Mathematician:William Kingdon Clifford

Mathematician

English mathematician and philosopher best known for his work on what is now known as Clifford algebra.

Did much of the intellectual groundwork for the General Theory of Relativity.

Died prematurely as a result of tuberculosis probably brought on through overwork.

His wife Lucy Clifford went on to become a noted author.

Nationality

British

History

• Born: 4 May 1845, Exeter, Devon, England
• Died: 3 March 1879, Madeira Islands, Portugal

Theorems and Definitions

• Bessel-Clifford Function (with Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel)
• Clifford Algebra
• Clifford-Klein Form (with Felix Klein)
• Clifford Parallelism

Definitions of concepts named for William Kingdon Clifford can be found here.

Publications

Mostly posthumous:

• 1870: On the Space Theory of Matter
• 1872: On the aims and instruments of scientific thought
• 1876: On the Space-Theory of Matter.
• 1877: The Ethics of Belief
• 1878: Elements of Dynamic, vol. 1
• 1879: Seeing and Thinking
• 1879: Lectures and Essays, with an introduction by Sir Frederick Pollock.
• 1882: Mathematical Papers
• 1885: The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (completed by Karl Pearson)
• 1887: Elements of Dynamic, vol. 2

• 1874: The Little People (fiction for children, written with Lady Juliet Pollock and Walter Herries Pollock)

Also known as

His middle name is sometimes seen rendered as Kingdom, but this is a mistake.

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "William Kingdon Clifford": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 1991: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Geometry ... (previous) ... (next): A Chronological List Of Mathematicians