Ian Stewart (mathematician)
Ian Stewart | |
---|---|
Born | Ian Nicholas Stewart 24 September 1945 [1] England |
Fields | Mathematics |
Institutions | University of Warwick |
Alma mater | <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/> |
Thesis | Subideals of Lie algebras (1969) |
Doctoral advisor | Brian Hartley[2] |
Known for | <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/> |
Notable awards | <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
|
Website www2 |
Ian Nicholas Stewart FRS (born 24 September 1945) is an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, UK, and a widely known popular-science and science-fiction writer.[3]
Contents
Biography
Stewart was born in 1945 in England. While in the sixth form at school he came to the attention of the mathematics teacher. The teacher had Stewart sit mock A-level examinations without any preparation along with the upper-sixth students; Stewart was placed first in the examination. The teacher arranged for Stewart to be admitted to Cambridge on a scholarship to Churchill College, where he obtained a BA in mathematics. Stewart then went to the University of Warwick for his doctorate, on completion of which in 1969 he was offered an academic position at the university, where he presently teaches mathematics. He is well known for his popular expositions of mathematics and his contributions to catastrophe theory.[4]
While at Warwick Stewart edited the mathematical magazine Manifold. He also wrote a column called "Mathematical Recreations" for Scientific American magazine from 1991 to 2001. He wrote a total of 96 columns for Scientific American, some of which were reprinted in the book "How to Cut a Cake: And Other Mathematical Conundrums".
Stewart has held visiting academic positions in Germany (1974), New Zealand (1976), and the US (University of Connecticut 1977–78, University of Houston 1983–84).
Research and publications
Stewart has published more than 140 scientific papers, including a series of influential papers co-authored with Jim Collins on coupled oscillators and the symmetry of animal gaits.[3][5][6][7][8][9][10]
Stewart has collaborated with Dr Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett on four popular science books based on Pratchett's Discworld. In 1999 Terry Pratchett made both Jack Cohen and Professor Ian Stewart "Honorary Wizards of the Unseen University" at the same ceremony at which the University of Warwick gave Terry Pratchett an honorary degree.
In March 2014 Ian Stewart's iPad app, Incredible Numbers by Professor Ian Stewart, launched in the App Store. The app was produced in partnership with Profile Books and Touch Press.[11]
Mathematics and popular science
- Manifold, mathematical magazine published at the University of Warwick (1960's)
- Concepts of Modern Mathematics (1975)
- Oh! Catastrophe (1982, in French)
- Does God Play Dice? The New Mathematics of Chaos (1989)[12]
- Game, Set and Math (1991)
- Fearful Symmetry (1992)
- Another Fine Math You've Got Me Into (1992)
- The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World, with Jack Cohen (1995)
- Nature's Numbers: Unreal Reality of Mathematics (1995)
- What is Mathematics? – originally by Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins, second edition revised by Ian Stewart (1996)
- From Here to Infinity (1996), originally published as The Problems of Mathematics (1987)
- Figments of Reality, with Jack Cohen (1997)
- The Magical Maze: Seeing the World Through Mathematical Eyes (1998) ISBN 0-471-35065-6
- Life's Other Secret (1998)
- What Shape is a Snowflake? (2001)
- Flatterland (2001) ISBN 0-7382-0442-0 (See Flatland)
- The Annotated Flatland (2002)
- Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life, with Jack Cohen (2002). Second edition published as What Does a Martian Look Like? The Science of Extraterrestrial Life.
- Math Hysteria (2004) ISBN 0-19-861336-9
- The Mayor of Uglyville's Dilemma (2005)
- Letters to a Young Mathematician (2006) ISBN 0-465-08231-9
- How to Cut a Cake: And Other Mathematical Conundrums (2006) ISBN 978-0-19-920590-5
- Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry (2007) ISBN 0-465-08236-X
- Taming the infinite: The story of Mathematics from the first numbers to chaos theory (2008) ISBN 978-1847241818
- Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities (2008) ISBN 1-84668-064-6
- Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures: Another Drawer from the Cabinet of Curiosities (2009) ISBN 978-1-84668-292-6
- Cows in the Maze: And Other Mathematical Explorations (2010) ISBN 978-0-19-956207-7
- The Mathematics of Life (2011) ISBN 978-0-465-02238-0
- In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World (2012) ISBN 978-1-84668-531-6
- Symmetry: A Very Short Introduction (2013) ISBN 978-0-19965-198-6
- Visions of Infinity: The Great Mathematical Problems (2013) ISBN 978-0-46502-240-3
- Incredible Numbers by Professor Ian Stewart (iPad app) (2014)
Science of Discworld series
- The Science of Discworld, with Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett
- The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, with Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett
- The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch, with Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett
- The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day, with Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett
Textbooks
- Catastrophe Theory and its Applications, with Tim Poston, Pitman, 1978. ISBN 0-273-01029-8.
- Complex Analysis: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Plane, I. Stewart, D Tall. 1983 ISBN 0-521-24513-3
- Algebraic number theory and Fermat's last theorem, 3rd Edition, I. Stewart, D Tall. A. K. Peters (2002) ISBN 1-56881-119-5
- Galois Theory, 3rd Edition, Chapman and Hall (2000) ISBN 1-58488-393-6 Galois Theory Errata
Science fiction
- Wheelers, with Jack Cohen (fiction)
- Heaven, with Jack Cohen, ISBN 0-446-52983-4, Aspect, May 2004 (fiction)
Science and mathematics
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Awards and honours
In 1995 Stewart received the Michael Faraday Medal and in 1997 he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on The Magical Maze. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2001.
Stewart was the first recipient of the Christopher Zeeman Medal, awarded jointly by the LMS and the IMA for his work on promoting mathematics.[13]
Family life
Stewart married his wife, Avril, in 1970.[1] They met at a party at a house Avril was renting while she trained as a nurse. They have two sons.[1] He lists his recreations as science fiction, painting, guitar, keeping fish, geology, Egyptology and snorkelling.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.(subscription required)
- ↑ Ian Stewart at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ian Stewart's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database, a service provided by Elsevier.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ http://www.ams.org/notices/200211/rev-holmes.pdf
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
- Michael Faraday prize winners 2004–1986
- Directory of Fellows of the Royal Society: Ian Stewart
- Prof Ian Stewart at Debrett's People of Today
- What does a Martian look like? Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart set out to find the answers
- Ian Stewart on space exploration by NASA
- Ian Stewart on Minesweeper one of the Millennium mathematics problems
- Press release about Terry Pratchett "Wizard Making" of Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart at the University of Warwick
- Interview with Ian Stewart on the Science of Discworld series
- Audio Interview with Ian Stewart on April 25, 2007 from WINA's Charlottesville Right Now
- Podcast series with Ian Stewart on the history of symmetry
- A Partly True Story initially published in: Scientific American, Feb 1993
- "The Joy of Mathematics – A conversation with Ian Stewart", Ideas Roadshow, 2013ml:ഇയാന് സ്റ്റിവര്ട്ട്
- Pages containing links to subscription-only content
- Articles with short description
- EngvarB from August 2014
- Use dmy dates from August 2014
- 20th-century mathematicians
- 21st-century mathematicians
- English mathematicians
- English science writers
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- Alumni of the University of Warwick
- Alumni of Churchill College, Cambridge
- 1945 births
- Living people
- Academics of the University of Warwick
- Professors of Gresham College
- Mathematics writers
- Textbook writers