* Gerald Whitrow; Mathematician Wrote About Time

Gerald Whitrow, 87, who analyzed and wrote about the complexity of time. A graduate of Oxford University, Whitrow taught applied mathematics at London’s Imperial College for 50 years and remained an active senior research fellow there until his death. He was skilled in assembling various theories and research about time into intelligible explanatory prose. His first major work, “The Natural Philosophy of Time” in 1960, was followed by “What Is Time?” in 1972 and “Time in History” in 1988. The books explored such concepts as how time originated, biological clocks, the relations among time, gravitation and the universe, and whether time has a beginning and an end. On June 2 in London.