Person: Campbell, John Edward

Campbell is remembered for the Campbell-Baker-Hausdorff theorem which gives a formula for multiplication of exponentials in Lie algebras.

The Queen's University in Belfast had been established in 1845 and Campbell felt great loyalty towards this institution.
Campbell graduated from the Queen's University in 1884 and won a scholarship to study at the University of Oxford in England.
Campbell's book Lie's Theory of Finite Continuous Groups (1903) introduced Lie's ideas to British mathematicians.
However, he is most frequently remembered for the Campbell-Baker- Hausdorff theorem which gives a formula for multiplication of exponentials in Lie algebras.
In 1903, not very long after the date of the last paper, Mr Campbell's "Introductory Treatise on Lie's Theory of Finite Continuous transformation Groups" was published.
It is full of points of view and illustrations which are Mr Campbell's own.
The theory in which Mr Campbell was so specially interested underlies most of his more recent work on differential geometry in general, and on that particular branch of it connected with Einstein's gravitational theory.
Campbell was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1905.

Born 27 May 1862, Lisburn, Co Antrim, Ireland. Died 1 October 1924, Oxford, England.

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Origin Ireland

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O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive