Hartree, Douglas R(ayner)

born March 27, 1897, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.

died Feb. 12, 1958, Cambridge

English physicist, mathematician, and computer pioneer.

At Manchester University in the mid 1930s he built a mechanical computer for solving differential equations, based on the differential analyzer of Vannevar Bush. During World War II he was involved with the ENIAC project in the U.S. At the University of Cambridge he introduced the self-consistent field approximation scheme that is the basis for most atomic calculations and for the prevailing physical understanding of the wave mechanics of atoms. The Hartree method

sometimes called the Hartree-Fock method to acknowledge Vladimir Fock (1898–1974), who generalized Hartree's scheme

is widely used to describe electrons in atoms, molecules, and solids.

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