Irish Norwegian Mathematical Connections (Nov 2023)
In previous blogs here, we have surveyed Irish mathematical connections with continental European places of learning, including France (July 2019), Austria (Jan 2021), Switzerland (Jan 2022), Holland (Jul 2022), and Poland (Jan 2023). This month, we turn our attention to Norway.
Our goal is to include all mathematical people whose training and/or careers included time in both Ireland and Norway. In addition to Irish and Norwegian people, we feature some from elsewhere who, for instance, did a PhD in one country and a postdoc in the other.
The visible Irish/Norwegian mathematical overlap appears to be recent and small. However, the last pre-WWII ICM took place in Oslo in 1936, and several Irish mathematicians participated in that, as documented in detail at our associated blog from 2018. We repeat some of that accounting now.
Arthur Conway, John L. Synge
Arthur Conway (whose listings includes one as a delegate of the Royal Society, London) spoke on "A Quaternion View of the Electron Wave Equation" (page 233, Vol 1 of proceedings).
Jack Synge gave two talks, one "On the Connectivity of Spaces of Positive Curvature" (page 139, Vol 2) and a second on "Limitations on the Behaviour of an Expanding Universe" (page 240, Vol 2).
Bill McCrea, Jack Todd
Bill McCrea presented "Some Astrophysical Problems Concerning the Scattering of Light" (page 229, Vol 1), and Jack Todd spoke about "Transfinite Superpositions of Absolutely Continuous Functions" (page 110, Vol 2).
William McCrea (1904-1999) was born in Dublin but grew up in England, where he studied at Cambridge (BA 1926, PhD 1930) and Göttingen. His career started at Imperial College and saw him move to QUB the year of this congress (he stayed there until 1943, then moved to Royal Holloway College). He discovered that the sun is largely made of hydrogen and helium, and was awarded an honorary DSc by NUI in 1954.
John Todd (1911-2007) from Down was educated at QUB (BA 1931) and then studied with Littlewood at Cambridge. He taught at QUB 1933-1937 and much later at Caltech. His efforts in the late 1940s helped to ensure the preservation of the Oberwolfach Mathematical Research Institute in Germany.
(Coincidentally, John A. Todd from Liverpool was another attendee in Oslo, and the two men would cross paths at several ICMs over the year.)
An abstract for paper called "A Class of Divergent Series" by Ralph Cooper of QUB is on page 77 of Vol 2 of the proceedings, although it seems he was not a speaker. Cooper (1903-1979) was born in Hull, Yorkshire, is believed to have been an Oxford graduate, and was a doctoral student of Littlewood there in 1927. He taught at QUB for 35 years starting in 1931, published with Jack Todd, and authored the book Functions of Real Variables: A Course of Advanced Calculus (Van Nostrand, 1966).
Also in attendance at the Oslo congress were Paddy Brown (1889-1960, then at St Patrick's, Maynooth), Alfred O'Rahilly (1884-1969, UCC), and Michael Power (1885-1974, UCG).
As usual, we include some people with physics and engineering leanings who had mathematical training. Please alert us to any omissions or errors. (Some living people prefer not to be included.)
Thanks to Olivia Bree, and others for valuable input.
Last updated 21 Aug 2024.
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01. Roger Armstrong was born in Dublin and was educated at TCD (BA 1951, MSc in chemistry 1954+). In the late 1950s, he was at the Royal Radar in England. Most of his career has been spent in defense in Norway, earning a 1974 PhD in physics in Tromso. He retained his interests in maths. Peerage / UCC / Number theory |
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02. Theoretical physicist Jon-Ivar Skullerud was born in Oslo, Norway, and was educated at Trondheim (MSc 1992) and Edinburgh (PhD 1996). His doctoral thesis on "Renormalisation in Lattice QCD" was done under Brian Pendleton. His career started at Adelaide (1996-1999), Hamburg (1999-2001), and Amsterdam (2001-2003), before moving to Ireland. After a stint at TCD (2003-2007) he settled at Maynooth, where he has supervised 3 PhD students. |
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03. Astronomer Andrew McMurry was born in Dublin, and was educated at Cambridge (BA 1993?) and Oxford (DPhil 1997). His doctorate on "Radiative Transfer in Stellar Chromospheres" was done under Carole Jordan. He spent many years at the Univ of Oslo. He now works in IT in the UK. |
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04. Yaw Bimpeh was born in Ghana, and was educated at first at the Univ of Sci & Technology there (BSc 1997). Following a 2000 MSc from the Norwegian Univ of Sci & Technology, he did his 2008 PhD at DCU under Jane Horgan ("Statistical Modelling and Inference for Financial Auditing"). His career RSA 2006-2014 / CERP AQA (UK) 2014- |
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05. George Hitching was born 11 May in Ennis, Clare, and was educated at first at Maynooth (BA 2000) and Warwick (MSc 2001). His 2005 PhD on "Moduli of Symplectic Bundles over Curves" was done at Durham (and Nice) under Wilhelm Klingenberg & Christian Pauly. Most of his career has been spent in Norway, where he has long been at Oslo Metropolitan Univ. His interests include vector bundles over algebraic curves. |
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06. Applied mathematician Antje van der Net was born in Singur, Holland, and was educated at Delft (BSc in engineering 2005) and TCD (PhD 2008). Her thesis on "Generation, Characterisation and Solidification of Crystalline Microfoam" was done under Stefan Hutzler. Her career started with a decade in industry with BASF in Germany. Since 2017 she has been at Norwegian Univ of Science & Technology. Her specialities include oil recovery. |