Sir Harold Jeffreys | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1891-04-22)22 April 1891 Fatfield,County Durham, England |
| Died | 18 March 1989(1989-03-18) (aged 97) Cambridge, England |
| Alma mater | Armstrong College St John's College, Cambridge |
| Known for | Bayesian probability Jeffreys divergence Jeffreys model Jeffreys prior Jeffreys' scale Jeffreys–Lindley paradox WKBJ approximation |
| Spouse | Bertha Swirles |
| Awards | Smith's Prize(1915) Adams Prize(1926) Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society(1937) Fellow of the Royal Society(1925)[1] Murchison Medal(1939) Royal Medal(1948) William Bowie Medal(1952) Guy Medal(Gold, 1962) Vetlesen Prize(1962) Wollaston Medal(1964) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics Geophysics |
| Doctoral students | Hermann Bondi[2] Sydney Goldstein Vasant Huzurbazar |
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 was born inFatfield, County Durham, England, the son of Robert Hal Jeffreys, headmaster of Fatfield Church School, and his wife, Elizabeth Mary Sharpe, a school teacher.[7] He was educated at his father's school and at Rutherford Technical College, then studied atArmstrong College inNewcastle upon Tyne (at that time part of theUniversity of Durham) and with theUniversity of London External Programme.[8][9]
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]
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Jeffreys became a fellow of St John's College in 1914, retaining his fellowship until his death 75 years later. At theUniversity of Cambridge he taught mathematics, thengeophysics and finally became thePlumian Professor of Astronomy.
In 1940, he married fellow mathematician and physicist,Bertha Swirles (1903–1999), and together they wroteMethods of Mathematical Physics.
One of his major contributions was on theBayesian approach toprobability (also seeJeffreys prior), as well as the idea that the Earth'splanetary core was liquid.[10]
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.[11]
Jeffreys received theGold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1937, theRoyal Society'sCopley Medal in 1960, and theRoyal Statistical Society'sGuy Medal in Gold in 1962. In 1948, he received theCharles Lagrange Prize from theAcadémie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique.[12] He wasknighted in 1953.
From 1939 to 1952 he was established as Director of the International Seismological Summary further known asInternational Seismological Centre.
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."
It is only through an appendix to the third edition of Jeffreys' bookScientific Inference that we know aboutMary Cartwright'smethod of proving that the numberπ isirrational.
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.[13] 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.
