Preferred citation: St John's College Library, Papers of Frank Smithies
Having studied at Edinburgh University, Smithies came to St John's College, Cambridge in 1931. He took his BA in 1933 and was awarded a PhD in 1937. After a period of study at Princeton, Smithies was elected to a Reserch Fellowship at St John's. During the Second World War he worked in the Ministry of Supply. He returned to Cambridge in 1945 to become a teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics. From 1962 until his retirement in 1979, he was Reader in Functional Analysis. In his retirement Smithies pursued his interest in the history of mathematics, in particular the work of Augustin Cauchy.
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Correspondence, papers, lecture notes, diaries, and photographs.
Bequeathed to the Library by Smithies.
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Arranged alphabetically.
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Correspondence with various mathematicians, arranged alphabetically.
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With some photocopied material.
University of Newcastle.
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University of St Andrews.
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Includes some typescript and photocopied papers.
University of Essex.
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Includes some press cuttings.
BA 1934.
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University of Otago; University of Texas.
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Northwestern University.
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University of Nottingham.
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With some printed items.
University of Sydney.
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Queen's University Belfast.
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Peterhouse, Cambridge.
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University of Sheffield; University of Western Ontario; University of Iowa.
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Girton College, Cambridge.
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With some printed material.
Szechuan University.
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Includes correspondence with Mrs Chang Ching-Yun and Gia Wood, and some photographs.
University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire.
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Includes correspondence with Cooper's wife, Kathleen.
University of Sheffield.
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Australian National University.
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Includes correspondence with Edwards' wife, Jo.
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Middlesex University.
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Indiana University.
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University of Toronto.
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Trinity College, Cambridge.
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Includes some printed material.
University of Manchester; University of Birmingham.
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Includes correspondence with Margaret Hilton.
Dalian University of Technology, China.
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Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.
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Harold Jeffreys was born on 22 April 1891 at Fatfield, a colliery village in County Durham where his father was headmaster of the village school. He received his school education at Fatfield and Rutherford College, Newcastle, proceeding in 1907 to Armstrong College, Newcastle, the forerunner of Newcastle University but then part of Durham University. Here he took courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry and geology, graduating in June 1910 with first class marks and a distinction in mathematics. Encouraged by his mathematics teacher C.M. Jessop he applied for a Cambridge award and in December 1909 he was elected to an entrance scholarship at St John's College as one of four mathematics scholars. Although there were financial difficulties and the problem of adjusting to a standard of mathematics much harder than that of Armstrong College, his performance in the third year of the Mathematical Tripos (1913) was a distinguished one. He was awarded one of the two Hughes Prizes for undergraduates who had done best in the college in any subject, his college scholarship was extended for a fourth year, and he began research.
Jeffreys was elected a fellow of St John's College in November 1914 and remained one for the rest of his life. He held the Isaac Newton Studentship, 1914-1917, worked part-time at the Cavendish Laboratory on war-time problems. 1915-1917, moving to the Meteorological Office in London in 1917 where he first employed his mathematical skills to 'certain difficult questions in gunnery which came to us from the services' and then to 'problems of the atmosphere'. In 1922 he returned to Cambridge as College lecturer in mathematics and was appointed to a university lectureship in 1926. He was Reader in Geophysics in 1931 and Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy in 1946, retiring in 1958.
Jeffreys was one of the small international group of scientists who founded modern geophysics. He applied classical mechanics to investigate the interior of the earth, showing that the core of the Earth was liquid and that there is a substantial difference between the upper and lower mantle. His analyses of travel times of seismic waves with K.E. Bullen became standards of reference. Generations of students learned their geophysics from his book The Earth (first published 1924, sixth edition 1976). Jeffreys was also distinguished as a statistician, developing a theory of probability on Bayesian principles and in a form suitable for use in the physical sciences. His key books in statistics were Scientific Inference (1931) and Theory of Probability (1939). He also made significant contributions early in his career in fluid dynamics and dynamical meteorology and, although primarily an applied mathematician, in pure mathematics. His use and development of mathematical techniques led him to write, jointly with his wife, Bertha Swirles Jeffreys, the treatise Methods of Mathematical Physics (1946), which went through several editions. His first published paper (1910) was on photography and his early interest in natural history is reflected in papers on plant ecology.
