our age and country, and of a noble disposition, intensely awake to the sufferings of his fellow human beings. The writer suspects this acute sensibility lay behind the overwrought condition which led to the tragedy. He was an intimate friend of the Devon poet Nicholas Toms Carrington and of the Cornish engineer and author Davies Gilbert.[7]

Works

Harvey was friends with Charles Babbage[8] and interested in French mathematics. He translated from the French work on the method of least squares by Adrien-Marie Legendre,[9] and on the calculus of variations by Charles Bossut.[10]

Snow flakes, engraving from Harvey's 1834 article on meteorology.

Harvey's article on meteorology for the Encyclopædia Metropolitana (Mixed Sciences vol. III)[11] was printed separately (1834), and reissued in the 1848 Encyclopaedia of Experimental Philosophy, with works by Peter Barlow, Peter Mark Roget and Francis Lunn;[12] his remark that folk wisdom came out ahead of science in the matter of weather forecasts was noted later.[13]

Harvey also wrote on "Naval Architecture" for the Metropolitana.[14] He wrote for the Edinburgh Encyclopædia on Plymouth and naval topics;[15] the article "Ship-building"[16] earned Harvey a diamond ring from the Tsar of Russia, presented by Prince Lieven.[17] At the 1832 meeting of the British Association, Harvey stated that British naval design was falling behind in mathematical theory, whatever the advantages brought by Robert Seppings in internal design.[18]

He published two papers in the Philosophical Transactions for 1824.[19][20] They dealt with the accuracy of chronometers and the magnetic compass.[21]

A paper by Harvey on colour blindness from 1824.On an Anomalous Case of Vision with regard to Colours, has been regarded as pioneering, for its use of a table of Patrick Syme.[22] The table was from Syme's 1814 edition of the Nomenclature of Colours by Abraham Gottlob Werner;[23] its use moved studies of the condition on from the case history to the standardised test.[22]

Notes
  1. "Yolland, William" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  2. George Gabriel Stokes; William Thomson (30 November 1990). The Correspondence Between Sir George Gabriel Stokes and Sir William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs. Cambridge University Press. p. 676 note 2. ISBN 978-0-521-32831-9. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  3. William Peterfield Trent, English Culture in Virginia; a study of the Gilmer letters and an account of the English professors obtained by Jefferson for the University of Virginia (1889), p. 99; archive.org.
  4. MacTutor, Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
  5. Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.
  6. George Harvey (F.R.S.) (1834). A Treatise on Meteorology. From the Encyclopedia metropolitana. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  7. 'George Harvey, Esq.', The London Literary Gazette, No. 929: Saturday 8 November 1834, at p. 756 (Google).
  8. Anthony Hyman (1 January 1985). Charles Babbage: Pioneer of The Computer. Princeton University Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-691-02377-9. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  9. Royal Society of Edinburgh; Wernerian Natural History Society (1822). The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. A. Constable. p. 292. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  10. Annals of philosophy. Baldwin, Craddock, and Joy. 1817. p. 445. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  11. Sir Robert Christison (1836). A treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic. A. & C. Black. pp. 878–81. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  12. Peter Barlow; Francis Lunn; Peter Mark Roget; George Harvey (1848). The Encyclopaedia of Experimental Philosophy: Comprising; Magnetism, by Peter Barlow ... Electro-magnetism, by Peter Barlow ... Electricity, by the Rev. Francis Lunn ... Galvanism, by Peter Mark Roget ... Heat, by the Rev. Francis Lunn ... Chemistry, by the Rev. Francis Lunn ... Meteorology, by George Harvey ... J. J. Griffin and company. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  13. Thomas Belden Butler (1856). The Philosophy of the Weather: And a guide to its changes. D. Appleton & Company. p. xiii. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  14. Edward Smedley; Hugh James Rose; Henry John Rose (1845). Encyclopaedia Metropolitana: or Universal dictionary of knowledge ... comprising the twofoldadvantage of a philosophical and an alphabetical arrangement, with appropriate engravings. B. Fellowes. p. 329. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  15. Sir David Brewster (1830). The Edinburgh Encyclopædia. Printed for W. Blackwood. p. xxii. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  16. Sir David Brewster (1832). The Edinburgh encyclopaedia. J. and E. Parker. pp. 138–259. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  17. Royal Society of Edinburgh (1831). Edinburgh Journal of Science. Thomas Clark. p. 351. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  18. British Association for the Advancement of Science (1833). Report of the annual meeting. J. Murray. p. 597. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  19. Of the Effects of the Density of the Air on the Rates of Chronometers
  20. Experimental Inquiries Relative to the Distribution and Changes of the Magnetic Intensity in Ships of War
  21. John Timbs (1835). Arcana of science and art, or an annual register of popular inventions and improvements, abridged from the transactions of public societies, and from the scientific journals, British and foreign, of the past year. Printed by John Limbird, 1830. p. 311. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  22. Elizabeth Green Musselman (1 January 2007). Nervous Conditions: Science and the Body Politic in Early Industrial Britain. SUNY Press. pp. 80–1. ISBN 978-0-7914-6680-3. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  23. Royal Institution of Great Britain (1827). Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and the Arts. James Eastburn. p. 189. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
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