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DEATHS Click on a name in the list below. Mary Ellen Rudin
MARY ELLEN RUDIN Published online 05 April 2013
Mary Ellen Rudin (née Estill), Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, died on18 March 2013. She was one of the greatest figures in set-theoretic topology and her work included solutions of a great number of difficult and well known problems. Among them is the first construction of a Dowker space (in 1955 from a Suslin line and in 1971 in ZFC), the first S-space (from a Suslin line in 1972) and a positive answer to the Nikiel conjecture (1999). The latter was one of her most celebrated results, and it was obtained at the age of seventy five. Mary Ellen’s work is characterized by a number of highly imaginative constructions and a great originality, as well as a profound understanding of sophisticated set-theoretic methods. Born on 7 December 1924 in Hillsboro, Texas in an educated family, she went to the University of Texas, where she got her PhD in 1949 under the supervision of Robert Moore. She then obtained a position at Duke University, where she met a fellow mathematician Walter Rudin (1921-2010), whom she married in 1953. In 1959 the Rudins moved to Madison and spent the rest of their working lives there. They had a lovely family life, including four children, and a huge number of friends and visitors, often staying in their house. Jointly they were a symbol of mathematical openness, while the house, a Frank Lloyd Wright design with no interior walls, was a symbol of the Rudin way of living. Mary Ellen had sixteen graduate students, many of which became top mathematicians themselves. Mirna Džamonja
MICHAEL BUTLER Published online 05 April 2013
Dr Michael Charles Richard Butler, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 15 December 1955, died on 18 December 2012, aged 83. Peter Giblin writes (with advice from Mary Rees and Claus Ringel): Michael and his wife Sheila Brenner, who died in 2002, were active members of the mathematics departments of the University of Liverpool from the time of their appointments in 1957, when they both moved from the University of London. Until the merger of the two departments (and Statistics) in the 1990s Sheila was in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Michael in the Department of Pure Mathematics; but from the early 1960s, and a joint research leave to Michael’s home country of Australia, they worked together on problems in algebra. Michael’s earlier work was devoted to questions in homological algebra. His detailed study of a class of torsion-free groups of finite rank (now called Butler groups) showed the complexity of such groups. His use of representations of posets in order to study abelian groups was very influential as one of the first general reduction techniques. In several papers he described the surprising dichotomy between tame and wild behaviour of module categories. In their joint work Michael and Sheila developed ‘tilting theory’, now an indispensable tool in algebra and geometry providing a general framework for dealing with equivalences of triangulated categories. Their first major publication on this was in 1980: Generalizations of the Bernstein-Gelfand-Ponomarev reflection functors, in the proceedings of the second ICRA (International Conference on Representations of Algebras). From its beginning, Michael was one of the scientific advisors for the ICRA conference series which started in 1974 in Ottawa, Canada, and now is held every second year in different countries. Michael and Sheila’s last joint publication was in 2007, five years after Sheila’s death. Together, they organized a very successful symposium at the University of Durham in 1985. Michael was a highly successful Head of the (then) Department of Pure Mathematics in Liverpool in the 1980's: perhaps surprisingly so, given his strong, forthrightly expressed, and even unfashionable, left-wing views, which were also an important part of his partnership with Sheila. But he also had exceptional organisational ability, and was naturally kind, courteous, pragmatic and level headed. Michael formally retired in 1996 but continued active in work and conference attendance until his medical condition prevented it. Michael and Sheila had no children, but Michael, from a large family, has dozens of collateral descendants, and will also be missed by his many friends around the world.
AKOS SERESS Published online 05 April 2013
Ákos was a great man. He carried all before him in a wave of enthusiasm, hard work, and insight, an insight that comprehended a great range of mathematical issues, an understanding of what needed to be done and how to do it, and a cheerful empathy with all around him. To meet Ákos was to make a friend and collaborator for life. He collaborated with everyone, whether (as was often the case) he wrote a joint paper with them or not. He was quietly proud of having Erdös number 1; so everyone with Erdös number k has Seress number at most k + 1. Ákos worked chiefly in computational group theory; more specifically with permutation groups and matrix groups over finite fields; and also in combinatorics. Computational group theory has, on occasion, shown signs of splitting into two mutually suspicious cliques; the theorists and the practitioners. Any nonsense of this kind was blown away in the presence of Ákos. He bestrode both worlds, and made ridiculous the idea of regarding either as inferior. With Bill Kantor he organised a series of international meetings on computational group theory where these divisions were further, and perhaps permanently, healed. He also brought the two sides together with his lectures. The content of his lectures was of central importance; but Ákos added another ingredient. To hear him lecture was to think: What fun; I should like to work in this area. His pleasure in being invited to give a lecture at the 2006 International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid was a splendid example of this infectious enthusiasm. It is not possible to do justice to any good mathematician within the reasonable bounds of an obituary, but his work pervades his subject. His book on Permutation Group Algorithms, his many papers, the happy memories that he has left us, and much more, must be his memorial. Si monumentum requeris, circumspice. If you need a monument, look around you. Ákos Seress was born on 24 November 1958, and died on 13 February 2013. He leaves a widow Sherry, and a son Laszlo. Charles Leedham-Green PAUL BATEMAN Published online 05 April 2013
Professor Paul T. Bateman, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 17 June 1948, died on 26 December 2012, aged 93. Harold Diamond writes: Paul Bateman, who was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, attended the University of Pennsylvania. His studies were interrupted during World War II, when, as a conscientious objector, he worked in a mental hospital. Paul earned his PhD in 1946, supervised by Hans Rademacher. His thesis included a proof of a formula conjectured by G.H. Hardy for the number of representations of a positive integer as the sum of three squares, a result that has inspired much further study. After post-doctoral positions at Yale and the Institute for Advanced Study, Paul came to the University of Illinois in 1950 and stayed until retiring in 1989. From 1965 to 1980, Paul served as Department Head; he was active in the department until his last year. Paul was a long-time member of the American Mathematical Society, where he served as an Associate Secretary and a member of the Board of Trustees and the Mathematical Reviews Committee. Paul married Felice Davidson in 1948. She died 4 February 2013, just a few weeks after Paul. The Batemans shared interests in classical music and opera and enjoyed exploring mountains and back roads. Colleagues and acquaintances will remember Paul for his guidance, support, encouragement, and friendship. A number theory conference in honor of the Batemans will be held in Spring 2014.
TERRY HALLETT Published online 27 February 2013
Professor Terry Hallett, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 18 December 1958, died on 27 November 2012, aged 76. Eira Scourfield writes: She was born Joan Terry Collar on 21 April 1936 in London, and was in the first cohort to obtain a BSc degree from the newly independent Exeter University in 1957. She then worked on group theory under Professor Hirsch at Queen Mary, London, obtaining her PhD in 1961, and later publishing five papers with him. She taught in several Universities, mainly in the USA: Royal Holloway, London University, in 1959-60; California State University Northridge in 1960-62; University of Nevada, Reno, part time from 1978 until her appointment in 1981 to California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB). She remained there until her retirement in 2006, whilst commuting back and forth to the family in Reno. Terry and John Hallett married in 1960, and started their family in 1963 when John returned to his position in the Physics Department of Imperial College. In 1966 they moved to Reno, Nevada, and Terry retained her interest in Mathematics and improved her computer skills whilst caring for their four daughters. Professor Peter Williams kindly provided me with information about Terry’s career in CSUSB where she was a valued colleague with various department responsibilities and an enthusiastic teacher keen to introduce new ideas such as using the computer interactively to teach statistics. She had a sabbatical at Royal Holloway to work in statistics, and another later whilst studying for a Masters degree in Mathematical Education at Exeter University. Her varied activities included writing a statistics paper with Barry Arnold at UCR, grading the Advance Placement Statistics exam in the USA, and collaborating with her husband John in his Physics research which resulted in three joint publications. With Peter Williams she worked on developing Hypercard activities, and was part of a team which obtained an NSF grant to produce interactive material for College Algebra and Precalculus, which led to a text with accompanying software published in 2004. After retirement from CSUSB, Terry taught courses at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno until a few weeks before her death from cancer. She was a frequent visitor to England to see her family, especially latterly her Mother who died in 2011 aged 101. Terry is survived in the USA by her husband John, four daughters, and nine grandchildren, and, in England, her brother Richard.
TERRY HALLETT Published online 27 February 2013
Professor Terry Hallett, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 18 December 1958, died on 27 November 2012, aged 76. Eira Scourfield writes: She was born Joan Terry Collar on 21 April 1936 in London, and was in the first cohort to obtain a BSc degree from the newly independent Exeter University in 1957. She then worked on group theory under Professor Hirsch at Queen Mary, London, obtaining her PhD in 1961, and later publishing five papers with him. She taught in several Universities, mainly in the USA: Royal Holloway, London University, in 1959-60; California State University Northridge in 1960-62; University of Nevada, Reno, part time from 1978 until her appointment in 1981 to California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB). She remained there until her retirement in 2006, whilst commuting back and forth to the family in Reno. Terry and John Hallett married in 1960, and started their family in 1963 when John returned to his position in the Physics Department of Imperial College. In 1966 they moved to Reno, Nevada, and Terry retained her interest in Mathematics and improved her computer skills whilst caring for their four daughters. Professor Peter Williams kindly provided me with information about Terry’s career in CSUSB where she was a valued colleague with various department responsibilities and an enthusiastic teacher keen to introduce new ideas such as using the computer interactively to teach statistics. She had a sabbatical at Royal Holloway to work in statistics, and another later whilst studying for a Masters degree in Mathematical Education at Exeter University. Her varied activities included writing a statistics paper with Barry Arnold at UCR, grading the Advance Placement Statistics exam in the USA, and collaborating with her husband John in his Physics research which resulted in three joint publications. With Peter Williams she worked on developing Hypercard activities, and was part of a team which obtained an NSF grant to produce interactive material for College Algebra and Precalculus, which led to a text with accompanying software published in 2004. After retirement from CSUSB, Terry taught courses at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno until a few weeks before her death from cancer. She was a frequent visitor to England to see her family, especially latterly her Mother who died in 2011 aged 101. Terry is survived in the USA by her husband John, four daughters, and nine grandchildren, and, in England, her brother Richard.
