Edward John Nanson (13 December 1850 – 1 July 1936) was a

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 ...

. He is known in part for his contributions to

social choice Social choice theory is a branch of welfare economics that extends the theory of rational choice to collective decision-making. Social choice studies the behavior of different mathematical procedures ( social welfare functions) used to combine i ...

, including Borda-elimination, a Condorcet-compliant variant on the

Borda count The Borda method or order of merit is a positional voting rule that gives each candidate a number of points equal to the number of candidates ranked below them: the lowest-ranked candidate gets 0 points, the second-lowest gets 1 point, and so on ...

that uses repeated elimination to find a winner. He was born in England and received his professional education at Trinity College from 1870 to 1874. In 1875, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

, in the state of Victoria, Australia where he immigrated. Nanson was an election reformer and office bearer of the Proportional Representation League of Victoria who produced several booklets on election methods. He retired from his lifetime appointment in 1922. At the time of his death, he was survived by ten children from two marriages. The Professor Nanson Prize, named in his honor, is awarded annually to students for outstanding achievements in mathematics.

Footnotes

# "Methods of Election" Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, vol. 18; 1882; pages 197–240; #954.

External links

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Australian electoral reform and two concepts of representation
An article discussing Nanson's work by Iain McLean.

Text of pamphlet by Nanson.
Professor E. J. Nanson's death
National Library of Australia's digitised Australian Newspaper article 1850 births 1936 deaths Mathematicians from Melbourne British emigrants to colonial Australia Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Academic staff of the University of Melbourne {{mathematician-stub