Plaque to Sir Harold Jeffreys, Newcastle University
Sir Harold Jeffreys,FRS[1][3] (22 April 1891 – 18 March 1989) was a Britishgeophysicist who made significant contributions to mathematics and statistics. His book,Theory of Probability, which was first published in 1939, played an important role in the revival of theobjective Bayesian view of probability.[4][5][6]
Jeffreys subsequently won a scholarship to study theMathematical Tripos atSt John's College, Cambridge, where he established a reputation as an excellent student: obtaining first-class marks for his papers in Part One of the Tripos, he was aWrangler in Part Two, and in 1915 he was awarded the prestigiousSmith's Prize.[9]
In 6 September 1940, he married fellow mathematician and physicist,Bertha Swirles (1903–1999),[12] and together they wroteMethods of Mathematical Physics.
By 1924 Jeffreys had developed a general method of approximating solutions to linear, second-order differential equations, including theSchrödinger equation. Although the Schrödinger equation was developed two years later, Wentzel, Kramers, and Brillouin were apparently unaware of this earlier work, so Jeffreys is often neglected when credit is given for theWKB approximation.[15][16]
The textbookProbability Theory: The Logic of Science, written by the physicist and probability theoristEdwin T. Jaynes, is dedicated to Jeffreys. The dedication reads, "Dedicated to the memory of Sir Harold Jeffreys, who saw the truth and preserved it."[20]
Jeffreys, like many of his peers, staunchly opposed the concept ofcontinental drift as put forth byAlfred Wegener andArthur Holmes. This opposition persisted even into the 1960s among his colleagues at Cambridge. For him, continental drift was "out of the question" because no force even remotely strong enough to move the continents across the Earth's surface was evident.[21] As geological and geophysical evidence for continental drift andplate tectonics mounted in the 1960s and after, to the point where it became the unifying concept of modern geology, Jeffreys remained a stubborn opponent of the theory to his death.
^abCook, Alan [rev.],"Jeffreys, Sir Harold (1891–1989)",Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, September 2004. Retrieved 1 January 2023.(subscription required)
^Igorʹ Vasilʹevich Andrianov; Jan Awrejcewicz; L. I. Manevitch; Leonid Isaakovich Manevich (2004).Asymptotical mechanics of thin-walled structures. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. p. 471.ISBN3-540-40876-2.
^Jaynes, Edwin T. (2021). Bretthorst, G. L. (ed.).Probability theory: the logic of science (24th printing ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.ISBN978-0-521-59271-0.
Howie, David (2002).Interpreting Probability: Controversies and Developments in the Early Twentieth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press.ISBN0-521-81251-8.
