GREEN, GEORGE (1793-1841), English mathematician, was born on July 14, 1793, at Sneinton, near Nottingham. He went into his father's business as a miller and his mathematics were practically self-taught. It is probably for this reason that Green used unusual methods of his own in solving the physical problems in which he was interested. In 1828 he published, by subscription, at Nottingham his Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theory of Electricity and Magne tism. In this memoir he generalized and extended Poisson's elec tric and magnetic investigations. He introduced the term "poten tial," and used what is now known as Green's theorem to in vestigate its properties in the case of magnetic and electric fields. This memoir was practically unknown until Lord Kelvin' had it reprinted in 1846; it was followed in 1832 and 1833 by papers on the laws of equilibrium of fluids, on attractions in n-dimensional space and on the motion of a fluid agitated by vibrations of a solid ellipsoid. At the age of 4o he went to Cambridge where he was fourth wrangler in 1837. He was elected to a fellow ship at Caius college in 1839, but ill-health compelled him to return to Sneinton, where he died on March 31, 1841.
His collected papers, The Mathematical Papers of the Late George Green, were edited by N. M. Ferrers (1871) .