John Todd

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Todd in Oberwolfach, 1977

John Todd (born May 16, 1911 in Carnacally , County Down , now Northern Ireland , † June 22, 2007 in Pasadena ) was a Northern Irish mathematician who dealt with numerical mathematics and computer science.

Life

Todd was one of five children born to a teacher couple. He went to school in Belfast and studied from 1928 at Queen's University of Belfast , where he made his intermediate diploma in 1931. He then studied at St. John's College of Cambridge University , where he spent two years of research student of John Edensor Littlewood was. He then went back to Queens University in Belfast, but followed Professor John Greenless Semple there when he went to King's College London in 1936 . In the same year he attended the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Oslo and in Poland Kazimierz Kuratowski , Waclaw Sierpinski and Stanislaw Saks .

In 1937 he married the mathematician Olga Taussky-Todd , whom he had consulted about a group theory problem. Both worked together frequently in the following years, for example in several publications on matrix theory written during the bombing of London in World War II. While working on military research for the British Navy (demagnetization of ships against magnetic mines), he initiated the construction of a data center for the Admiralty and then for the National Physics Laboratory , where he worked with Arthur Erdélyi . In 1945 he visited Germany on a military mission, examining Konrad Zuse's calculating machines and protecting the Oberwolfach Mathematical Research Institute with its library from looting and occupation by French occupation troops. He became known for this as the "Savior of Oberwolfach", and the research institute honored him with a prize named after him, the John Todd Award .

In 1947 he moved with his wife Olga to the United States, where he attended the Institute for Advanced Study , where John von Neumann ran his own computer center, went to Los Angeles in 1948 and finally, from 1949, to the newly established Laboratory for Applied Mathematics of the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC From 1954, he was head of the Numerical Analysis department and, in collaboration with his wife, who was a consultant there, developed numerical algorithms for scientific computing, doing pioneering work with his group. In 1957 he moved with Olga Taussky-Todd (who only became a professor there in 1971) as professor at the California Institute of Technology , where he taught numerical mathematics and scientific arithmetic. In 2001 a conference was held at Caltech on his 90th birthday.

He should not be confused with the British geometer John Arthur Todd .

Fonts

  • Introduction to the constructive theory of functions , Academic Press, 1963.
  • Basic Numerical Mathematics , 2 volumes, Birkhäuser 1977, 1979

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ who advised him not to do a doctorate, he himself did not have a doctorate, which, in Littlewood's opinion, is only needed for non-university applications - in which case he would give him a recommendation on a postcard
personal data
SURNAME Todd, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH May 16, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Carnacally
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 2007
Place of death Pasadena, California , USA