S. Barry Cooper (9 October 1943 – 26 October 2015) was an English mathematician and computability theorist. He was a professor of

pure mathematics Pure mathematics is the study of mathematical concepts independently of any application outside mathematics. These concepts may originate in real-world concerns, and the results obtained may later turn out to be useful for practical applications ...

at the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

Early life and education

Cooper grew up in

Bognor Regis Bognor Regis (), also known as Bognor, is a town and seaside resort in West Sussex on the south coast of England, south-west of London, west of Brighton, south-east of Chichester and east of Portsmouth. Other nearby towns include Littleham ...

and attended Chichester High School for Boys, during which time he played scrum-half for the under-15s England rugby team. Cooper graduated from

Jesus College, Oxford Jesus College (in full: Jesus College in the University of Oxford of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is in the centre of the city, on a site between Turl Street, Ship ...

, in 1966 and in 1970 received his Ph.D. from the

University of Leicester The University of Leicester ( ) is a public university, public research university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park, Leicester, Victoria Park. The university's predecessor, Univ ...

under the supervision of

Reuben Goodstein Reuben Louis Goodstein (15 December 1912 – 8 March 1985) was an English mathematician with an interest in the philosophy and teaching of mathematics. Education Goodstein was educated at St Paul's School in London. He received his Master's de ...

and C.E.M. Yates, with a thesis entitled ''Degrees of Unsolvability''.

Academic career

Cooper was appointed

Lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

in the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds in 1969, where he remained for the rest of his career. He was promoted to Reader in Mathematical Logic in 1991 and to

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of Pure Mathematics in 1996. In 2011, he was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Sofia "St. Kliment Ohridski". His book ''Computability Theory'' made the technical research area accessible to a new generation of students. He was a leading mover of the return to basic questions of the kind considered by

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer ...

, and of interdisciplinary developments related to computability. He was President of the Association Computability in Europe, and Chair of the Turing Centenary Advisory Committee (TCAC), which co-ordinated the Alan Turing Year. The book ''Alan Turing: His Work and Impact'', edited by Cooper and

Jan van Leeuwen Jan van Leeuwen (born 17 December 1946 in Waddinxveen) is a Dutch computer scientist and emeritus professor of computer science at the Department of Information and Computing Sciences at Utrecht University.

, won the

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' R. R. Hawkins Award. Cooper was a member of the

editorial board The editorial board is a group of editors, writers, and other people who are charged with implementing a publication's approach to editorials and other opinion pieces. The editorials published normally represent the views or goals of the publicat ...

for '' The Rutherford Journal''.

Interests

Cooper was a keen long-distance runner, and was also interested in jazz and improvised music, founding Leeds Jazz and being involved in the Termite Club. In the 1970s, he was also a leading figure in the Chile Solidarity Campaign, welcoming Chilean refugees to Leeds.

Death

Cooper died on 26 October 2015 after a short illness.University of Leeds, obituary
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Selected publications

* S. B. Cooper, 2004. ''Computability Theory'', Chapman & Hall/CRC. * S. B. Cooper; J. van Leeuwen (eds.), 2013. ''Alan Turing – His Work and Impact'', New York:

Elsevier Elsevier ( ) is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell (journal), Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, ...

, * S. B. Cooper, B. Löwe, A. Sorbi (eds.), 2008. ''New Computational Paradigms – Changing Conceptions of What is Computable'', Springer. * * * * *

References

External links

S. Barry Cooper homepageS. Barry Cooper's Mathematics Genealogy PageComputability in Europe homepageThe Alan Turing Centenary homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, S. Barry 1943 births 2015 deaths English logicians 20th-century English mathematicians 21st-century English mathematicians Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Leicester Academics of the University of Leeds 20th-century English philosophers 21st-century English philosophers