Andrew GrayFRSFRSE (2 July 1847 – 10 October 1925) was a Scottish physicist and mathematician.
Life
Born in Lochgelly, Fife, the son of John Gray, he was educated at Lochgelly School and then studied at the University of Glasgow (MA 1876), where he was appointed the Eglinton Fellow in Mathematics in 1876. Perhaps more significantly, however, in 1875 he became the assistant and private secretary of Professor William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin). He held this post – an official University one after 1880 – until 1884, when he was appointed Professor of Physics at the newly founded University College of North Wales.[1]
He remained in Bangor until 1899, when he returned to Glasgow to become the Professor of Natural Philosophy, succeeding Kelvin on his retirement. He held this chair for twenty-four years, stepping down in 1923, shortly before his death.
He lived on campus, his address being 11 University, Glasgow.[4]
'On the Determination in Absolute Units of the Intensity of Powerful Magnetic Fields' (Phil Mag, 1883)
'On the Dynamical Theory of Electro-magnetic Action' (ibid, 1890)
'On the Calculation of the Induction Coefficients of Coils' (ibid, 1892)
'On a New Reflecting Galvanometer of great sensibility, and on New Forms of Astatic Galvanometers,' jointly with T Gray (Proc Roy Soc, 1884)
'On the Relation between the Electrical Qualities and the Chemical Composition of Glass and Allied Substances,' Part I, jointly with T Gray and J J Dobbie (Proc Roy Soc, 1884)
1888 Diary of cruise to Australia
'On the Electro-magnetic Theory of the Rotation of the Plane of Polarized Light' (Rept Brit Assoc, 1891).
^Andrew Gray, Absolute Measurements in Electricity and Magnetism, MacMillan and Co., London (1884) [very much enlarged edition in two volumes, 1888–1993, second expanded edition 1921].
^A. Gray, 1959: A Treatise on Gyrostatics and Rotational Motion: Theory and Applications (Dover, New York). Originally published in 1918 by Glasgow University Press.