EDWARD ODELL Published online 27 February 2013
Edward (Ted) Odell, a great mathematician and world expert in Functional Analysis, died suddenly on 9 January 2013 in Houston, Texas. Ted was born on 15 March 1947 near Pleasantville, New York, where he grew up. He completed his undergraduate studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He received his PhD from MIT in 1975 but in fact completed his research at Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio. He went there to work with Bill Johnson in Banach space theory, which he liked after an introduction to it in a course at Binghamton. His dissertation was outstanding and contained two important papers, one with Johnson and another with Haskell Rosenthal as well as many more results. After a post-doc at Yale, Ted moved to Austin with his wife Gail to take up a faculty position in the Mathematics Department at the University of Texas in 1977. He became full professor in 1990 and the John T. Stuart III Centennial Professor of Mathematics in 2005. For the last three years he was also the Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies. Ted Odell was a very highly regarded member of the Banach space community. He authored nearly a hundred research articles including many that represented major breakthroughs in the subject. He was an expert in Lp spaces and in combinatorial and set-theoretic methods in analysis. Amongst his collaborations, the one with Thomas Schlumprecht was the most prolific, resulting in about a third of his papers and spanning the last quarter of a century. One of the highlights is their solution of the famous distortion problem for Hilbert space in the early 1990s. Very recently, with Richard Haydon and Thomas Schlumprecht he achieved remarkable new results on the structure of Lp. With Dan Freeman and Schlumprecht he established the universality of l1 as a dual space thereby solving longstanding open problems. He settled another old problem with Bill Johnson proving that the isomorphism class of a separable infinite-dimensional space has infinite diameter. Ted visited and gave lectures all over the world. He was an invited speaker at the ICM in Zürich in 1994. He first came to the UK in 1977 to work with Richard Haydon in Oxford. This was followed by many more visits and lectures in Edinburgh, Lancaster, Leeds and Cambridge. In the last decade he had collaborations with András Zsák in Cambridge and more recently also with Niels Laustsen in Lancaster. Colleagues will remember his kindness and generosity. At conferences he always looked out for newcomers and made sure they felt welcome by the community. Young people always felt comfortable to approach him and to ask questions. He loved clever ideas and was good at coming up with them and, when progress was slow, his typical New York style dry humour never failed to cheer up those working with him. He is survived by his wife Gail, daughters Holly and Amy, and son-in-law Mark. András Zsák ALEKSANDER PEŁCZYŃSKI Published online 27 February 2013
Aleksander (Olek) Pełczyński – a great mathematician and participant in the Polish school of functional analysis (Banach, Mazur, Orlicz, ...) – passed away in Wrocław on 20 December 2012, and was buried in the Merit Allée of the Military Cemetery in Warsaw on 4 January 2013. Olek was born on 2 July 1932 in Tarnopol, then in Poland. As a laureate of the first Polish Mathematical Olympiad, he entered Warsaw University in 1950 without taking any entrance examination. He completed his PhD studies at the Mathematical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IMPAN) in 1958; his master’s and PhD dissertations were supervised by Stanisław Mazur; he obtained his habilitation in 1963 and became an extraordinary professor in 1969 and an ordinary one in 1974. In 1976, he was elected a corresponding member and in 1989 a full member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Olek became a teaching assistant at Warsaw University in 1954, and worked there until 1967. Then he moved to IMPAN, and worked there until the end of his life; he served as a deputy director, and later as the head of the Functional Analysis Section and of PhD studies. Since 1970 he was a member of the Editorial Board of Studia Mathematica. Aleksander Pełczyński worked mostly in functional analysis and infinite-dimensional topology, and he has about 150 publications. He was twice invited to be a speaker at an International Congress of Mathematicians (in 1968 in Moscow and in 1982 in Warsaw). He gave lectures all over the world; in particular he visited the UK at least five times, first in 1973 for lectures in Cambridge and then in 1974 as a member of the Scientific Committee of a conference in Durham. Olek was also interested in the humanities. During his student years he published poems in a student journal and acted in plays. He also had a deep knowledge of European and American history. Wiesław Żelazko
COLIN MACLACHLAN Published online 25 January2013
Dr Colin Maclachlan, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 18 November 1965 died on 26 November 2012, aged 73. Rob Archbold and Bill Harvey write After a BSc and Teaching Diploma from Queen's College Dundee, Colin moved to Birmingham to study for a PhD with A.M. Macbeath, graduating in 1966. Two years in Canada at Carleton University were followed by a return to Britain and a full career of teaching, research and supervision of four doctoral students at the University of Aberdeen. He retired in 2004 but continued with research, editing and outreach activities. Colin was a fine mathematician with an international reputation in discrete groups and Riemann surfaces, specialising in arithmetic aspects of hyperbolic geometry. He published over sixty research papers and had more than twenty co-authors. His book The Arithmetic of Hyperbolic 3-Manifolds written with Alan Reid (a former student) is the standard text in the subject and incorporates many of their own results into this vibrant area of contemporary geometry. Colin was President of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society (1997-1999) and served two terms as Convener of the Editorial Board for the Proceedings of the EMS. A frequent contributor to the Aberdeen series of Mathematics Masterclasses, where he enthused many schoolchildren with mathematical aspects of cryptography and knots, he also served as chair of the North of Scotland section of the Mathematical Challenge for secondary schools. Colin was a keen cricketer, gardener and hill-walker; he ‘completed’ the Scottish Munros in 1998. He also undertook many voluntary activities in the local community. He is survived by his widow, Dorothy, three children and six grandchildren, and will be greatly missed by all who knew him. Bill writes Colin and I were fellow graduate students of Murray Macbeath in Birmingham. We worked together from the outset in learning the substantial background from geometry, complex analysis and group theory necessary for understanding our supervisor's innovative work on Fuchsian groups and moduli of Riemann surfaces. We succeeded, largely thanks to Colin's calm, assured way of coping with the ups and downs of learning how to do research, in the same way that he addressed every task. His honesty, good humour and careful approach ensured that we both got to the core ideas quickly: it was fun. He made a significant impression in the area of Riemann surface theory, proving a signal result about the topology of moduli spaces (they are simply connected for all values of the genus) before moving on to the arithmetic side of discrete groups. We were lifelong friends, enjoying similar tastes in conviviality and folk music: he had an inexhaustible vein of wit and aphorism couched in his own Dundonian idiom. I leave the last word to the poet Norman McCaig:
MARGARET JACKSON Published online 25 January2013
Dr Margaret Jackson, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 14 June 1951, died on 23 October 2012, aged 88. George Hall, David Martin, Neil Jackson write: Margaret’s 30 years of work at the University of Nottingham was characterised by her long term care of students both within the mathematics department and as a tutor in Florence Boot Hall. She was a well-liked, energetic member of staff with valued expertise in her field. Born in Burnley on 31 December 1923 Margaret attended Burnley High School for Girls, studying further mathematics at Burnley Boys Grammar School as higher level mathematics was not available at the girls school. She progressed on to Bedford College completing her MSc in Mathematics after the war. Following her MSc Margaret began work as a lecturer at the University of Nottingham and completed her PhD in Mathematics there in 1952 with thesis Generalized Bilateral Hypergeometric Series building on her MSc work with supervisor W.N. Bailey. Margaret’s MSc work had been published in JLMS 24(1949) on On some Formulae in Partition Theory, and Bilateral Basic Hypergeometric Series and A Generalization of the Theorems of Watson and Whipple on the Sum of the Series 3F2. Her passion for mathematics was communicated to her students with breathless enthusiasm. On retirement as senior lecturer she moved to her beloved Arnside in Cumbria. She never married, but was survived by her older brother Arthur and three nieces and a nephew, 11 great nieces and nephews and three great great nephews. A memorial service will be held at Arnside Methodist Church on Friday 22 February at 2.30 pm to which friends and colleagues will be most welcome.
DANIEL R. HUGHES Published online 25 January2013
Professor Dan Hughes, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 15 November 1962, died 19 October 2012, aged 85. Fred Piper writes: Although he was educated in the USA and began his academic career there, Dan spent most of his working life at the University of London before enjoying the major part of his retirement in his beloved Italy. Most of Dan’s mathematics concentrated on Finite Geometries, Block Designs and Finite Groups and he made a number of significant research contributions to each of the areas. However, despite his eminence as a researcher, he will probably be best remembered for his inspirational lectures, his infectious enthusiasm for mathematics (and life in general) and his willingness to spend time with anyone who was interested, no matter whether they were established senior researchers or fresh faced PhD students. I have lost count of the number of well established mathematics professors who admit to being influenced by Dan and who unashamedly admit that they owe some of their success to his influence. I am proud to be one of them. I was introduced to Dan in my first week as a PhD student (when he was a visiting professor at Queen Mary College). Seven years later we became colleagues at Westfield College where we worked together for more than fifteen years. They were exciting and happy times. There is no doubt that the mathematics community has lost an exceptionally able and productive research colleague. However, in addition to losing a respected colleague, many of us have lost an inspirational friend who was, to coin a cliché ‘larger than life’. There was much more to Dan than being a mathematician. He enjoyed life ‘to the full’ with mathematics, his family, ladies, story-telling, good food, good wine and Italy among his many passions. He will be sorely missed.
VIACHESLAV BELAVKIN Published online 25 January2013
Professor Viacheslav Belavkin, who was elected member of the London Mathematical Society on 21 June 1996, died on 27 November 2012, aged 66. John Gough, Madalin Guta and Robin Hudson write: Viacheslav (Slava) Pavlovich Belavkin was born in Lviv in 1946, and graduated from Moscow State University in 1970. Slava’s thesis was entitled Optimal Estimation and Measurements of Quantum Systems and his supervisor was the eminent probabilist Ruslan Stratonovich who developed the symmetric alternative to Ito’s stochastic calculus along with the theory of nonlinear filtering. Indeed, Slava’s later work would be to extend the rich seam of mathematical research of Stratonovich from the classical to the quantum domain. This program led to the development of quantum Markov models and quantum stochastic processes, dynamical non-demolition principles for quantum continuous measurement, and ultimately to the birth of quantum filtering theory. In 1996 he shared the Main State Prize of the Russian Federation with Stratonovich. In the 1980s Slava visited the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, and the Volterra Centre in Rome before taking up an appointment at Nottingham University in 1992. He was later promoted to a Chair in Mathematical Physics in 1996. This was a very fertile period for Quantum Probability and Slava would play a major role in nurturing and shaping the field. In the last decade there has been a resurgence of interest in Slava’s work, as experimental capabilities reached the stage where the models he proposed can be implemented in practice. His visionary ideas are now the basis of quantum feedback control, and the paradigms he introduced are gaining mainstream acceptance, particularly with the emergence of Quantum Control Engineering as a mathematical discipline. Slava was still very much active and doubtlessly would have made many more important contributions, had he not succumbed to serious illness in the last few years. Slava is survived by his wife Nadia and son Roman.
