Prof Bertram Martin Wilson

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". ...

(14 November 1896, London – 18 March 1935,

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

, Scotland) was an English mathematician, remembered primarily as a co-editor, along with

G. H. Hardy Godfrey Harold Hardy (7 February 1877 – 1 December 1947) was an English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. In biology, he is known for the Hardy–Weinberg principle, a basic principle of pop ...

and P. V. Seshu Aiyar, of

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 ...

's ''Collected Papers''. (It seems probable that Wilson did not know about

Ramanujan's lost notebook Ramanujan's lost notebook is the manuscript in which the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan recorded the mathematical discoveries of the last year (1919–1920) of his life. Its whereabouts were unknown to all but a few mathematicians until i ...

, which was probably passed by

G. N. Watson George Neville Watson (31 January 1886 – 2 February 1965) was an English mathematician, who applied complex analysis to the theory of special functions. His collaboration on the 1915 second edition of E. T. Whittaker's ''A Course of Modern ...

some years after Wilson's death.)

Life

He was born in London on 14 November 1896 the son of Rev Alfred Henry Wilson and his wife, Ellen Elizabeth Vincent. Wilson was educated at

King Edward's School, Birmingham King Edward's School (KES) is an independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the British Public school (UK), public school tradition, located in Edgbaston, Birmingham. Founded by Edward VI of England, King Edward VI in 1552, it ...

and then studied Mathematics at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

, graduating MA. In 1920 he was appointed as a Lecturer in Mathematics at the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1926. He remained there for slightly more than thirteen years, working under three professors, Frank Stanton Carey (1860–1928), J. C. Burkhill, and E. C. Titchmarsh. In 1933 Wilson was appointed Professor of Pure and Applied Mathematics at University College, Dundee as successor to John Edward Aloysius Steggall, who retired. Wilson was elected on 5 March 1934 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 Sir

Edmund Taylor Whittaker Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker (24 October 1873 – 24 March 1956) was a British mathematician, physicist, and historian of science. Whittaker was a leading mathematical scholar of the early 20th century who contributed widely to applied mathemat ...

James Hartley Ashworth James Hartley Ashworth (2 May 1874 – 4 February 1936) was a British marine zoologist. Life See He was born on 2, May 1874, in Accrington in Lancashire, the only son of James Ashworth. He spent most of his early life in Burnley, attending t ...

, Nicholas Lightfoot and

Edward Thomas Copson Edward Thomas Copson FRSE (21 August 1901 – 16 February 1980) was a British mathematician who contributed widely to the development of mathematics at the University of St Andrews, serving as Regius Professor of Mathematics amongst other posi ...

. In 1934 he gave a talk ''Ramanujan's Note-Books and their Place in Modern Mathematics'' at the third Colloquium of the

Edinburgh Mathematical Society The Edinburgh Mathematical Society is a mathematical society for academics in Scotland. History The Society was founded in 1883 by a group of Edinburgh school teachers and academics, on the initiative of Alexander Yule Fraser FRSE and Andrew ...

at the

University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...

. Wilson died on 18 March 1935 following a brief illness.

Family

In 1930 he married Margaret Fancourt Mitchell.

Subsequent history for ''Ramanujan's Notebooks''

G. N. Watson and B. M. Wilson never completed their project of editing Ramanujan's notebooks (not including the "lost" notebook), but Bruce C. Berndt completed their project in a 5-volume publication ''Ramanujan's Notebooks, Parts I—V''. The following quote refers to the three notebooks involved in Watson and Wilson's project: Berndt benefited substantially from Wilson's considerable efforts in editing Ramanujan's second notebook. Because some journals require the permission of each author when an article is to be published, for some of Berndt's work he was not permitted to put Wilson or Watson as a coauthor. However, Berndt published several articles with Wilson as a coauthor.B. C. Berndt, R. L. Lamphere, and B. M. Wilson, Chapter 12 of Ramanujan's second notebook: Continued fractions, Rocky Mountain J. Math. 15 (1985), 235–310

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Bertram Martin 1896 births 1935 deaths 20th-century English mathematicians Mathematical analysts People educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham Academics of the University of Liverpool Academics of the University of Dundee Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge