Matthew O'Brien (1814–1855) was an Irish

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

Life and work

O'Brien was born at

Ennis Ennis () is the county town of County Clare, in the mid-west of Ireland. The town lies on the River Fergus, north of where the river widens and enters the Shannon Estuary. Ennis is the largest town in County Clare, with a population of 25,27 ...

(

county Clare County Clare ( ga, Contae an Chláir) is a county in Ireland, in the Southern Region and the province of Munster, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council is the local authority. The county had a population of 118,81 ...

) son of a medical doctor. In 1830 he was admitted in the

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

, and in 1834 in the

Caius College Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...

(

university of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

) where he graduated in 1838 as third ''wrangler'', as pupil of

William Hopkins William Hopkins FRS (2 February 179313 October 1866) was an English mathematician and geologist. He is famous as a private tutor of aspiring undergraduate Cambridge mathematicians, earning him the ''sobriquet'' the " senior-wrangler maker." ...

. During a brief period (1840–1841) he was fellow of Caius College. From 1844 to 1854 he was lecturer on Natural Philosophy and Mathematics at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

, he simultaneously held the post of lecturer on Astronomy in the

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of S ...

. O'Brien was the author of twenty mathematical papers and some elementary textbooks. His most notable contribution was in theory and application of the vector method, in a set of papers published between 1846 and 1852. However, he did not finish fully developing the method because some of his theories were unsatisfactory, and because he failed to include a treatment of associativity. His work was very innovative, but his ideas were almost completely ignored by his contemporaries., page 86.

References

Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:OBrien, Matthew 1814 births 1855 deaths Irish mathematicians 19th-century Irish mathematicians Academics of King's College London Alumni of Trinity College Dublin People from Ennis