TREVOR WEST Published online 04 January2013
Professor Trevor West, emeritus Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, who had been a member of the London Mathematical Society from 1964 to 2004, died on 30 October 2012, aged 74. Richard Timoney writes: Trevor got his PhD in 1964 at Cambridge under the direction of Frank Smithies with a thesis entitled Riesz operators in Banach spaces, in which he established the ‘West decomposition’ for the Hilbert space case, and he worked throughout his career on related topics including spectral theory on Banach algebras. He had a rather extensive research collaboration with Rien Kaashoek of Amsterdam on topics related to semi-algebras and semigroups, leading to a monograph published in 1974. He also collaborated with Alastair Gillespie a number of times, with the late Gerard Murphy, with his student Roger Smyth and with Tom Laffey, amongst others. A second monograph with Bruce Barnes, Murphy and Smyth (entitled Riesz and Fredholm Theory in Banach Algebras) appeared in 1982. Overall, Trevor was very active in Irish mathematical life and availed of his wide network of mathematical correspondents (some from his days at Cambridge, Glasgow and UCLA) to organise a number of conferences, including a joint meeting of the Irish Mathematical Society and the LMS in 1986 where the speakers were E.C. Lance (Leeds), R.G. Douglas (Stonybrook), W.B. Arveson (Berkeley) and A. Connes (Paris). As a member of the Royal Irish Academy, he took a leading rôle in its mathematical publications, changing the format to be that of a journal, and he also organised some of his major conferences under its auspices. He was a Senator (a member of the upper house in the Irish parliamentary system) almost continuously from 1970 to 1983. However, his talents and interests extended beyond mathematics and politics to other areas also. He was very active in College life, serving in a number of rôles within the College but especially as chairman of DUCAC, the Dublin University Central Athletic Committee, for 30 years. Trevor was deeply interested in sport since his school days at Midleton College, Cork, where his father was Headmaster for several decades, and Trevor himself became Chairman of the Board of that school. He is survived by his wife Maura Lee and will be remembered for his very positive attitude to all that he did: mathematics, politics, sport and writing.
NATHAN DIVINSKY Published online 04 January2013
Professor Nathan Divinsky, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 19 December 1957, died on 17 June 2012 at the age of 86. Pamela Divinsky and Judy Kornfeld write: He was born in 1925 in Winnipeg and received his BSc from the University of Manitoba in 1946, then to the University of Chicago where he received his MSc, and then PhD in 1949. He taught at Ripon College, Wisconsin, University of Manitoba, and then from 1959-91 at the University of British Columbia. He held the position of Associate Dean of Science, UBC, was recognized for his teaching excellence with several Master Teaching Awards, and in 1991 was honoured with Professor Emeritus. He spent his numerous sabbaticals teaching at Queen Mary, University of London. He was also a Canadian television personality and hosted a series of mathematics quizzes on the Discovery Channel. His area of research was linear algebra (Linear Algebra, 1975); and pioneered the area of rings and radical (Rings and Radicals, 1965). Throughout his career he worked with world-class algebraists in Canada, England and Europe. He loved mathematics and teaching, and earned a noteworthy status as an entertaining professor whose classes were worth attending even if one was not taking mathematics. In addition to being a mathematician, Divinsky was also a master at both bridge and chess. He became a Bridge Life Master in 1972. He played for the Canadian Chess Team in 1954 in Amsterdam and in 1966 in Havana. He also served as captain for two Chess Olympiads. He founded and edited the Canadian Chess Chat magazine and authored many books on the game. He also played a major role in Canada's chess world. He was Canada's representative to FIDE from 1987-1994 and was inducted into the Chess Hall of Fame in 2001. You can view his games at www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=80128. He is survived by his wife, two daughters and two granddaughters. He lived his life with passionate curiosity and conviction and was a true linearly independent vector. STEPHEN BOOK Published online 04 January2013
Professor Stephen A. Book, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 16 November 1972, died on 10 January 2012 at the age of 70. Charlie Hopkins writes: Steve earned his PhD in mathematics, with a concentration in probability and statistics, at the University of Oregon. He was a professor of Mathematics at California State University, Dominguez Hills for 10 years during which he published numerous articles, among them the popularly referenced article on the formulation of sample standard deviation, before joining The Aerospace Corporation in 1980. There he worked on a wide variety of Air Force programs and directed a vigorous program of research analysis into methods of conducting cost and schedule risk analyses and deriving cost estimating relationships (CERs). He went on to serve as Director, Cost and Requirements Analysis from 1989-95. He then held one of the most eminent titles that The Aerospace Corporation could bestow, the title of ‘Distinguished Engineer’, from 1996 to 2000. Steve joined Management Consulting and Research in January 2001 and served as its Chief Technical Officer from 2001-09. Dr Book was the last editor of the Journal of Parametrics, a publication of the International Society of Parametric Analysts (ISPA) and he was the co-editor of its successor, the Journal of Cost Analysis and Parametrics. In 2005 he was the recipient of ISPA’s Freiman Award for Lifetime Achievement and in 2010 he was the recipient of the SCEA Lifetime Achievement Award. He is one of only four individuals to receive both lifetime achievement awards. Steve was one of the most sought after experts in world of cost analysis. Whether supporting the European Space Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, or NASA, Steve had the deep respect and high regard from all in the cost community. He served on numerous blue ribbon panels and supported such national studies as National Research Council’s committee on Space Shuttle upgrades, the Chabrow Committee for the International Space Station and Stafford Committee for the Space Exploration Initiative. He also testified to Congress on issues of cost estimating and analysis in the space industry. With his many contributions to the professional community he balanced a busy professional life with a busy and happy family life. He is survived by his wife, Ruth, and five children. ANDREI GONCHAR Published online 16 November 2012
Andrei Gonchar died on 10 October 2012, at the age of 81. He was born in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), graduated from school in Yerevan (Armenia), and enrolled in Moscow State University in 1949. From 1954 to 1957 he was a postgraduate student at the same university, with Sergei Mergelyan as his advisor, and he taught there from 1957 to 1991. Since 1964 he was also a research fellow and a head of department at the Steklov Mathematical Institute. He was a member of the Soviet (now Russian) Academy of Sciences since 1987 (a corresponding member since 1974) and held high administrative posts at the Academy for some period of time. From 1992 to 1993 he was the Organizing Director of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, a newly formed government agency supporting fundamental research. Gonchar’s interests in mathematics were focused on rational approximation of functions. He was one of the central figures in the development of the modern theory of Hermite-Padé approximations and orthogonal polynomials with varying weight. He brought forward a radically new method of solution of classical problems in rational approximation, which is based on vector equilibrium problems of potential theory in the presence of an exterior field. Now this method is widely used in theoretical and practical investigations. With its help Gonchar solved Varga’s famous ‘1/9’ problem. He reported on this result at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berkeley in 1986 and it received ample recognition. He paid much attention to publishing activities of the Academy. For 25 years he was the editor-in-chief of Matematicheskii Sbornik, the oldest Russian mathematical journal. Thanks in part to Gonchar’s warm relations with Sir Michael Atiyah, a partnership in journal publishing between the Russian Academy of Sciences, the London Mathematical Society and Turpion Ltd has been actively developing since the mid-1990s. Nikolai Kruzhilin and Sergei Suetin JORAM LINDENSTRAUSS Published online 16 November 2012
Professor Joram Lindenstrauss, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 17 October 1974, died on 29 April 2012, aged 75. David Preiss writes: Joram Lindenstrauss was professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, member of the Israeli Academy of Sciences, foreign member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, recipient of the Israel Prize in Mathematics, Banach's medal winner, teacher and adviser of numerous outstanding mathematicians and founder of a powerful school of modern functional analysis. He was born in Tel Aviv in 1936 and educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he was deeply influenced by his teacher Aryeh Dvoretzky. He held longer term visiting positions at the Yale University, University of Washington, University of California, University of Texas and Texas A&M University and a number of other shorter term positions. Via his deep results, books, lectures, survey papers and collaborations (for the luckiest of us) he enormously influenced the development of modern mathematics. It is impossible to describe Joram's main discoveries in a brief note. Without any attempt for serious investigation, I quickly asked several colleagues what they think should be mentioned. The most popular answers were Johnson-Lindenstrauss Lemma, Lindenstrauss-Tzafriri characterization of the Hilbert space as the unique Banach space all of whose closed subspaces are complemented, Lindenstrauss-Pelczynski version of Grothendieck's ‘Fundamental Theorem’ and its applications, Lindenstrauss-Rosenthal local reflexivity,.... His book Classical Banach Spaces written jointly with Lior Tzafriri, became the basic reading for everyone interested in the theory of Banach spaces, and the more recent Geometric Nonlinear Functional Analysis written jointly with Yoav Benyamini, is becoming similarly influential. Like so many others, I was deeply influenced by Joram's work. A referee called me ‘a mathematician of Lindenstrauss's school’ long before political situation allowed us to meet and work together. When this barrier was finally broken, we jointly investigated the still puzzling problems of Fréchet differentiability. It became a very enjoyable long term ‘on and off project’ (as Joram called it), developed during his visits to London, Warwick and Prague (where Jaroslav Tišer joined our work), but mainly during my two longer and many shorter visits to Jerusalem. In spite of that, we would probably never be finished were it not for the support of Joram's family and especially of his wife, Naomi. We finally managed to put all the bits and pieces together in Autumn 2011 when Joram was already seriously ill, and he still saw the appearance of our research monograph Fréchet Differentiability of Lipschitz Functions and Porous Sets in Banach Spaces in February 2012. In spite of his deteriorating health, after finishing this work we still discussed directions in which further research may go. MICHAEL EASTHAM Published online 16 November 2012
Professor Michael Stephen Patrick Eastham, FRSE, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 19 December 1963, died on 27 October 2012, aged 74. Malcolm Brown and Desmond Evans write: Michael Eastham will be remembered as a leading mathematical analyst who contributed extensively to the theory of ordinary differential equations. Michael was born in London on 2 December 1937. After attending Manchester Grammar School, he entered Merton College, Oxford in 1956 and graduated in 1959 with double first class honours in Mathematics. He then was a research student of the eminent analyst Professor E.C. Titchmarsh and obtained his DPhil in 1962; during 1959-61, he was a Domus Senior Scholar at Merton College. He was admitted to the Degree of Doctor of Science of Oxford University in 1974. After lectureships in Reading (1962-65) and Southampton (1965-69), he spent the years 1969-88 in the University of London, at Chelsea and then King's Colleges, being promoted to Professor in 1980. He received the Keith Prize and Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1978 and was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1982. From 1988 until 1991 he was Professor of Mathematics in Bahrain and was Honorary Research Professor at Cardiff University School of Computer Science and Informatics from 1995. Michael was a widely acknowledged authority on the spectral theory of differential equations, and was particularly well-known for his analytical skills. He made many significant contributions to such topics as the asymptotics of solutions of linear differential systems, the deficiency index problem, periodic problems, spectral concentration and resonances. He was the author of 124 research publications and five books. RUSSELL SMITH Published online 16 November 2012
