biography
| name: |
Stokes, Sir George (Gabriel)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1819–1903)
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| biography:
| Physicist and mathematician, born in Skreen, Co Sligo, W Ireland. He studied at Cambridge, where in 1849 he became professor of mathematics. He first used spectroscopy as a means of determining the chemical compositions of the Sun and stars, published a valuable paper on diffraction (1849), and formulated Stokes' law for the force opposing a small sphere in its passage through a viscous fluid. He was secretary of the Royal Society for 30 years (from 1854), then became its president. He was created a baronet in 1889. |
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