Amongst his professional affiliations were the Royal Astronomical Society where he was active in supporting and developing geophysics over many years (President, 1955-1957), the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Committee for Geodesy and Geophyics (chairman of the Seismology SubCommittee), the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (President of the International Association of Seismology 1957-1960) and the International Astronomical Union.
His scientific distinction was recognised by many honours. He was elected FRS in 1925 (Royal Medal 1948, Copley Medal 1960; Bakerian Lecture, 1952); at the time of his death he was Senior Fellow. Others scientific awards included the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society 1937, the Vetlesen Prize of Columbia University 1962 and the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society 1964. He was made a knight bachelor in 1953
He married Bertha Swirles in 1940. She was a student at Girton College, Cambridge where she took a Ph.D in atomic physics under the supervision of R.H. Fowler and D.R. Hartree. After periods at Manchester, Bristol and Imperial College London she returned to Girton in 1938 as Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics. She was Director of Studies in Mathematics, 1949-1969 and Vice-Mistress, 1966-1969. Her great support for Jeffreys, especially in his last decades, is very evident in his archives. Her role in preserving and identifying materials is acknowledged below.
Jeffreys died on 18 March 1989.
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Includes some printed material.
University of Auckland
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Technische Hochschule Darmstadt.
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Includes some correspondence with Sadie Naysmith.
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Includes correspondence with Hanna Neumann.
The Queen's College, Oxford.
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Mathematician. Max Newman was the son of a German, Herman Alexander Neumann, and kept the family name until 1916. In 1915 he entered St John's College, though his studies were interrupted by War work between 1916 and 1919. He graduated in 1921, and became a Fellow of St John's in 1923. From 1927 he was also a University Lecturer in Mathematics.
His mathematical work was in the field of combinatorial topology where he greatly influenced his friend Henry Whitehead. A series of papers by Newman on this topic between 1926 and 1932 revolutionised the field. Newman also wrote an important paper on theoretical computer science, produced a topological counter-example of major significance in collaboration with Henry Whitehead, and wrote an outstanding paper on periodic transformations in abelian topological groups. He only wrote one book, 'Elements of the topology of plane sets of points', published in 1939.
In 1942 Newman joined the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park. Working with Alan Turing, Newman was involved in designing and building electronic machines to break an important German cipher system, culminating in the 'Colossus' which many consider to be the first electronic digital computer.
Between 1945 and 1964 Newman was Fielden Professor of Mathematics at Manchester University. He continued to be involved with mathematics in his retirement, teaching a course at the University of Warwick and undertaking research.
In 1939 Newman was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, receiving the Sylvester medal in 1958. In 1962 he was awarded the de Morgan Medal by the London Mathematical Society and in 1973 was made an Honorary Fellow of St John's College.
Newman married the author Lyn Irvine in 1934, and the couple had two sons. Lyn Newman died in 1973, and later that year Max married Margaret Penrose, widow of the geneticist Prof. Lionel Sharples Penrose.
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Includes some printed items.
University of Sheffield.
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Birkbeck College; London School of Economics.
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Includes correspondence with Dona Papert.
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Includes correspondence with Fenny Smith, Rankin's daughter.
University of Manchester.
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Includes some typescript papers.
University of Manchester; University of Durham.
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University of Newcastle.
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Teacher.
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Includes correspondence with others.
University of Durham
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Includes correspondence with H. Peter Rogosinski.
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
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Writer, educationalist and mathematician, specialising in quantum theory and relativity. Studied at St. John's College, Cambridge (BA 1933). Lecturer and later professor at numerous academic institutions, including Manchester University, Leicester College of Technology, University of Illinois and the University of Toronto. Author of eleven books, including 'Mathematician's Delight' (1943) and 'Prelude to Mathematics' (1955).
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University of Sussex.
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University of California, Santa Barbara.
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University of Delhi.
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University College London.
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Wife of Arthur Harold Stone (1916-2000), topologist.
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McMaster University; University of Waterloo.
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University of California.
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Downing College, Cambridge.
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Matric. 1931. Professor at Caltech.
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Humboldt State University.