Dr Russell Alexander Smith, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 18 November 1965, died on 19 August 2012, aged 86. Lorna Smith writes: Russell was born in Katoomba in New South Wales, Australia. He studied for a BSc at New England University College Armidale and Sydney University where he was awarded a University Medal in Mathematics. In 1948 he was awarded the Barker Travelling Scholarship and came to St John’s College, Cambridge where he took the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos and then continued to a PhD supervised by Dame Mary Cartwright. After the PhD Russell returned to Australia, to a lectureship at Sydney University, but he then came back to the UK in 1954, to a lectureship at Durham University. Russell stayed at Durham University throughout the rest of his career, progressing first to Senior Lecturer and then to Reader in 1968, a role he held until his retirement in 1990. In 1985 he was awarded an ScD degree by the University of Cambridge. Russell's research interests concentrated around the theory of Ordinary Differential Equations. He published papers in number theory relating to sums of squares and worked on the functional equations of L-series related to quadratic forms and the distribution of rational points on hypersurfaces, as well as improving an error term in a result of Ramanujan concerning squares of the sum of the divisors of integers. The breadth of his interests also enabled him to contribute to a range of interdisciplinary areas, including collaborating with mathematical physicists working on string theory. Russell was a dedicated teacher who gave very clear and well-presented lectures. Both students and colleagues benefitted from his helpfulness and the encouragement that he gave. He always had time to listen, and gave well thought-out and sympathetic advice. Russell was devoted to his wife Katherine, who died sadly in 2001. He is survived by four children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. GEOFFREY HORROCKS Published online 19 October 2012
Professor Geoffrey Horrocks, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 15 March 1956, died on 12 September 2012, aged 79. Peter Newstead writes: Geoffrey Horrocks obtained his BA and PhD from Cambridge University. He subsequently spent two years as an Assistant Lecturer at King's College London, before moving to the University of Liverpool in 1958. He became a Reader in 1965 and was appointed Professor at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1966, where he remained until his retirement in 1998. Geoffrey was a pioneer in England of the ‘new’ algebraic geometry of Serre and Grothendieck, the main part of his work running from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. He studied in particular vector bundles on projective spaces. His publication list is relatively short, but all his papers have something significant to say and several are of seminal importance. Geoffrey's most famous work is undoubtedly his joint paper of 1973 with David Mumford, in which a vector bundle of rank 2 on 4-dimensional projective space was constructed with very interesting geometrical properties; it is known as the Horrocks-Mumford bundle. The theme of an early paper was to recover vector bundles from cohomological information and hence to reduce the construction of such bundles to linear algebra. This insight led in particular to the construction of instantons in the celebrated ADHM paper of 1977. Also in 1977 Wolf Barth used Geoffrey's methods to describe the moduli of vector bundles on the projective plane and this work was extended further in 1978 by Barth and Klaus Hulek. Perhaps the most significant advance was that of Alexander Beilinson, who extended Geoffrey's results by constructing a ‘two-sided resolution’ of any coherent sheaf on projective space. In another early paper, Geoffrey obtained a condition for a projective module on a polynomial ring to be free, which formed the basis of Daniel Quillen's proof that such modules are always free (Serre's conjecture). Graeme Segal writes: It was only when I had the task of writing an obituary account of Dan Quillen’s work that I realized how closely Quillen’s famous proof of the Serre conjecture follows a paper of Geoffrey Horrocks written ten years earlier, and was led to reflect on how another of Geoffrey’s few short papers contains the germ of the ADHM construction which ten years later started modern gauge theory as well a whole area of current algebraic geometry. We cannot but feel sad that our Society never managed to give any recognition to one of the country’s most original and influential mathematicians; but it is not hard to see how it came about. He was not one to call attention to his ideas, and he belonged to an age which saw no point in routine publications. More fundamentally, his example shows how long is the timescale over which mathematical interactions happen and how easy they are to overlook: his secure place in the history of mathematics was mediated – so I am told – by surprisingly few ‘citations’. TONY POTTER Published online 19 October 2012
Dr Anthony J.B. Potter, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on18 January 1976, died on 3 April 2012, aged 64. Rob Archbold writes: Tony Potter was a devoted member of the Mathematics Department in Aberdeen from 1972 until his retirement in 2011. He was a mathematical analyst and his research involved the application of functional analysis and topological methods to the study of non-linear differential equations. Particularly striking was his solo work on the application of Hilbert’s projective metric to non-homogeneous operators. He also collaborated with a number of leading figures in the area, spending various sabbaticals at Rutgers and Sussex. His former colleague and collaborator, Michael Crabb, writes ‘I owe Tony a great deal mathematically; it was his seminar, with Daciberg Goncalves, that got me interested in Fixed Point Theory and the Fuller index in particular’. In his general approach to mathematics (both teaching and research) Tony was rigorous, meticulous and highly knowledgeable. His clarity in teaching was very much appreciated by his students. He taught throughout the Mathematics and Engineering Mathematics curriculum, was an Advisor of Studies for many years, a sub-warden in Johnston Hall and a dominant force in staff-student football matches of the 1970s. Tony had a cheerful disposition and was generous with his time, always ready to respond to requests for help from students or colleagues throughout the University. In recent times, he collaborated with David Heald (Aberdeen Business School) on mathematical modelling for the UK-Scotland Barnett formula. Outside the University, Tony was a member of the Caledonian Cricket Club for several years. He batted with great panache rather than as a long term investment and he enjoyed hitting huge sixes. He was also a member of the Golf Clubs at Braemar and Newmachar. Sadly, Tony was able to enjoy only a brief period of retirement in Edinburgh. He is deeply missed by his partner, Barbara, his family and his former colleagues. WILLIAM THURSTON Published online 27 September 2012
William Thurston died on 21 August 2012, at the age of 65. He was born in Washington DC, was an undergraduate at New College in Florida, and a graduate student at UC Berkeley. In 1974, he became a professor at Princeton, but he returned to Berkeley in 1991, where he became director of the MSRI in 1993. He moved to UC Davis in 1996, and then Cornell in 2003. He was one of the most creative and outstanding mathematicians in recent times. He worked in many different fields, including foliation theory, complex dynamics and geometric group theory, but his most far-reaching research was in the areas of hyperbolic geometry and 3-manifold theory. His famous Geometrisation Conjecture, which he put forward in the late 1970s, revolutionised the study of 3-manifolds. Roughly speaking, this proposed that every compact orientable 3-manifold has a ‘canonical decomposition’ into ‘geometric pieces’. This was a remarkable structural picture that contained the infamous Poincaré conjecture as a mere special case. It was proved by Perelman in 2003. However, Bill Thurston himself made significant progress towards it, by proving it in the case of Haken 3-manifolds. His argument developed an extraordinary array of new techniques, which involved ideas from complex analysis, dynamics and of course hyperbolic geometry. For many years, the full details of the proof were not written down, and there were few who understood it fully. But it was highly influential, and it set the agenda for the field for three decades. He received a Fields Medal for this work in 1982. He was also passionate about mathematical education, partly because he felt that the way that mathematics is traditionally presented, via a sequence of formal definitions, theorems and proofs, can often hinder one's intuition. He tried to entice mathematicians to think about their subject in new ways, and in doing so, he had a huge influence on the direction of modern mathematics. Marc Lackenby
FREDERICK BRICKELL Published online 07 September 2012
Dr Frederick Brickell, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 17 December 1964, died in June 2012. ANDRZEJ ORCHEL Published online 07 September 2012
Dr Andrzej W. Orchel, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 22 November 1969, died on 22 January 2012, aged 65. CHRISTOPHER SHADDOCK Published online 07 September 2012
Mr Christopher J. Shaddock, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 21 February 1986, died on 8 March 2012, aged 79.
JOHN TAYLOR Published online 07 September 2012
Professor John Taylor, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 20 June 1986, died on 10 March 2012, aged 80. DORIS LAI CHUE CHEN Published online 09 August 2012
Dr Doris Lai Chue Chen, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 19 April 1951, died on 3 June 2012, aged 82. Professor Kee Yuen Lam and Professor Man Keung Siu write: Dr Chen did her undergraduate work at the Sun Yat Sen University, Guangzhou, China. She obtained her BSc in 1949, having been one of the very few woman graduates in mathematics in China. Later that year she proceeded to King's College, University of London, to do postgraduate work under the supervision of Professor J.G. Semple in the area of algebraic geometry, subsequently obtaining a PhD in 1955. In 1953 she was appointed Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Hong Kong. The department was then headed by the late Professor Yung Chow Wong. She was promoted to a Lectureship in 1960, and served the Department with all her heart until her retirement in 1985. Many generations of undergraduates at the University learned modern algebra from Doris Chen. To them Doris, as she was fondly called, was a symbol of culture and elegance, and a person full of warmth and kindness. To many female students she was also a role model, being the only woman mathematician on the regular faculty throughout her years of tenure at the University. Her book Elementary Set Theory, written jointly with her colleague Dr Kam Tim Leung, was published in 1967 by the Hong Kong University Press. Lucid and carefully written, it was for many years a must on the reading list of mathematics undergraduates in Hong Kong as well as pupils in matriculation classes who aspired to enter the Hong Kong University. In her retirement years Doris lived in England but travelled extensively in Europe, Asia and Australia. She devoted a lot of time to theatre and music, especially to Wagnerian Opera. She used to say that Wagner was an acquired taste that she enjoyed tremendously. At her funeral on 18 June 2012, family members requested that the Fischer-Dieskau version of Evening Star in Tannhäuser be played. Friends, relatives and former students will always remember her to be as serene and dignified as this fine piece of music portrays. Dr Doris Chen is survived by her husband Shou Lum, her two sons William and John, daughter-in-law Lily, and two grandchildren Abigail and Samuel. William, like his mother, is a mathematician. THOMAS WAGENKNECHT Published online 09 August 2012
Dr Thomas Wagenknecht, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 20 November 2009, died suddenly on 1 May 2012, aged of 37.
