George Gibson (mathematician)

Prof George Alexander Gibson FRSE LLD (1858–1930) was a Scottish mathematician and academic author.

Life

He was born on 19 April 1858 in Greenlaw in Berwickshire the third son of Robert Gibson JP (1830–1903) the younger brother of Thomas Gibson (Canadian politician).^[1] He attended the free church school in the parish, and showing great promise, went to Glasgow University where he graduated MA in 1882 and immediately joined the university staff.

In 1889, aged only 29, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, Prof William Jack, Sir Thomas Muir and George Chrystal. He served as the Society's Vice President from 1917 to 1920. He also served as President of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society.^[2] In 1895 he became a Professor of Mathematics at the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College. In 1909 he returned to Glasgow University as a Professor, replacing his mentor Prof William Jack.

Gibson lived on campus with the odd address of 10 The University, Glasgow.^[3] Edinburgh University awarded him an honorary doctorate (LLD) in 1905 and Glasgow University did likewise in 1927, the year of his retiral.

He died at Scotstounhill in Glasgow on 1 April 1930.^[4] On his death the Gibson Memorial Lecture was founded. The first lecturer in this series was Albert Einstein. Other lecturers include Charles Coulson and Edward Collingwood.^[5]

Family

He married in 1880 (whilst still a student) to Nellie Stenhouse Hunter, daughter of James D. Hunter.^[6] They had three children.

Publications

• An Elementary Treatise on the Calculus (1906)
• An Elementary Treatise on Graphs (1920)
• A First Course in Calculus
• The History of Scottish Mathematics (1927)

References