Thomas Gaskin facts for kids

Thomas Gaskin (born 1810, died 1887) was an English clergyman and a smart university scholar. He is mostly known today for his important contributions to mathematics.

Early Life and Education

Thomas Gaskin went to Sedbergh School from 1822 to 1827. After that, he joined St John's College, Cambridge in 1827. He was a "sizar," which meant he received financial help to study. He was very good at math, coming in second place in the difficult Mathematical Tripos exam in 1831. The person who came first was Samuel Earnshaw.

University Career

From 1832 to 1842, Gaskin was a "Fellow" at Jesus College, Cambridge. This meant he was a senior member of the college, often teaching and doing research. He joined the Royal Astronomical Society in 1836. He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1839, which is a very old and respected group for scientists.

In 1840, Gaskin and another examiner, J. Bowstead, made a big change to the Tripos exams. They stopped the old "viva voce" (oral) exams in Latin. These exams had become outdated and were no longer useful. Gaskin got married in 1842.

Later Years

Later in his career, Gaskin worked as a private tutor, helping students prepare for their exams. He moved to Cheltenham in 1855 and continued his work there.

Contributions to Mathematics

Gaskin is best remembered for his work on an important math problem. This problem was about finding the exact shape, or "figure," of the Earth. This idea was first explored by a famous scientist named Pierre-Simon Laplace.

Understanding Earth's Shape

Gaskin's work was very important for a field called geodesy. Geodesy is the science of measuring and understanding the Earth's shape, size, and gravity. At Cambridge University, professors wanted to add this topic to the math exams. However, the solutions to Laplace's equation seemed hard to understand.

Other mathematicians tried to make it clearer. George Biddell Airy wrote about it in 1826. Later, John Henry Pratt explained it better in his 1836 book. Even a student named Alexander John Ellis worked on the solution in 1836.

Gaskin's Solution Method

In 1839, Gaskin found a new way to solve the equation using a special math technique called a "differential operator method." He even turned his findings into a question for the Tripos exam. This new method quickly became famous. It was included in a textbook called Differential Equations by John Hymers.

Gaskin's work was very influential. It encouraged Robert Leslie Ellis to develop more symbolic math methods. It also helped inspire George Boole's famous paper from 1844, which made Boole well-known.

Sharing His Discoveries

Gaskin did not publish many of his original math ideas in regular science journals. Instead, he shared his research by creating challenging questions for the Tripos exams. He was an examiner six times between 1835 and 1851. Later, another mathematician, Edward Routh, noted that many of Gaskin's problems became common knowledge in the field of mathematics.