FRITZ URSELL Published online 12 July 2012
Professor Fritz Joseph Ursell, FRS, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 12 October 1979, died on 11 May 2012, aged 89. Fritz Ursell is survived by his wife Renate, two daughters Susie and Ruth, and two grandchildren. FRIEDRICH HIRZEBRUCH Published online 12 July 2012
Professor Fritz Hirzebruch, who was elected an Honorary Member of the London Mathe-matical Society on 16 June 1975, died on 17 May 2012, aged 84. DAVID STORVICK Published online 18 June 2012 Professor David A. Storvick, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 10 November 1970, died on 5 November 2011, aged 82. Peter Olver writes: David was a distinguished member of the School of Mathematics at the University of Minnesota, and a recognized researcher in the fields of complex analysis and mathematical physics. During his career, he published 39 papers in top level research journals, many of them written with another former colleague, Robert Cameron. David’s research accomplishments led to many invitations to speak at conferences throughout the world. David received a PhD degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1956 as a student of Arthur Lohwater. After two years at Iowa State University, he joined the University of Minnesota, where he spent the rest of his career, retiring in 2004. He served as Associate Head of the School of Mathematics 1964–70, Associate Dean of the Institute of Technology 1979–83 and then again 1993–94, and as Acting Director of the Gray Fresh Water Biological Institute 1989–90. He enjoyed three sabbaticals, during which he visited the University of Wisconsin, Imperial College, London and the University of York. He will be missed by his colleagues and friends in Minnesota and throughout the world. JACK ADLER Published online 14 May 2012 Dr Jack Adler, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 12 September 2001, died on 19 February 2012, aged 84. Trevor Stuart writes: Jack Adler was born in Berlin of Polish parents. However in March 1939 at the age of 11 he came to England by Kindertransport accompanied by his sister, who was aged nine; later, in August 1939, his younger brother, who was aged six, also came to England, having been seen to the train in Berlin by his father. Their parents were never seen again, not escaping but dying in Germany. Thus from the age of 12, at his father’s request, Jack had responsibility for his siblings, even though they lived separately in London; Jack himself lived in Brixton in a hostel of the local Jewish community. During intense bombing all three were evacuated, Jack to Horsham and his brother and sister to Wales. Jack left school at 14, becoming apprenticed to a diamond polisher but he soon started to study academic subjects in his own time. He became a UK citizen in 1947. In due course he was qualified for acceptance on the degree course at Chelsea College, and gained Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees; this was followed by a PhD degree at the University of London, following study at Chelsea College and Imperial College, with an intervening year at Queen’s University, Belfast. In 1959 Jack was appointed as a Lecturer in the Mathematics Department of Imperial College, being promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1965. He was committed to doing well in his teaching and other departmental activities, including research. In short he was a good academic. Jack spent sabbaticals at the University of Denver, at the Fire Research Station and at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Throughout his academic life, Jack’s abiding interest lay in the Theory of Laminar Flames and in Combustion, leading him to the mathematics of Liouville’s nonlinear partial differential equation, which is of relevance also for stellar structure. He did fine work in that area. His last paper which was on ’The Spherical Liouville Equation’ was published in the IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics shortly before he died. It was a pleasure to see that paper in print. Jack was a popular colleague and friend at the College and in the academic community generally. He retired in 1992, but remained as a Research Fellow until 2007. In private life he was a practising member of the Jewish faith. Jack is survived by his wife, Messody, by his three children, Eli, Jonathan and Myriam, by his grandchildren and by his sister, Chana, and brother, Erwin. I am very much indebted to Mrs Messody Adler for her generous help with material for this memoir. STELIOS ANDREADAKIS Published online 14 May 2012 Professor Stelios Andreadakis, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 17 March 1960, died on 9 February 2012, aged 79. Dimitrios Varsos writes: Stelios Andreadakis was born in Athens and graduated in Mathematics from the University of Athens in 1958. He obtained his doctorate from the (then called) Queen Mary College of the University of London under the supervision of Professor Philip Higgins. He then went on to hold an academic position at the University of Athens. He became Professor of Mathematics at the University of Ioannina in 1967 and of the University of Athens in 1973, where he remained until his retirement in 2001. Professor Andreadakis’s contribution to the theory of infinite groups and in particular to the study of the Automorphism group of a free group was quite significant. He served the mathematics community by participating in the organization of two very successful international conferences: Group Theory and Related Areas in 1984 in Crete, Greece and Group Theory, Representation Theory and Related Topics in 1993 in Spetses, Greece. He was actively involved for many years in the administration of the Hellenic Mathematical Society and the Department of Mathematics of the University of Athens. He was a very warm and caring person with a delightful sense of humour. One of his side interests was both Greek and world history in which he had great erudition. He is survived by his wife Roula, two daughters and a grand-daughter. JOHN MILLER Published online 14 May 2012 Professor B. John Miller, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 18 December 1958, died on 27 July 2011, aged 83. Andrew Wirth writes: John graduated BSc in Mathematics from the University of Sydney and was runner-up for the University Medal. He won a 2-year scholarship to the University of Cambridge where he graduated in the Mathematical Tripos. After returning from England, he took up a position as teacher at St Peter’s College, Adelaide. From St Peter’s he was appointed to a position of lecturer in mathematics at the University of New England in Armidale, NSW. While there he completed a PhD. Appointments as senior lecturer, and later reader, at Canberra University College followed (the College was incorporated into the Australian National University as the School of General Studies in 1960). In 1965 John took up a chair of Pure Mathematics at Monash University, where he led the department’s analysis group. He retired in 1989. His initial research area was analysis, more specifically Banach algebras. Some of this work led him to partially ordered topological groups and then to more general partially ordered sets. After his retirement he turned to Euclidean geometry. Behind a quiet demeanour John displayed a very dry sense of humour made all the more effective by a straight-faced delivery. Colleagues have remarked that his mathematical writing, just like his speech, was careful and concise. John showed an early interest in drawing, and he became a prolific painter of water colours, mainly landscapes. John was an ardent supporter of East Timor and steadfastly supported the disadvantaged in many countries. His wife’s death earlier in 2011 affected him profoundly and he suffered his fatal heart attack about nine weeks later. MARVIN KNOPP Published online 2 April 2012 Professor Marvin I. Knopp, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 20 January 1984, died on 24 December 2011, aged 78. John Paulos writes: John received his PhD under Paul T. Bateman at the University of Illinois in 1958. While serving on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois-Chicago and Temple University sequentially, he made significant contributions to number theory, particularly to the theory of modular forms about which he wrote more than 70 papers and two books. As a leading expert on modular forms, he twice gave invited addresses to meetings of the American Mathematical Society. He was closely associated with the mathematicians Gene Golub and Emil Grosswald among others and over the course of his career advised twenty PhD students. Beloved by his students as well as his many friends and colleagues, he was known as a kind and supportive teacher with a warm ever-present sense of humor. He was also rather idiosyncratically averse to technology and wrote the first of his handful of emails less than a year ago. And it was brief: ’Knopp sends email’. Professor Knopp was the father of pianist Seth Knopp, and of Abby, Elana and Yehudah (deceased). He was married to Dr Josephine Zadovsky Knopp for 25 years but the marriage ended in divorce. He met his cherished companion Phyllis Zemble in 1982 and resided with her until his death. He will be dearly missed by many. NIMISH SHAH Published online 2 April 2012 Mr Nimish Shah, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 23 June 2000, died on 16 November 2011, aged 45. Simon O’Keefe writes: I met Nimish Shah when he came to York in 2006 hoping to gain a PhD in Computer Science. I became his supervisor for his studies in computer science, but I think it is true to say that his real interests lay in mathematics, and in particular the mathematics used to describe computation. It was clear from the start that Nimish was a very intelligent person, amiable and eager to do well in all spheres of intellectual pursuit. He had very clear ideas about what he wanted to achieve, and once started down a particular track he was not easily deflected from his chosen course. He had flashes of brilliance and certainly had the potential to complete a PhD, but unfortunately a recurrence of health problems that had dogged him for some years meant that he had to interrupt his work a number of times. The productive work on his thesis slowed, and he died whilst writing up. Although his research output was not great in volume, what he did publish will continue to have an influence on other researchers in the field. JOHN HOWIE Published online 1 March 2012 Professor John Howie, CBE, FRSE, who was elected to the London Mathematical Society on 20 December 1962, Vice President 1984–86 and 1990–92, died on 26 December 2011 aged 75. Edmund Robertson writes: John was born in Chryston, Lanarkshire, but moved to Keith when one year old. John’s father was a Church of Scotland minister and a new appointment saw another move to Aberdeen where John attended Robert Gordon’s College. After becoming Modern Dux of the College, he had an outstanding undergraduate career at Aberdeen University. He remained as assistant lecturer for a year before going to Balliol College, Oxford, to undertake research. Although formally supervised by Graham Higman, it was supervision from Gordon Preston which led to John’s lifelong interest in semigroup theory. He taught at Glasgow University for six years, joining the new University of Stirling when it opened in 1967. Douglas Munn had been appointed Professor of Mathematics, so Stirling became a centre for semigroups. John was appointed Regius Professor of Mathematics at the University of St Andrews in 1970. He was an outstanding lecturer and a talented writer, using both talents to promote semigroup theory worldwide. His book An introduction to semigroup theory (1976) became a classic, attracting many students to the topic. He also became a major figure in mathematical education with his work on various national committees such as the Dunning Committee, which reviewed school examinations, and the Howie Committee which reviewed upper secondary education in Scotland. Early retirement saw him continue to collaborate with colleagues from around the world and write some fine undergraduate texts, all showing his outstanding skill in explaining mathematical ideas. As he had done throughout his life, he continued his passion for music. He sang in local choirs and was a church organist for over 30 years. More details are available at www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Howie.html. PHILIP BATCHELOR Published online 1 March 2012 Dr Philip Batchelor, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 22 May 1998, died on 30 August 2011 in a tragic climbing accident, aged 43. Tobias Schaeffter writes: Philip worked in Imaging Sciences at King’s College London since the late 1990s and although he went to University College London for a short period, he returned in 2006 as a Senior Lecturer, where he was a great scientist and teacher. He was quiet, unassuming and modest and yet was a very talented mathematician who made substantial contributions to the field of MRI reconstruction and was very highly thought of internationally. He had many collaborators from different disciplines in the UK and around the world and is going to be sorely missed by the Imaging scientific community. Philip’s research interests included MRI reconstruction, motion correction in MRI, diffusion tensor MRI, mathematical methods in MRI and in image reconstruction, general medical image processing (registration, segmentation, quantification), surface geometry, and all mathematics applied to these topics. He developed a number of new MR-reconstruction techniques for parallel MRI and motion correction using numerical linear algebra and functional analysis. For further information on Philip’s life and work please refer to his page on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Batchelor. A memorial event to celebrate Philip’s life and contributions was held at King’s College London in mid-September. TONNY SPRINGER Published online 1 March 2012 Professor Tonny Albert Springer, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 15 June 1967, died on 7 December 2011, aged 85. Jan Stegeman, Gerrit van Dijk and Eric