Robert William Genese (1848, Dublin – 1928) was an Irish mathematician whose career was spent in Wales.

Early life and education

Genese was born on Westland Row a street on the south side of Dublin on 8 May 1848. From St John's College of the University of Cambridge, Genese received in 1871 his bachelor's degree (with rank eighth Wrangler in the Tripos) and in 1874 his master's degree.

Professional life

Following an unsuccessful application for the Chair of Mathematics at Aberystwyth in 1872, he taught at the Training College in Carmarthen. He finally secured the professorship at Aberystwyth in 1879, and held it until 1919. Along the way his title became Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy.[1]

Genese introduced into the United Kingdom the ideas of Hermann Grassmann (advancing the use of vector analysis). In his 1941 book The calculus of extensions, Henry Forder published numerous examples in vector analysis taken from Genese's posthumous notes. (Genese's notes were left to the Mathematical Association and then given in 1929 to Forder by E. H. Neville.)[2]

Genese was an Invited Speaker of the ICM in 1904 in Heidelberg with talk On some useful theorems in the continued multiplication of a regressive product in real four-point space[3] and in 1908 in Rome with talk The method of reciprocal polars applied to forces in space.

Selected publications

References

  1. ^ The College by the Sea’ and its photographs a history of The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth
  2. ^ Forder, Henry George (1941). "Preface, page v". The Calculus of Extension, including examples by Robert William Genese. University of Cambridge Press.
  3. ^ On some useful theorems in the continued multiplication of a regressive product in real four-point space, Proceedings of the ICM in 1904, Heidelberg

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