X-Nico

unusual facts about Pure Mathematics



Hicks Building

The building houses the departments of Physics and Astronomy, the Chemistry and Physics Workshop (formally known as the Central Mechanical Workshops) and the School of Mathematics and Statistics, which comprises the departments of Probability and Statistics, Applied Mathematics and Pure Mathematics.


see also

A Disappearing Number

The play includes live tabla playing, which "morphs seductively into pure mathematics", as the Financial Times review put it, "especially when … its rhythms shade into chants of number sequences reminiscent of the libretto to Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach. One can hear the beauty of the sequences without grasping the rules that govern them."

Banach–Tarski paradox

As Stan Wagon points out at the end of his monograph, the Banach–Tarski paradox has been more significant for its role in pure mathematics than for foundational questions: it motivated a fruitful new direction for research, the amenability of groups, which has nothing to do with the foundational questions.

Barry Pennington

In 1961 he was appointed Professor of Pure Mathematics at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, in succession to V.C. Morton, and where he remained until his death, aside from the 1959–60 academic year which he spent at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Central Institute of Technology

Between 1905 and 1914, courses including pure mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology were taught at Perth Technical School on behalf of the University of Adelaide.

Douglas Northcott

He became a Research Fellow of St John's College in 1948, then moved to the Town Trust Chair of Pure Mathematics at Sheffield University in 1952.

Joachim Lambek

Joachim Lambek (born 5 December 1922 in Leipzig) is Peter Redpath Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics at McGill University, where he earned his Ph.D. degree in 1950 with Hans Zassenhaus as advisor.

Michael Lund

Lund was born in March 1965 in Horbury, Yorkshire, and is a graduate of mathematics and applied physics at the then Manchester Polytechnic and holds a masters in pure mathematics from the University of Liverpool.

Minchenden Grammar School

Graham Robert Allan, mathematician and an expert on Banach algebras, Professor of Pure Mathematics from 1970-8 at the University of Leeds

Ostrowski Prize

Alexander Ostrowski, a longtime professor at the University of Basel, left his estate to the foundation in order to establish a prize for outstanding achievements in pure mathematics and the foundations of numerical mathematics.

Philip Palmer Green

He earned his doctorate from Berkeley in mathematics in 1976 with a dissertation on C*-algebra, but, like his colleague Eric Lander, transitioned from pure mathematics into applied work in biology and bioinformatics.

Ralph Henstock

His academic career began as Assistant Lecturer, Bedford College for Women, 1947–48; then Assistant Lecturer at Birkbeck, 1948–51; Lecturer, Queen's University Belfast, 1951–56; Lecturer, Bristol University, 1956–60; Senior Lecturer and Reader, Queen’s University Belfast, 1960–64; Reader, Lancaster University, 1964–70; Chair of Pure Mathematics, New University of Ulster, 1970–88; and Leverhulme Fellow 1988-91.

Sean Hood

Sean Breckenridge Hood graduated from Brown University, with a double major in pure mathematics and studio art, and then spent several years working in Hollywood as a set dresser, prop assistant and art director collaborating with filmmakers as diverse as James Cameron, David Fincher and David Lynch.

Stanborough School, Welwyn Garden City

Prof Roger Heath-Brown, Professor of Pure Mathematics since 1999 at the University of Oxford

Two New Sciences

Part of Two New Sciences was actually groundbreaking pure mathematics, as has been pointed out by the mathematician Alfréd Rényi, who argued that it was the most significant book on mathematics in over 2000 years: Greek mathematics did not deal with motion, and so they never formulated mathematical laws of motion, even though Archimedes developed differentiation and integration.