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Includes some newspaper cuttings.
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Trinity College Dublin.
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BA 1934; PhD 1938; Fellow 1950-2010; FRS 1956. Professor of Computing Technology 1965-80. Director of the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory, subsequently the Computer Laboratory. Designer of the EDSAC programmable computer, which successfully ran its first significant program on 6 May 1949. Honoured as a pioneer of computing in the UK, Maurice Wilkes was knighted in 2000. He was the first recipient of the Kyoto Prize, computer science's most prestigious award.
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University of York.
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Includes correspondence with others after Womersley's death.
University of California, Berkeley.
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University of Leiden.
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Personal correspondence with Alan and Pat, Doris De Maid, Margaret and Jimmy.
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Personal correspondence with Nora Cimbelmann, Elsa and Carol Chapman, Mercia Strieman, Eileen and Dick Schlessel.
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Personal correspondence with Marianne and Kees Welter, of Makerere University College, Kampala, Uganda.
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Letters written from Edinburgh and St John's College, Cambridge.
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Letters written from Edinburgh and St John's College, Cambridge.
Having studied at Edinburgh University, Smithies came to St John's College, Cambridge in 1931. He took his BA in 1933 and was awarded a PhD in 1937. After a period of study at Princeton, Smithies was elected to a Reserch Fellowship at St John's. During the Second World War he worked in the Ministry of Supply. He returned to Cambridge in 1945 to become a teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics. From 1962 until his retirement in 1979, he was Reader in Functional Analysis. In his retirement Smithies pursued his interest in the history of mathematics, in particular the work of Augustin Cauchy.
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Sent from New York and Princeton.
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Includes some material re Violet's funeral.
Mother of Frank Smithies (1912-2002).
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Includes some letters in Russian and German.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Cuttings, papers, some correspondence.
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Printed material relating to the 1950 and 1954 ICM, and the 1956 Congres International de Mecanique Appliquee.
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Correspondence, notebooks, papers.
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Correspondence, papers, printed items.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Correspondence, typescript list of delegates.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Correspondence.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Correspondence and papers.
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Correspondence and papers.
Having studied at Edinburgh University, Smithies came to St John's College, Cambridge in 1931. He took his BA in 1933 and was awarded a PhD in 1937. After a period of study at Princeton, Smithies was elected to a Reserch Fellowship at St John's. During the Second World War he worked in the Ministry of Supply. He returned to Cambridge in 1945 to become a teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics. From 1962 until his retirement in 1979, he was Reader in Functional Analysis. In his retirement Smithies pursued his interest in the history of mathematics, in particular the work of Augustin Cauchy.
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Includes some correspondence.
Having studied at Edinburgh University, Smithies came to St John's College, Cambridge in 1931. He took his BA in 1933 and was awarded a PhD in 1937. After a period of study at Princeton, Smithies was elected to a Reserch Fellowship at St John's. During the Second World War he worked in the Ministry of Supply. He returned to Cambridge in 1945 to become a teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics. From 1962 until his retirement in 1979, he was Reader in Functional Analysis. In his retirement Smithies pursued his interest in the history of mathematics, in particular the work of Augustin Cauchy.
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On various mathematical subjects.
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Correspondence.
Having studied at Edinburgh University, Smithies came to St John's College, Cambridge in 1931. He took his BA in 1933 and was awarded a PhD in 1937. After a period of study at Princeton, Smithies was elected to a Reserch Fellowship at St John's. During the Second World War he worked in the Ministry of Supply. He returned to Cambridge in 1945 to become a teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics. From 1962 until his retirement in 1979, he was Reader in Functional Analysis. In his retirement Smithies pursued his interest in the history of mathematics, in particular the work of Augustin Cauchy.
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MS lecture notes, 1 printed paper.
Having studied at Edinburgh University, Smithies came to St John's College, Cambridge in 1931. He took his BA in 1933 and was awarded a PhD in 1937. After a period of study at Princeton, Smithies was elected to a Reserch Fellowship at St John's. During the Second World War he worked in the Ministry of Supply. He returned to Cambridge in 1945 to become a teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics. From 1962 until his retirement in 1979, he was Reader in Functional Analysis. In his retirement Smithies pursued his interest in the history of mathematics, in particular the work of Augustin Cauchy.
