Alexander Murray MacBeath
Alexander Murray MacBeath | |
|---|---|
| File:Wilhelm Kaup Murray Macbeath.jpg Murray MacBeath (right) with Wilhelm Kaup | |
| Born | Alexander Murray MacBeath 30 June 1923 Glasgow, Scotland |
| Died | 14 May 2014 (aged 90) Warwick, England |
| Alma mater | Queens University, Belfast (B.A.) Clare College, Cambridge (M.A.) Princeton University (Ph.D., 1950) |
| Occupations | mathematician, professor |
| Known for | WWII codebreaking, MacBeath Surfaces, MacBeath Regions |
| Spouse | Julie (1952-his death) |
| Children | 2 |
Alexander Murray MacBeath (30 June 1923 Glasgow – 14 May 2014 Warwick)[1][2][3] was a Scottish mathematician who worked on Riemann surfaces. MacBeath surfaces and MacBeath regions are named after him.
Early life and education
[edit | edit source]MacBeath was the son of Alexander MacBeath, a philosopher and logician who took a position at Queen's University Belfast in 1925,[4] soon after Murray was born. Murray also studied at Queen's University, earning a B.A. with honours in 1943.[1]
During World War II, he worked in Hut 7 of the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, breaking ciphers used for military communications by the Japanese navy and, later, the army.[5]
He earned an M.A. (again with honours) from Clare College, Cambridge in 1948. With a Commonwealth Fund fellowship, he then attended Princeton University,[1] where he earned his Ph.D. on "The Geometry of Non-Homogeneous Lattices" in 1950 under the supervision of Emil Artin.[6]
Career
[edit | edit source]He taught at Keele University and the University of Dundee before moving to the University of Birmingham in 1963 where he stayed until 1979 as Mason Professor,[3] then moved back to the University of Pittsburgh in the United States until he reached their statutory retirement age of 60.[1]
He subsequently took up a position at the University of Dundee where he remained for a number of years, before moving to Warwickshire where at the University of Warwick he held the position of Emeritus Professor of Mathematics.
Death
[edit | edit source]Professor MacBeath died on 14 May 2014 in Warwick, England.
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ a b c d Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Professor Murray MacBeath, The Times, Friday 27 June 2014
- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)..
- ^ Alexander Murray Macbeath at MacTutor University of St Andrews
- ^ Alexander Murray MacBeath at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
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