Person: Benjamin, Thomas Brooke

Brooke Benjamin was an English mathematician who specialised in fluid mechanics and the theory of waves.

Brooke's parents recognised his brilliance before he entered primary school at Wallasey, where his teachers quickly saw his exceptional abilities.
In 1947 Benjamin entered Liverpool University where he studied engineering but continued to occupy a large part of his time with the Liverpool University Music Society, conducting several concerts in Liverpool.
Benjamin began working on bubbles in liquids, in particular studying how the bubbles collapse when pressure rises.
Like most of his projects, Benjamin returned to them throughout his career.
In the Journal of Fluid Mechanics in 1995 he published the paper Verification of the Benjamin-Lighthill conjecture about steady water waves.
In 1958 Benjamin was appointed as Assistant Director of research, a post which saw him work partly in the Engineering Department and partly in the Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Department.
Benjamin helped set up the fluid mechanics laboratory at Cambridge in 1964 and three years later he was promoted to Reader in Hydrodynamics.
In 1979 Benjamin was appointed to the Sedleian Chair of Natural Philosophy a the University of Oxford.
We have commented on one of Benjamin's early papers above.
Benjamin received many honours for his achievements, including the Fellowship of the Royal Society referred to above.

Born 15 April 1929, Wallasey, Cheshire, England. Died 16 August 1995, Oxford, England.

View full biography at MacTutor

Origin England

Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0!

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