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On various mathematical and other subjects.
Having studied at Edinburgh University, Smithies came to St John's College, Cambridge in 1931. He took his BA in 1933 and was awarded a PhD in 1937. After a period of study at Princeton, Smithies was elected to a Reserch Fellowship at St John's. During the Second World War he worked in the Ministry of Supply. He returned to Cambridge in 1945 to become a teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics. From 1962 until his retirement in 1979, he was Reader in Functional Analysis. In his retirement Smithies pursued his interest in the history of mathematics, in particular the work of Augustin Cauchy.
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Includes work on James Wood, and other material.
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Correspondence and papers, including some reviews, re Smithies' book 'Cauchy and the creation of complex function theory' (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1997).
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For 'Cauchy and the creation of complex function theory' (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1997).
Manuscript.
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For 'Cauchy and the creation of complex function theory' (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1997).
Manuscript.
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For 'Cauchy and the creation of complex function theory' (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1997).
Manuscript.
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For 'Cauchy and the creation of complex function theory' (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1997).
Manuscript.
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For 'Cauchy and the creation of complex function theory' (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1997).
Manuscript.
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For 'Cauchy and the creation of complex function theory' (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1997).
Manuscript.
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For 'Cauchy and the creation of complex function theory' (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1997).
Manuscript.
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Includes 'References from Cauchy, other earlier papers', 'Secondary literature on Cauchy'.
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MS notes, typescript 'A.L. Cauchy: two memoirs on complex function theory (1814, 1825)'.
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Typescript and printed.
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Manuscript.
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Letters and papers re Smithies' 'A forgotten paper on the fundamental theorem of algebra', re James Wood.
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Papers, talks, and obituaries (MS, typescript and printed).
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With details of speakers.
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MS and typescript notes.
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Contains typescripts 'Integration: projet Weil (resume)', 'Espaces lineaires', 'La tribu', and some MS material.
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Typescript.
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The Institute for Advanced Study, Spring 1936.
Typescript.
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The Institute for Advanced Study.
Typescript.
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The Institute for Advanced Study.
Typescript.
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Princeton University.
Typescript.
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Princeton University.
Typescript.
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, 1936-1937.
Typescript.
Having studied at Edinburgh University, Smithies came to St John's College, Cambridge in 1931. He took his BA in 1933 and was awarded a PhD in 1937. After a period of study at Princeton, Smithies was elected to a Reserch Fellowship at St John's. During the Second World War he worked in the Ministry of Supply. He returned to Cambridge in 1945 to become a teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics. From 1962 until his retirement in 1979, he was Reader in Functional Analysis. In his retirement Smithies pursued his interest in the history of mathematics, in particular the work of Augustin Cauchy.
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A day to day record of Smithies' life.
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Very few of the photographs are identified or dated.
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Photos of Smithies, family and friends. None identified or dated.
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Photos of Smithies, family and friends. Some photos of St John's College, Cambridge, and other locations. None identified or dated.
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Photos of Smithies, family and friends. Very few identified or dated. Includes photo of Edinburgh Mathematical Society St Andrews Colloquium 1996.
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Photos of Smithies, family and friends. None identified or dated.
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Photos of Smithies, family and friends. Very few identified or dated. Includes photos of Edinburgh Mathematical Society St Andrews Colloquium July 1976 and 1980.
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Photos of Smithies, family and friends. None identified or dated. Includes photo of Edinburgh Mathematical Society St Andrews Colloquium 1992.
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Photos of Smithies, family and friends. None identified or dated. Includes photos of Edinburgh Mathematical Society St Andrews Colloquium 1968 and 1988.
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Photos of Smithies, family and friends. A few identified, none dated.
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Four mounted photos. One labelled 'St Andrews Mathematical Colloquium, July 1938'.
Having studied at Edinburgh University, Smithies came to St John's College, Cambridge in 1931. He took his BA in 1933 and was awarded a PhD in 1937. After a period of study at Princeton, Smithies was elected to a Reserch Fellowship at St John's. During the Second World War he worked in the Ministry of Supply. He returned to Cambridge in 1945 to become a teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics. From 1962 until his retirement in 1979, he was Reader in Functional Analysis. In his retirement Smithies pursued his interest in the history of mathematics, in particular the work of Augustin Cauchy.
