Augustus Edward Hough Love
Augustus Edward Hough Love
Born: 17 April 1863 in Weston-super-Mare,
England
Died: 5 June 1940 in Oxford,
England
Augustus Love graduated from Cambridge and held the Sedleian chair of
natural philosophy at Oxford from 1899. He worked on the mathematical theory of
elasticity (on which he wrote the two volume work
A Treatise on the
Mathematical Theory of Elasticity (1892-93) ) and on waves. His work on the
structure of the Earth
Some Problems in Geodynamics won the Adams Prize
at Cambridge in 1911.
An expert on spherical harmonics, Love discovered the existence of waves of
short wavelength in the Earth's crust. The ideas in this work are still much
used in geophysical research and the short wavelength earthquake waves he
discovered are called 'Love waves'.
He received many honours, the Royal Society awarded him its Royal Medal in
1909 and its Sylvester Medal in 1937, while the London Mathematical Society
awarded him its De Morgan Medal in 1926.
Article by: J J O'Connor and E F
Robertson
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