Birthday profile

Douglas Hartree

Douglas Hartree, English mathematician and physicist (died 1958)

Born
March 27, 1897
Died
February 12, 1958
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1897

About Douglas Hartree

Douglas Rayner Hartree (27 March 1897 – 12 February 1958) was an English mathematician and physicist most famous for the development of numerical analysis and its application to the Hartree–Fock equations of atomic physics and the construction of a differential analyser using Meccano. == Early life and education == Douglas Hartree was born in Cambridge, England. His father, William, was a lecturer in engineering at the University of Cambridge. His mother, Eva Rayner, was president of the National Council of Women of Great Britain and first woman to be mayor of the city of Cambridge. One of his great-grandfathers was Samuel Smiles; another was the marine engineer William Hartree, partner of John Penn. Douglas Hartree was the oldest of three sons who survived infancy. A brother and sister died in infancy when he was still a child, but his two brothers would later also die. Hartree's 7-year-old brother John Edwin died when Hartree was 17, and Hartree's 22-year-old brother Colin William died from meningitis in February 1920 when Hartree was 23. His maternal cousin was the geologist Dorothy Helen Rayner. Hartree attended St Faith's School in Cambridge, then Bedales School, returning to Cambridge for his degree studies at St John's College, Cambridge, which the first World War interrupted.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Douglas Hartree was born

Douglas Hartree was born in 1897. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineKlondike Gold Rush begins in Canada
  • Technology milestoneFirst practical diesel engine built
  • Defining fadKlondike Gold Rush fever
  • World population~1.57B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWilliam McKinley
  • U.S. population70.0M

1897 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Douglas Hartree's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18972026
Population70.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

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Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.