Opdam write: Tonny Springer was born in The Hague on 13 February 1926. After he finished high school in 1942 he had to wait until after the war before he could start his university studies in Leiden. He obtained his PhD on 17 October 1951 with a dissertation on symplectic transformations, under the guidance of his promotor H.D. Kloosterman. After that he spent one year at the Université de Nancy. After a few more years in Leiden he was appointed Lector at the University of Utrecht in 1955. Two years later he became professor, which he remained for the rest of his career. He retired in 1991, but remained mathematically active for over twenty years afterwards. Springer will be remembered as the person who has shown that mathematics is a dynamical science. Inspired by his great example Kloosterman he brought his students and members of staff in contact with the latest developments in mathematics. He lectured on a wide range of subjects and arranged a great many seminars. Here the emphasis was on algebra, number theory and geometry, but primarily on the interaction between these subjects. In this way the Utrecht Mathematical Institute became a prominent centre of activities. Through his international network many visitors came to Utrecht and many members of staff and PhD students got the opportunity to visit prestigious centres of mathematics in other countries. One might say that for PhD students that time was a Walhalla. Until very late in life Springer remained active in research. Age should not play a role, so he used to say. His work in the area of algebraic groups, partly in collaboration with Armand Borel, is internationally famous. Furthermore, he was intensively working in the area of Hecke algebras and reflexion groups. Notions such as Springer representation and Springer resolution bear his name. He also used to emphasize the importance of studying the history of mathematics. Tonny Springer is survived by his wife Tijnie, one daughter and four grandchildren. JOHN DERRICK Published online 31 January 2012 John Derrick, former Lecturer in the Department of Pure Mathematics at the University of Leeds, died on 8 December 2011. John was born in Paris in 1935, left for England at the outbreak of war with his family on ’the last boat out of Biarritz’, and later attended Caterham School in Surrey as a boarder. He read Mathematics at University College London, and, after graduating in 1956, completed teacher-training at the London University Institute of Education. He taught at Ottershaw School, where he was given responsibility for the whole of mathematics teaching in the Sixth Form. At the beginning of 1963, John took up a lectureship at Leeds. He was a lively member of the growing group of mathematical logicians led by M.H. Löb. His interest in Set Theory led him into fruitful collaboration with colleagues in mathematics and in philosophy. Later, his interests focused on computer-assisted proof, and he became Deputy Director of the Leeds Centre for Theoretical Computer Science in 1992. John was a dedicated teacher, spending much time with students. John was involved in a wide range of extra-mural activities, serving as President of the Yorkshire Branch of the Mathematical Association 1968–69. He travelled extensively to logic conferences and made many friends, revelling especially in ’adventures’ to Eastern Europe during the 1960s and 1970s. Between October 1970 and March 1972 he was an Associate Professor at the University of Orléans. Following some years of ill-health, John took early retirement in July 1998. He is survived by his wife Margaret, daughter Cathy, son John (now Professor of Computer Science in Sheffield), and three grandchildren. Garth Dales ALEXANDER LOSKUTOV Published online 31 January 2012 Professor Alexander Yu. Loskutov died on 5 November 2011, aged 52. All his life Alexander Loskutov was closely related to the Moscow (M.V. Lomonosov) State University. He graduated from the Department of Physics in 1982 and received a PhD in the area of Nonlinear Dynamics in 1987. He became a Lecturer in 1987, then an Associate Professor, and finally was promoted to a full professorship in 1998. Since 2000 he was the leader of the Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos Group at the Department of Physics of Moscow State University. The results on Nonlinear Dynamics developed in his group found applications in medicine, biology, economics and astrophysics. In recognition of his research achievements, Alexander was awarded the prestigious Shuvalov medal for outstanding results in Mathematical Physics. He was among the first recipients of this award. Alexander worked hard to make modern science more accessible to a wider audience. His reviews and books were clearly written and manifested a wide spectrum of the latest topics in Nonlinear Dynamics. His monograph Foundations of Synergetics II (co-authored with Professor A.S. Mikhailov) became a handbook for many researchers. Alexander always liked new challenging topics and encouraged his students to approach difficult problems. During the last 15 years Alexander supervised more than 40 diploma projects and 13 PhD students. Many of his former students continued their research at universities and research centers all around the world. Supervising students, Alexander was always happy to share his ideas and to stimulate their independent research. He always helped them with their further scientific career. Beyond science, Alexander had many interests: music, photography, sport, travelling and ancient history – in each of these subjects he tried to reach the level of an expert, which made him a very bright and attractive person. We will keep fond memories of Alexander Yu. Loskutov in our hearts. Alexey Ryabov ELEANOR JAMES Published online 9 January 2012 Dr Eleanor Mary James, who was elected a member of the LMS on 21 May 1976, died on 15 June 2011, aged 75. Alun Morris writes: Eleanor James was one of those people that any university department would feel fortunate to have on its staff. A wonderful colleague who was dedicated to the well being of her students. Eleanor was an Aberystwythian through and through. She was born in the town, went to the local grammar school, proceeded to UCW Aberystwyth (now Aberystwyth University) where she graduated with a double first in Pure Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. After a year as a temporary assistant lecturer in Pure Mathematics, in 1959 she became an assistant lecturer in the Pure and Applied departments and promoted to lecturer in 1962. In 1966, with T.V. Davies, she wrote the well-regarded book Nonlinear Differential Equations and later completed her PhD under his supervision. As she held a position in both departments, she did more than her share of the service courses in Mathematics and also of administrative duties – these were performed with charm and great efficiency. She was heavily involved in the Women’s Institute taking a leading role both locally and nationally. This led to her appointment as Welsh representative on the Committee of Inquiry into Local Government Finance which led to the 1976 Layfield Report. She was pivotal in the work of the Aberystwyth OSA having completed over 25 years as its Treasurer. In the early nineties she took early retirement. Although she had been indisposed for some years, her death in June was unexpected. SARAH SHEPHERD Published online 4 November 2011 It is with enormous regret that we report the death of Sarah Shepherd, aged 26, on 14 September 2011. Following a 4-year mathematics degree at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, Sarah began research for a PhD in mathematical medicine at the University of Nottingham. She once told me that before her degree she would visit her local library and, in the absence of a mathematics magazine aimed at sixth-formers, would look through back copies of New Scientist for articles about mathematics. When she began her PhD, realising the ’mathematics magazine’ she had been longing for still didn’t exist, she decided to set it up. Sarah published twelve issues of iSquared Magazine between autumn 2007 and summer 2010. iSquared contained feature articles, historical biographies, interviews, news, book reviews and puzzles. Dozens of people wrote articles for iSquared and Sarah commissioned, wrote, edited, designed and did everything else that gets a magazine into the hands of readers. The philosophy behind iSquared was to show mathematics not as a static, abstract body of knowledge but as an active, vibrant subject applied to the real world. The magazine realised Sarah’s passion for communicating this to those who are unaware of the nature of mathematics. In her first editorial she wrote, Many people are unaware that maths is more than just abstract concepts, inaccessible to all but those with a university education in the subject. In fact, mathematics can be appreciated by everyone. The past few decades have seen maths being used in numerous innovative real-world situations; notably in the areas of biology and medicine, where new insights are emerging from the use of mathematical modelling. Sarah’s research with Helen Byrne and Nick Monk, ’Stem cell differentiation in response to cell signalling mechanisms’, was developing mathematical models to look at the role of delta-notch signalling in neurogenesis. She wrote about her research area in the final issue of iSquared, calling this "a rapidly expanding area that carries great promise for the future of biology." Sarah was interested in the place of women in mathematics and devoted a special issue of iSquared to this topic, writing of the gender imbalance in our subject and saying she hoped the issue would "prove inspirational for young women looking to start their own mathematical careers." Sarah was an active and well-respected member of the mathematics community who made a substantial contribution to the promotion of mathematics. She will be remembered for her passion and commitment to mathematics and her achievement in communicating this to others through iSquared Magazine. Peter Rowlett (Sarah’s family have asked for donations in Sarah’s memory to the Rethink charity via http://www.rethink.org/get_involved/donate_now/celebrating_lives_donate_in_memory/sarahs_fund.html.) NORRIE EVERITT Published online 5 August 2011 Professor William Norrie Everitt, FRSE, who was elected a member of the LMS on 19 December 1957, died on 17 July 2011, aged 87. Desmond Evans, Tomas Johansson and Lance Littlejohn write: Norrie Everitt will be remembered as a leading British mathematical analyst who contributed extensively to differential equations, linear operators, spectral theory, inequalities and special functions. Norrie was born on 10 June 1924 in Birmingham. In 1944, he graduated with first class honours in electrical engineering from the University of Birmingham. While serving in the UK armed forces, he suffered a fractured spine in 1947; after being told he might never walk again, he climbed the Matterhorn at age 25. He entered Oxford (Balliol College) in 1949 to study mathematics and, in 1955, he received his DPhil under the supervision of E.C. Titchmarsh. Norrie was an eminent authority on the spectral theory of differential equations. He generalized the Hardy, Littlewood, Polya inequality to yield the HELP inequality (E for Everitt), which is intimately connected with spectral theory. Norrie helped set up the SLEIGN2 program, a computer code to calculate eigenvalues of Sturm–Liouville problems. He also edited the translation of Naimark's Linear Differential Operators, a book that has had a profound influence on western mathematical analysis. These are only glimpses of his manifold contribution. Norrie began his mathematical career at the Royal Military College of Science in Shrivenham (1954–1963). From 1963 to 1982, he was the Baxter Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Dundee, serving twice as Head of the Department (1963–67, 1977–80). It was during the Dundee years that he demonstrated his organizational skills in running the Dundee Conferences on Differential Equations. In 1982, Norrie returned home as Mason Chair and Head of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Birmingham. He remained Head until his retirement in 1989 and stayed as an honorary Senior Research Fellow until September 2009. Norrie was an excellent mentor during his career; he supervised 13 PhD students and guided many young mathematicians throughout the world. Norrie served on the LMS Council from 1957 to 1962, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1966), served as President of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society (1970), and as Vice President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh from 1970 to 1973. In 1978, he was part of the UK delegation to the International Mathematical Union in Helsinki. He made several trips to countries behind the Iron Curtain to ensure that the flow of mathematical ideas continued between the East and West. Norrie is survived by his wife, Kit, two sons Charles (Father Gabriel, OSB) and Timothy, and two granddaughters, Sophie and Lucy. Norrie was a dear friend who will be greatly missed by all who knew him. DANIEL QUILLEN Published online 6 June 2011 Daniel Quillen died on 30 April 2011, at the age of 70. He was born in New Jersey, was an undergraduate at Harvard, and then a graduate student of Raoul Bott there. Immediately after finishing his thesis, on partial differential equations, he obtained a position at MIT, where he remained until he moved to Oxford as Waynete professor from 1984 to 2006. He was among the most creative and influential mathematicians of his time, and was at home in many different areas of the subject. While still in his twenties he had the idea of axiomatizing a very general notion of homotopy which can be applied in the most diverse categories. Little noticed at the time, this has proved ever more important, and is now the basis of a whole area of algebraic geometry. In an amazing burst of activity around 1970 he not only created algebraic K-theory in the form we now use, and proved Serre’s conjecture that projective modules over a polynomial ring are free, but also (simultaneously with Sullivan) proved the Adams conjecture about the stable homotopy groups of spheres, and discovered the link between formal group laws and cobordism theory which dominates the field of stable homotopy to this day. At the same time he introduced a completely new perspective on the cohomology of finite groups, and, again simultaneously with Sullivan, was a pioneer of rational homotopy theory. Not long after that he turned to quite different kinds of mathematics and introduced the Quillen metric on the determinant line of an elliptic operator, and the notion of a super-connection in differential geometry, which has become a basic tool in index theory and quantum field theory. Later still his interests became focused on cyclic homology, and he made notable contributions in that field too. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1978. He leaves his wife Jean, whom he married when they were both students at Harvard, their six children, and many grandchildren. Graeme
