Robert Alexander Rankin

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

FRSAMD (27 October 1915 – 27 January 2001) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

who worked in

analytic number theory In mathematics, analytic number theory is a branch of number theory that uses methods from mathematical analysis to solve problems about the integers. It is often said to have begun with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet's 1837 introduction of Dir ...

Life

Rankin was born in

Garlieston Garlieston (, IPA: �paləʝeaːᵲʎis̪ is a small planned coastal village in the historical county of Wigtownshire in Dumfries and Galloway, south west Scotland. It was founded in the mid 18th century by Alexander Stewart, 6th Earl of Gallo ...

Wigtownshire Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown (, ) is one of the Counties of Scotland, historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Wigtownshire was an counties of Scotland, administrative county used for ...

the son of Rev Oliver Rankin (1885–1954), minister of

Sorbie Sorbie () is a small village in Wigtownshire, Machars, within the administration area of Dumfries and Galloway Council, Scotland. It is located midway between Wigtown and Whithorn on the A714 road. Farming forms the principal local industry in ...

and his wife, Olivia Theresa Shaw. His father took the name Oliver Shaw Rankin on marriage and became Professor of

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

Language, Literature and Theology in the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

. Rankin was educated at

Fettes College Fettes College () is a co-educational private boarding and day school in Craigleith, Edinburgh, Scotland, with over two-thirds of its pupils in residence on campus. The school was originally a boarding school for boys only and became co-ed in ...

then studied mathematics at

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the Unive ...

, graduating in 1937. At

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

he was particularly influenced by

J.E. Littlewood John Edensor Littlewood (9 June 1885 – 6 September 1977) was a British mathematician. He worked on topics relating to analysis, number theory, and differential equations and had lengthy collaborations with G. H. Hardy, Srinivasa Ramanu ...

and A.E. Ingham. Rankin was elected a Fellow of Clare College in 1939, but his career was interrupted by the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, during which he worked first for the Ministry of Supply then on

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

ry research at

Fort Halstead Fort Halstead was a research site of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), an executive agency of the UK Ministry of Defence. It is situated on the crest of the Kentish North Downs, overlooking the town of Sevenoaks, southeast o ...

. In 1945 he returned to Cambridge as an assistant lecturer, and then moved to the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

in 1951 as Mason professor of mathematics. In 1954 he became Professor of Mathematics, Glasgow

University A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

, retiring in 1982. In 1954 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. His proposers were William M. Smart, Robert Garry,

James Norman Davidson James Norman Davidson CBE PRSE FRS (5 March 1911 – 11 September 1972) was a British biochemist, pioneer molecular biologist and textbook author. The Davidson Building at the University of Glasgow is named for him. Life He was the only child o ...

and Robert Pollock Gillespie. He served as Vice President 1960 to 1963 and won the Society's Keith Prize for the period 1961–63. Rankin had a continuing interest in

Srinivasa Ramanujan Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar (22 December 188726 April 1920) was an Indian mathematician. Often regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, though he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial con ...

, working initially with G.H. Hardy on Ramanujan's unpublished notes. His research interests lay in the distribution of

prime numbers A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

and in

modular form In mathematics, a modular form is a holomorphic function on the complex upper half-plane, \mathcal, that roughly satisfies a functional equation with respect to the group action of the modular group and a growth condition. The theory of modul ...

s. In 1939 he developed what is now known as the Rankin–Selberg method. In 1977

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

published Rankin's ''Modular Forms and Functions''. In his review, Marvin Knopp wrote: :For, as much as any recent exposition of

modular function In mathematics, a modular form is a holomorphic function on the complex upper half-plane, \mathcal, that roughly satisfies a functional equation with respect to the group action of the modular group and a growth condition. The theory of modula ...

s, this book succeeds in getting near the research frontier, and in some instances even reaches it – no small feat in this theory. Only someone of Rankin's stature as a research mathematician and experience in the classroom could aspire to such an accomplishment in a self-contained work – beginning with first principles. In 1987 Rankin received the

Senior Whitehead Prize The Senior Whitehead Prize of the London Mathematical Society (LMS) is now awarded in odd numbered years in memory of John Henry Constantine Whitehead, president of the LMS between 1953 and 1955. The Prize is awarded to mathematicians normally r ...

from the

London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's Learned society, learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh ...

.List of Prizewinners
from the

Rankin died in

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

on 27 January 2001.

Family

In 1942 he married Mary Ferrier Llewellyn.

Books

''An introduction to mathematical analysis''
Pergamon Press 1963; Dover 2007. *''The modular group and its subgroups'', Madras, Ramanujan Institute, 1969. *''Modular forms and functions'', Cambridge University Press 1977

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rankin, Robert Alexander 1915 births 2001 deaths People educated at Fettes College Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge Fellows of Clare College, Cambridge 20th-century Scottish mathematicians British number theorists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh People from Dumfries and Galloway Academics of the University of Glasgow Academics of the University of Birmingham

Life

Family

See also

Books

References

External links