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Birth
Born February 15 in Ramsgate, Isle of Thanet, Kent, England.
He grew up in a family which was concerned with education, religion, and local administration. His father and grandfather both had directed a private school. Later his father became a clergyman of the Established Church, holding among other offices that of Honorary Canon of Canterbury.
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enters trinity college, Cambridge
he had a scholarship in mathematics. remained there as a student and a Fellow until 1910. During student days he was most fortunate in his academic and social contacts. He took lectures only in mathematics, but as a member of various student-faculty groups he profited from vigorous “Socratic discussions” involving experts in politics, religion, philosophy, and literature. -
Elected to the Apostles
the elite discussion club founded by Tennyson in the 1820s; graduates with a B.A. in Mathematics; elected a Fellow in Mathematics at Trinity. -
Marries Evelyn Wade
Whitehead married Evelyn Wade, an Irishwoman raised in France; they had a daughter, Jessie, and two sons, Thomas and Eric. With characteristic charm and gallantry Whitehead acknowledges the profound influence exerted by his wife. “Her vivid life has taught me that beauty, moral and aesthetic, is the aim of existence; and that kindness, and love, and artistic satisfaction are among the modes of its attainment.” -
Alfred meets Russel
Whitehead was the elder of the two and came from a more pure mathematics background. He became Russell’s tutor at Trinity College, Cambridge in the 1890s, and then collaborated with his more celebrated ex-student in the first decade of the 20th Century on their monumental work, the “Principia Mathematica”. -
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principia mathematica
Principia Mathematica is one of the seminal works of mathematical logic. Russell coauthored it with Russel. Originally conceived as an elaboration of Russell’s earlier Principles of Mathematics, the Principia’s three volumes eventually grew to eclipse Principles in scope and depth. Whitehead, Alfred North. Principia Mathematica, by Alfred North Whitehead ... and Bertrand Russell. University Press, 1910. -
Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
as a result of his work on universal algebra, symbolic logic, and the foundations of mathematics. -
Resigns from Cambridge and moves to London.
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Appointed Lecturer at University College London.
In 1910, Whitehead resigned his senior lectureship in mathematics at Trinity and moved to London without first obtaining another job. After being unemployed for a year, he accepted a position as lecturer in applied mathematics and mechanics at University College London but was passed over a year later for the Goldsmid Chair of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, a position for which he had hoped to be seriously considered. -
Elected President of both the South-Eastern Mathematical Association and the London branch of the Mathematical Association for the year 1913.
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Appointed Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology.
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Elected President of the Mathematical Association for the two-year period 1915–1917
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Meets Albert Einstein.
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Elected President of the Aristotelian Society
for the one-year period 1922–1923. -
Appointed Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University.
The last stage in Whitehead’s academic career began when he accepted an invitation to become Professor of Philosophy at Harvard. At Harvard Whitehead found time to publish the results of his mature philosophical speculations—thoughts based on years of serious meditation. In the course of private discussion he once remarked: “From twenty on I was interested in philosophy, religion, logic, and history. Harvard gave me a chance to express myself.” -
Period: to
process and reality
Process and Reality is a book by Alfred North Whitehead, in which the author propounds a philosophy of organism, also called process philosophy. The book, published in 1929, is a revision of the Gifford Lectures he gave in 1927–28. -
elected to the british academy
he was elected to the British Academy in 1931 -
Elected a Fellow of the British Academy.
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Retires from Harvard.
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Awarded Order of Merit.
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dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Alfred retired from Harvard in 1937 and remained in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until his death on 30 December 1947.