Segal MICHAEL ZEDEK Published online 6 June 2011 Professor Michael Zedek, who was elected a reciprocity member of the London Mathematical Society on 16 March 1972, died on 14 December 2010, aged 84. FRANK BONSALL Published online 5 May 2011 Professor Frank Bonsall, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society in 1952, died on 22 February 2011, aged 90. Alastair Gillespie writes: Frank went up to Oxford in 1938 but his university career was interrupted by war service from 1940 to 1946. He then returned to Oxford to complete his final year. Rather than staying on as a graduate student, he accepted a one-year temporary lectureship at the University of Edinburgh. The following year, he moved to a lectureship at Newcastle where, encouraged by W.W. Rogosinski, he made a start in research, being attracted to functional analysis from the outset. He was appointed to the Chair at Newcastle in 1959 when Rogosinski retired, but moved back to the University of Edinburgh in 1965 to the newly created McLaurin Chair. He built up active groups in functional analysis at both Newcastle and Edinburgh, supervising numerous graduate students and doing much to strengthen the position of the subject across the UK. He also played a key role in founding the North British Functional Analysis Seminar. Frank was elected to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1966 and to the Royal Society in 1970. He served twice both on the Council of the London Mathematical Society and on its Editorial Board, and was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize in 1966. He was also President of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 1976–77. Beyond mathematics, Frank had a great interest in mountain climbing, ascending his 280th Munro in 1977. The Munros are the Scottish mountains of height at least 3,000 feet and Frank contributed to the debate as to which mountains qualify as Munros (when do two close tops count as separate Munros?) in two articles in the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal. He retired in 1984 and moved to Harrogate but maintained an active interest in mathematics. His last paper appeared in 2000, just two years before he and his wife Jill moved into a retirement home. He is survived by his wife. IAN R. PORTEOUS Published online 5 April 2011 Ian Porteous, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 17 December 1959, died on 30 January 2011, aged 80. Peter Giblin writes: Ian is remembered not only for his academic work but, especially in recent years, for the unflagging commitment he brought to the enrichment of school mathematics through such initiatives as the FunMaths Roadshow (www.funmathsroadshow.com). Following a PhD in algebraic geometry (Chern classes) with Michael Atiyah at Cambridge, Ian moved to Liverpool University in 1959. Apart from a year 1961–2 at Columbia University, where he was greatly influenced by the teaching and seminar activity of Serge Lang, Ian spent his whole career at Liverpool, as lecturer and from 1972 as senior lecturer, retiring in 1998. His research interests moved from algebraic geometry through Thom polynomials to the newly flourishing area of singularity theory, particularly exploiting the wonderful new ideas of René Thom in applying singularities of functions and mappings to understanding in exquisite detail the geometry of smooth surfaces and higher-dimensional manifolds. The legendary ’Liverpool Symposium’ on Singularity Theory of 1969–70 was a springboard for his as well as other mathematical careers. Ian published many of his ideas in this area in the book Geometric Differentiation: for the intelligence of curves and surfaces (1994 and 2001), and as recently as 2007 (aged 78) he was on the jury of a French PhD thesis on computational geometry and the extraction of ridge curves from real-world data. Ian also published a standard work (1995) on Clifford Algebras and, earlier, wrote up the fruits of his year at Columbia in Topological Geometry (1969). He was an accomplished translator of books and articles from the Russian. Ian’s work with schools started in earnest during his time as a Liverpool City Councillor in the 1970s. He and James Taylor established Mathematical Education on Merseyside (MEM), running Challenge competitions sponsored by local industry and commerce, and, from 1991, Masterclasses on the Royal Institution pattern. MEM became a charity in 1986 and still flourishes. Ian was its President from 1983 until his death. The FunMaths Roadshow started as a celebration of the centenary of the Liverpool Mathematical Society in 1999, when a grant from Girobank enabled the production of the first ’boxes’ of activities. Today the Roadshow has 350 activities divided into 14 boxes spanning the whole school range and is available in English, French, Portuguese, Welsh, Gaelic and Mandarin. It has attracted substantial funding from EPSRC and is supported by an Outreach Team largely recruited and inspired by Ian’s enthusiasm and commitment. He continued to visit schools until very recently. Ian died the day after giving a presentation to keen youngsters at the Liverpool University Maths Club, which he helped to found in 1999. ALAN JEFFREY Published online 5 April 2011 Professor Alan Jeffrey, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 12 October 1979, died on 6 June 2010, aged 80. Robert Gilbert writes: Alan, who received his PhD and DSc degrees in mathematics from the University of London, was the first holder of the Chair of Engineering Mathematics at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to which he was appointed in 1965. He had begun his research career in industry, with the General Electric Company, and then with Rolls Royce, where he became their senior research mathematician. During this period he became involved with research into control theory, electromagnetic theory, neutron transport theory, gas dynamics, magnetohydrodynamics and partial differential equations. He co-authored with Tosiya Taniuti in 1964 one of the first books devoted to nonlinear wave propagation. Shortly after joining the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he became one of the organizers of the North British Differential Equations Year. To enable the interest generated during this year to be sustained, he joined with a member from each participating university to found the North British Differential Equations Seminar. He lectured extensively throughout Europe, North America, China, Japan and the USSR. In 1967 he was elected to Fellowship of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, and in 1972 to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1975 he became the founding editor of the Pitman Advanced Publishing Program. As a result the Research Note Series and the companion Monographs and Surveys Series came into being. His involvement with mathematical research also extended to the editorship of research journals. His last book Matrix Operations for Engineers and Scientists was finished just before his death and was published in late 2010. Alan Jeffrey was a devoted family man, with a keen interest in his two granddaughters. He lost his wife of 53 years, Lisl, in 2005. KAORU WAKANA Published online 5 April 2011 Kaoru Wakana, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 17 November 1966, died on 26 June 2010, aged 88. Mineo Wakana writes: Kaoru Wakana was born in Japan in 1921. His parents were poor, and he was brought up by his grandparents. He worked hard at mathematics and entered Tokyo Imperial University. For that reason he did not serve in World War II, in which many of his friends were killed. He became a high-school mathematics teacher. He visited London in September 1969, and met members of the London Mathematical Society. He enjoyed mountain walking in his youth, and loved roses and the camellias: he loved mathematics all his life. ALF VAN DER POORTEN Published online 7 February 2011 Professor Alfred Jacobus (Alf) van der Poorten who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 15 May 1975, died on 9 October 2010, aged 68. David Hunt writes: Alf was born in Holland in 1942 and after many difficulties his family migrated to Sydney in 1951. Alf shone academically at both Sydney Boys High School and then as a mathematics cadet at the University of New South Wales. He obtained four different degrees from the university but was always destined to become an academic mathematician. Alf's research was in diverse aspects of number theory. His doctoral supervisor was Kurt Mahler, under whom he wrote a thesis Simultaneous algebraic approximations to functions, but in his early years he also came under the influence of George Szekeres. Alf collected a large network of research colleagues. He published about 180 papers with some fifty collaborators. Many of his publications were in some sense expository. Of particular note was his book Notes on Fermat's Last Theorem. In 1979 Alf was appointed to a full professorship in Mathematics at Macquarie University, which is also in Sydney. He remained in this position until his retirement in 2002. During this period he became heavily involved in the senior management of the University both as Head of School and as President of the Academic Senate. His contributions to mathematics in Australia were manifold including chairing a working party which reported to the Australian Research Council on mathematics research in Australia and two years as President of the Australian Mathematical Society. In recognition of his services to mathematics in Australia, Alf was awarded the inaugural George Szekeres Medal of the Australian Mathematical Society in 2002. He was also appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, AM, in 2004. Alf was an inveterate traveller, especially to MSRI and to Bordeaux, where he was awarded Docteur Honoris Causa in 1998. But above all else he was dedicated to his family. Alf is survived by his mother, his wife Joy, children David and Kate, and four grandchildren. GAVIN BROWN Published online 31 January 2011 Professor Gavin Brown, who was a member of the London Mathematical Society from 15 May 1969 to 31 October 1997, died on 25 December 2010, aged 68. Tom Körner writes: Gavin Brown had a double career in mathematics and in academic administration and reached high distinction in both roles. He came from Lundin Links, a small village on the East coast of Scotland, and never lost his Scottish accent, his Scottish charm or his Scottish toughness. His father was a brick layer, but scholarships enabled him to study and shine first at school and then at St Andrews. His early research at Newcastle was in functional analysis, but he was rapidly led to measure algebras and thence to harmonic analysis, much of his work being done in collaboration. Some of his most beautiful results lie on the boundary between number theory and Fourier analysis. He moved from a lectureship at Liverpool to a professorship at the University of New South Wales. He gradually became involved in administration taking on the position of Dean of the Faculty of Science at UNSW, then Vice Chancellor of the University of Adelaide and finally Vice Chancellor of the University of Sydney (the senior university of Australia). After retirement he was appointed the Inaugural Director of the Royal Institution of Australia. He steered his universities safely through very stormy seas aided by his good humour and good sense. It is a sign of how well organised he was that he continued to produce interesting research throughout his career (including over 30 papers whilst at Sydney). Mathematics has lost a distinguished practitioner and a great advocate. He is survived by his wife, son and daughter. PETER J. HILTON Published online 31 January 2011 Professor Peter Hilton, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 27 November 1947, died on 6 November 2010, aged 87. Peter was born in London and educated at Oxford University. During World War II, at age 18, he was recruited from Oxford, because of his mathematical ability and knowledge of German, to work at Bletchley Park, the secret British facility dedicated to breaking German codes. This project was led by Alan Turing, the celebrated mathematician and founder of computer science, with whom the young Peter Hilton worked closely. Initially, Peter worked on breaking the Enigma code, and, later, on the more refined Fish code. Once the British Official Secrets Act was lifted in the 1980s, his lectures about the years at Bletchley Park were highly popular at venues all over the world. After the War Peter obtained his doctorate from Oxford. He then went on to hold academic positions at Cambridge and Manchester Universities, and a Chair at the University of Birmingham. In 1962 he moved to the United States where he was Professor of Mathematics, first at Cornell, then at the University of Washington and the Battelle Institute. He held the Louis D. Beaumont Chair at Case Western Reserve University for a number of years, ending in 1982 when he became Distinguished Professor at Binghamton University, retiring in 1995. Peter Hilton was one of the most influential mathematicians of his generation. He made major contributions to algebraic topology and homological algebra. His influence on these subjects has been profound. In