A miller's son, George Green (1793 1841) received little formal schooling yet managed to acquire significant knowledge of modern mathematics, especially French work. In 1828 he published his Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism, the work for which he is now celebrated. Admitted to Cambridge in 1833 as a mature student, Green went on to become a fellow of Gonville and Caius College. His early death, however, cut short a promising career as a mathematical physicist. While English contemporaries saw what he might have achieved, they did...