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Ph.D. and Fellowship dissertations.
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Dissertation for degree of Ph.D. University of Cambridge. Submitted 1936. F. Smithies, St John's College.
Typescript and manuscript.
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Dissertation submitted to St John's College, Cambridge, January 1937.
Typescript and manuscript.
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Typescripts, offprints and photocopies.
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Typescript script for play.
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Photocopy of MS notes.
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Lecture delivered in Bucharest Nov. 1970, Milan Dec. 1970.
Typescript.
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Lecture delivered in Rome Dec. 1970.
Typescript.
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Writer, educationalist and mathematician, specialising in quantum theory and relativity. Studied at St. John's College, Cambridge (BA 1933). Lecturer and later professor at numerous academic institutions, including Manchester University, Leicester College of Technology, University of Illinois and the University of Toronto. Author of eleven books, including 'Mathematician's Delight' (1943) and 'Prelude to Mathematics' (1955).
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Offprint from 'Mathematische Nachrichten' 9:5 (Mai 1953), 269-280.
Born in Golcar, Yorkshire, in 1913, Evans came to St John's College in 1930 to study for the Natural Sciences Tripos, graduating BA in 1934. The award of his PhD in 1938 was followed by his election to a Fellowship at St John's. During the Second World War, Evans served in the RNVR, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Upon his return to Cambridge, Evans held the posts of Lecturer in Plant Physiology (1945-77), Lecturer in Botany (1949-79), and Reader in Experimental Ecology (1977-79). At St John's he served as Bursar in Charge of College Buildings from 1952 to 1966. He also held the offices of President of the British Ecological Society (1975-6) and Chairman of the British Photobiological Society (1979-81). Evans published a number of works and articles in the field of ecology.
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Offprint from 'The New Phytologist' 61 (Oct. 1962), 322-327.
BA (Trinity) 1948
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Typescript lecture.
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James Cook University of North Queensland.
Typescript.
Peter Anthony Linehan was born on 11 July 1943 in Mortlake, Richmond upon Thames. He was a pupil at St Benedict's School, Ealing, and in 1961 began work on a History undergraduate degree at St John's College, Cambridge, eventually writing a PhD on 'Reform and reaction: the Spanish kingdoms and the Papacy in the thirteenth century'. He became a Fellow of St John's in 1966, and over the next decades spend twenty years as a Tutor, fourteen as Tutor for Graduate Affairs, and eleven as Dean of Discipline (a role in which, disliking the divisive nature of fines, he exercised creativity when administering punishments). Specialising in the history of the medieval Church and of medieval Spain and Portugal, he published around a hundred books and articles on these topics. His first book, *The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century*, caused a minor scandal in Spain for its discovery of chaotic rivalries; its author was labelled 'an enemy of the Church'. Other works included *History and the Historians of Medieval Spain*, *The Ladies of Zamora* and *The Medieval World*. He was a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Historical Society, and in 2018 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Within St John's, he was a member of the Fellows' Book Group and a conductor of College ghost tours, and the editor of *St John's College: A History*, published to coincide with the College's 2011 quincentenary. To the latter he contributed the section on the twentieth century, allegedly to encourage those living members of St John's featured therein to permit him to retain his set of College rooms into retirement. Peter Linehan died in Cambridge on 9 July 2020.
(Sources: College obituary; *Telegraph* obituary.)
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Photocopy from 'Speculum' 57 (1982), 463-494.
BA 1934; PhD 1938; Fellow 1950-2010; FRS 1956. Professor of Computing Technology 1965-80. Director of the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory, subsequently the Computer Laboratory. Designer of the EDSAC programmable computer, which successfully ran its first significant program on 6 May 1949. Honoured as a pioneer of computing in the UK, Maurice Wilkes was knighted in 2000. He was the first recipient of the Kyoto Prize, computer science's most prestigious award.
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Offprint from 'Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London' 53:1 (1999), 3-10.
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Programme for memorial service held at St John's College, Cambridge, Saturday 1 March 2003.