his later years he was also a significant figure in Mathematics Education, especially in Europe. He published hundreds of research articles and many books on mathematics and mathematics education, and he lectured at conferences into his mid-eighties. His latest book was reviewed in the December Newsletter. He is survived by his wife Margaret, two sons, two grandsons and one great granddaughter. Krzysztof Pawalowski A version of this obituary originally appeared in the Group Action Forum Newsletter. NIGEL KALTON Published online 10 January 2011 Professor Nigel Kalton died on 5 September 2010 , aged 64. Nigel graduated from Cambridge University and completed his doctorate in 1970 under the supervision of Ben Garling. After a year in Warwick, he moved to University College of Swansea before leaving in 1979 for the University of Missouri in Columbia, USA. Nigel was an outstanding and highly influential mathematician. He wrote over 270 papers and six books on diverse topics both within Functional Analysis and in related areas of analysis. He was a renowned problem solver and was even known to have solved one problem of some twenty years standing during a lecture where it was being discussed! In 2005, he was awarded the prestigious Banach Medal from the Polish Academy of Sciences for the most significant contributions to Banach space theory. In Missouri, Nigel won the Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Research in 1984 and the Weldon Spring Presidential Award for outstanding research in 1987. Nigel loved to travel and was a much sought-after speaker at conferences. He visited many mathematics departments throughout the world for extended stays when on study leave, his influence and enthusiasm inspiring countless mathematicians. He was also a popular teacher with his students, both undergraduate and graduate, being approachable and generous with his time. Beyond mathematics, Nigel had many interests. He was a talented chess player, winning the Major Open at the British Championship in 1970, though giving up competitive play in 1976. He was also a racquetball enthusiast. Above all, he was a family man, never happier than when playing with his children and grandchildren. He is survived by his wife Jennifer, children Neil and Helen, and four grandchildren. Geoff Wood, University of Swansea ALLAN MUIR Published online 10 January 2011 Dr Allan Muir, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 16 May 1986, died on 17 October 2010, aged 74. Martin Zarrop writes: Allan’s slightly late choice of mathematics as his main preoccupation in life took him from the National Physics Laboratory to University College London at the age of 19 and then to a mathematics lectureship at Leicester University. In 1963 he moved to a lecturing post in newly liberated Ghana, later returning to lecture in the Department of Mathematics at City University London where he spent the remainder of his career. Allan’s mathematical interests were always wide ranging and included logic, lattice-valued relations, automata, non-commutative algebra, quantum electrodynamics, economic game theory and systems biology. In his research he worked for many years with his departmental colleague Mary Wynne Warner as well as Denis Glycopantis, Head of Economics at City University, and Olaf Wolkenhauer, Professor of Systems Biology at Rostock University in Germany. These collaborations resulted in many pleasurable hours of mathematical and philosophical discussion as well as a number of joint research papers and articles. His enthusiasm for mathematics and philosophy never waned and in the last decade of his life he also invested much time and energy in the British Humanist Association, particularly in the Chester group close to his home in North Wales. Allan is survived by his sons, Andrew and David, and his partner Anantamani. BENOÎT MANDELBROT Published online 2 December 2010 Benoît Mandelbrot, the father of fractals, died on 14 October 2010 aged 85. He was a visionary mathematician, with the distinction of having a feature of mathematics that has become part of everyday life named after him – the Mandelbrot set. Mandelbrot worked in industry with IBM for over 30 years before retiring and taking a teaching position at Yale University. Mandelbrot put together his famous book The fractal geometry of nature in the early 1980s, which brought the idea of fractional dimensions to a wide audience and illustrated these fractals with spectacular graphics. For more detailed obituaries visit the websites of The Guardian (http://tinyurl.com/25kyqwj), The Daily Telegraph (http://tinyurl.com/2angbtu) and the BBC (http://tinyurl.com/369blmy). PHILIP CHATWIN Published online 2 December 2010 Professor Philip Chatwin, who was a member of the London Mathematical Society from 2000 to 2008, died on 10 September 2010, aged 68. Nils Mole writes: Philip made seminal contributions to research into environmental fluid mechanics. He will be particularly remembered for his extensions to the theory of longitudinal dispersion (originally due to G.I. Taylor), and for advances to the basic understanding of turbulent diffusion. In his research he made extensive use of probabilistic and statistical methods, and was particularly keen on fostering closer links between the fields of applied mathematics and statistics. He also placed great importance on the education of future mathematicians, and for many years was involved in the marking and setting of A-level papers. Philip graduated from Trinity Hall, Cambridge with a degree in Mathematics, and then took Part III of the Mathematical Tripos. In 1967 he completed his PhD under the supervision of George Batchelor at Cambridge. Following a research fellowship at the University of Grenoble, he was Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Liverpool (1968–85). Thereafter he became Professor of Mathematics at Brunel University (1985–90) and Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Sheffield (1991–2003), in both of which institutions he served as Head of Department. After retirement he continued to teach fluid mechanics at Sheffield. Philip will be remembered by all who knew him for his outspoken enthusiasm. He is survived by his wife Luisella and daughters Diana and Simona. THOMAS KÖVÁRI Published online 2 December 2010 Dr Thomas (Tamás) Kövári, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 20 February 1958, died on 12 September 2010, aged 80. W.K. Hayman writes: Tamás was a rising star in the superheated world of Hungarian Mathematics and Science, winning national contests, Olympiads and accolades. He was in many ways happy in his beloved Budapest and the intellectual excitement he felt among the lifelong friends and colleagues he bonded with. However, he and his wife Judit left for England in 1957, where he spent the rest of his working life as lecturer and later Reader at Imperial College until his retirement in 1995. Thomas’s work was mainly in Complex Analysis. He made significant contributions to the growth of entire functions with gappy power series, extending to functions of infinite order results previously known only for finite order. He also worked on the distribution of Fekete points, which are n points on a continuum, the product of whose mutual distances is maximal. He was an excellent and popular lecturer, but not always patient with the less bright students. However, he was the life and soul of our seminars and always produced pertinent and interesting comments and questions. He loved to travel in Israel, Turkey, Europe and North America but particularly back to his beloved Budapest, where he was a charming and thoughtful host. He loved classical music and films and built a library of 5,000 books in his house in Wimbledon. He was keen on sweets and would often have two desserts instead of a main course. He was also a member of a chocolate tasting club. Thomas was a devoted and kind father, decent and honest to a fault. Even in his last and difficult year he showed surprising flashes of empathy. He is survived by his children, Michael and Esther, to whose eulogy at his funeral this memoir is greatly indebted, and four grandchildren. PATRICK MARTINEAU Published online 2 December 2010 Dr R.P. Martineau, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 17 November 1966, died on 6 September 2010, aged 66. Brian Stewart writes: Patrick’s mathematical talent was nurtured at home (his father a wrangler as well as a bishop) and at school (Liverpool Institute). Elected a Scholar at Wadham College in 1962, he remained as Mathematics Fellow from 1968 until retirement. After finals Patrick joined Higman’s research group, writing a thesis under the supervision of Martin Powell, giving "odd characterisations" of the Janko group and of the Suzuki groups. This developed later into studies of the representations of the Suzuki groups, the splitting of group representations, and how groups of automorphisms affect the structure of a group. Patrick’s writing was clear and austere, at the right level of abstraction. (One reviewer notes that "the ideas used are so clear and simple that this paper could be read with benefit before the many other papers on this subject".) In his lecturing and teaching Patrick adopted the same clear style. But he brought also a real concern that all his students should make the transition to real mathematics, while tolerating no nonsense when he suspected that someone was in danger of squandering their talents. Wadham chose Patrick as the University’s Junior Proctor for 1975–76. His colleagues then elected him Estates Bursar in 1977; from then on he devoted his time and energy to strengthening the finances of the college. The wider university also benefitted, especially during his tenure of the secretaryship and then the chairmanship of the Estates Bursars Committee. Although inclined to play his cards close to his chest, fledgling bursars were assisted by frank (but unattributable) advice. Patrick’s last few years were dominated by the illness that had led to his retirement in 2004. But occasionally the old Patrick sparked into life: during a chance meeting last year on my way to lecture I was given a two minute tutorial on how to treat the adjoint "so that those in the Last Chance Saloon will understand you, Brian". Patrick is survived by his wife Sylvia, and their twin children Karen and David. INCLUDED IN THE OCTOBER 2010 NEWSLETTER: IAIN ADAMSON Published online 14 September 2010 Dr Iain T. Adamson, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 19 December 1957, died on 9 June 2010, aged 81. Arthur Sands writes: Iain graduated from St Andrews University in 1950 and then went to Princeton University where he obtained his doctorate with Emil Artin as supervisor. In 1953 he joined the Mathematics Department at Queen's University, Belfast. After seven years he returned to his home town of Dundee to take up a lectureship at Queen's College which was soon to become the University of Dundee. He remained there as lecturer and senior lecturer until his retirement, apart from visits to the University of Western Australia where he met Robin who was to become his wife. Iain wrote three textbooks on algebra at honours/postgraduate level as well as translated books by Artin and by Hilbert. His main interests were in teaching but he also played a prominent role on Senate and on Court. He taught linear algebra successfully using the Keller Plan and was disappointed when the department did not take this further. When staff were needed to teach Computing he switched mainly to this, but did so properly by taking an MSc by thesis at St Andrews. Then he wrote a textbook in this area. He also ran the departmental library, which contained more than 10,000 books as well as periodicals. During 1983–84 he was President of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society. When calls for early retirement were made he accepted this, but returned to teach part-time as well as continued to run the library. Undoubtedly he gave much more than the 35% which was required in his contract. He also trained as an auxiliary Church of Scotland minister. Upon ordination he helped a full-time minister who had charge of four churches in the Carse of Gowrie, taking two services each Sunday. After final retirement he returned with Robin to Western Australia. He is survived by her and by their daughter Margaret. GRAHAM EVEREST Published online 14 September 2010 Professor Graham R. Everest, who was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society on 18 November 1983, died on 30 July 2010, aged 52. Thomas Ward writes: Graham’s talent for mathematics took him to Bedford College and doctoral study under the supervision of Colin Bushnell at King’s College London. He joined the University of East Anglia as a lecturer in 1983, and spent his whole career there. His research appeared in the form of some 70 research papers and three monographs, and spanned diverse areas of number theory. Three themes informed his research. First, the impact of twentieth-century developments in Diophantine analysis and transcendence theory on counting problems and questions in algebraic number theory. Second, the fascinating arithmetic properties of recurrence sequences, including classical questions in the spirit of Mersenne, Lehmer, Zsigmondy and so on, as well as more modern developments on bilinear sequences and elliptic divisibility sequences. Third, Graham had an abiding interest in all aspects of the interaction between number theory and dynamical systems. As a researcher Graham brought great joy and creativity to his work, and the generosity of his approach to mathematics will be familiar to his thirty co-authors. Graham was a dedicated teacher and supervisor, and many generations of students will remember the energy and enthusiasm of his lectures. His belief in the transforming power of higher education was recognized in the form of a UEA Excellence in Teaching award in 2005. Graham is survived by his children James, Philip and Rebekah, and his wife Sue. A memorial fund has been started in the School of Mathematics, the details of which are on the School's website at www.uea.ac.uk/mth/frontpage/grahameverest
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