Samuel McLaren

Samuel Bruce McLaren (16 August 1876 – 13 August 1916) was an Australian mathematician.

Early life

McLaren was born in Yedo, near Tokyo, Japan where his father, Samuel Gilfillan McLaren, was a missionary. His mother was Marjory Millar, née Brucecite web |url=http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100317b.htm |title=McLaren, Samuel Bruce (1876 - 1916) |accessdate=2007-07-18 |author=J. J. Cross |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10 |publisher=MUP |year=1986 |pages=325-326] . In 1886, the family moved to Australia, Samuel McLaren was educated at Brighton Grammar School and Scotch College, Melbourne, where he was dux in mathematics in 1893. He gained a scholarship at Ormond College, University of Melbourne, and qualified for the B.A. degree at the end of 1896 with first class final honours, and the final honours and Wyselaskie scholarships in mathematics. He also shared the Dixon scholarship in natural philosophy.

tudy in England

Moving to England in 1897, McLaren attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was elected into a major scholarship in 1899, and was third wrangler in the same year. Taking part 2 of the mathematical tripos in his third year, he was placed in the second division of the first class. He was awarded an Isaac Newton studentship in astronomy and physical optics in 1901, and graduated M.A. in 1905.

Mathematical career

McLaren was lecturer in mathematics at University College, Bristol 1904-06. Then from 1906 until 1913cite web |url=http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/biogs/P001289b.htm |title=McLaren, Samuel Bruce (1876 - 1916) |accessdate=2007-07-18 |work=Bright Sparcs |publisher=The University of Melbourne eScholarship Research Centre |year=2007] obtained a similar position at the University of Birmingham. Between 1911 and 1913 he wrote some important papers on radiation which were published in the Philosophical Magazine, and he presented some of the more fundamental parts of his work to the mathematical congress at Cambridge in 1912. John William Nicholson, professor of mathematics in the University of London, writing in 1918 said McLaren "undoubtedly anticipated Einstein and Abraham in their suggestion of a variable velocity of light, with the consequent expressions for the energy and momentum of the gravitational field". In 1913 he was made professor of mathematics at the University of Reading where he took much interest in the development of the young university. Also in 1913 he shared the Adams Prize of the University of Cambridge with Nicholson.

Late life

In 1914 he visited Australia with other members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and met his parents again. The First World War broke out while he was in Australia, and on his return to England he enlisted and was given a commission as lieutenant in the Royal Engineers. He did valuable work in charge of signalling and electrical communications, but on 26 July 1916 near Abbeville was shot while endeavouring to clear a pit of bombs threatened by a nearby fire. He tried to continue this work, but was hit again, and died of his wounds in hospital on 13 August 1916. He was unmarried and was buried at Abbeville.

Papers by McLaren were published posthumously as "Scientific Papers" (Cambridge, 1925).

References

External links

* [http://libserv.aip.org:81/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!27166!0&profile=newcustom-aipnbl#focus Scientific papers ...including an Adams prize essay...by the late Samuel Bruce McLaren] at Niels Bohr Library Book Catalog