Walter Kurt Hayman FRS (formerly Haymann; 6 January 1926 – 1 January 2020) was a British

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 ...

known for contributions to

complex analysis Complex analysis, traditionally known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis that investigates functions of complex numbers. It is helpful in many branches of mathematics, including algebraic ...

. He was a professor at

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

Life and work

Hayman was born in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, the son of Roman law professor Franz Haymann (1874-1947) and Ruth Therese Hensel, daughter of mathematician

Kurt Hensel Kurt Wilhelm Sebastian Hensel (29 December 1861 – 1 June 1941) was a German mathematician born in Königsberg. Life and career Hensel was born in Königsberg, Province of Prussia (today Kaliningrad, Russia), the son of Julia (née von Adelson ...

. He was a great-great-grandson of acclaimed composer

Fanny Mendelssohn Fanny Mendelssohn (14 November 1805 – 14 May 1847) was a German composer and pianist of the early Romantic era who was known as Fanny Hensel after her marriage. Her compositions include a string quartet, a piano trio, a piano quartet, an or ...

. Because of his Jewish heritage, he left Germany, then under Nazi rule, alone by train in 1938. He continued his schooling at

Gordonstoun School Gordonstoun School ( ) is an elite co-educational private school for boarding and day pupils in Moray, Scotland. Two generations of British royalty were educated at Gordonstoun, including Prince Philip and his son King Charles III. Musician Davi ...

, and later at

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

under

John Edensor 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 his doctoral advisor Mary Cartwright. He taught at King's College, Newcastle, and the

University of Exeter The University of Exeter is a research university in the West Country of England, with its main campus in Exeter, Devon. Its predecessor institutions, St Luke's College, Exeter School of Science, Exeter School of Art, and the Camborne School of ...

. In 1947, he married Margaret Riley Crann after they met at a Quaker meeting. Together, they founded the British Mathematical Olympiad. The pair had three daughters, including the peace activist Carolyn Hayman and the filmmaker Sheila Hayman. He is known for his asymptotic results in

Bieberbach conjecture In complex analysis, de Branges's theorem, or the Bieberbach conjecture, is a theorem that gives a necessary condition on a holomorphic function in order for it to map the open unit disk of the complex plane injectively to the complex plane. It was ...

in 1955, and for Hayman's alternatives in Nevanlinna Theory. His work with Wolfgang Fuchs gave a solution to an inverse problem of the Nevanlinna theory for entire functions, predating David Drasin's 1976 work.

Honours and awards

Hayman was elected to the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1956 and of the

Finnish Academy of Science and Letters The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters (; ) is a Finnish learned society. It was founded in 1908 and is thus the second oldest academy in Finland. The oldest is the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, which was founded in 1838. Member ...

in 1978: he was elected "Foreign member" of the

Accademia dei Lincei The (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed"), anglicised as the Lincean Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. Founded in ...

on 16 December 1985. In 1992 he received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Mathematics and Science at

Uppsala University Uppsala University (UU) () is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially fou ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

In 1995 he was awarded the

De Morgan Medal The De Morgan Medal is a prize for outstanding contribution to mathematics, awarded by the London Mathematical Society. The Society's most prestigious award, it is given in memory of Augustus De Morgan, who was the first President of the society ...

by 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 ...

. In 2008, an issue of the Journal ''Computational Methods and Function Theory'' was dedicated to him on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

Selected publications

Papers

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Books

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Notes

References

Biographical references

*. The "''Yearbook''" of the renowned Italian scientific institution, including an historical sketch of its history, the list of all past and present members as well as a wealth of information about its academic and scientific activities. *. *.

General references

*. The review of the autobiographical book of Hayman. * (online ).

External links

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Obituary
at the London Mathematical Society {{DEFAULTSORT:Hayman, Walter 1926 births 2020 deaths 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians People educated at Gordonstoun Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society German expatriates in the United Kingdom British people of German-Jewish descent Complex analysts Mathematical analysts Mathematics education in the United Kingdom Deans of the Royal College of Science De Morgan Medallists British Quakers