Prof Hyman Levy (28 February 1889 – 27 February 1975)Stewart, John
"Levy, Hyman (1889–1975)"
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, September 2004. Retrieved 12 February 2023 was a Scottish-Jewish philosopher,

Emeritus Professor ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

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 ...

, mathematician, political activist and 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 ...

.Staf
Hyman Levy

Gazetteer for Scotland The ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is a gazetteer covering the geography, history and people of Scotland. It was conceived in 1995 by Bruce Gittings of the University of Edinburgh and David Munro of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and co ...

, Retrieved 10 February 2010

Life

The son of Minna Cohen and Marcus Levy, a picture-framer and occasional art dealer in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, Hyman was the third oldest of eight children. They lived at 70 Bristo Street in Edinburgh's South Side. He went to school at

George Heriot's School George Heriot's School is a private primary and secondary day school on Lauriston Place in the Lauriston area of Edinburgh, Scotland. In the early 21st century, it has more than 1600 pupils, 155 teaching staff, and 80 non-teaching staff. It was ...

Facsimile of th
Obituary of Levy Hyman
published in

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

reproduced by St Andrews University
/ref> a short distance from his family home, and was the School Dux. He then studied mathematics at

Edinburgh University The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the town council under the authority of a royal charter from King James VI in 1582 and offi ...

. Having declined the opportunity to study at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

on account of its complicity in Britain's class system, he instead chose to conduct further research at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

in Germany. At the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

he returned to Britain. In 1916 he joined the

Royal Flying Corps The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was the air arm of the British Army before and during the First World War until it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service on 1 April 1918 to form the Royal Air Force. During the early part of the war, the RFC sup ...

. It is unclear if he saw active service but it inspired an interest in aerodynamics. Researching

aeronautics Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design process, design, and manufacturing of air flight-capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. While the term originally referred ...

at the National Physical Laboratory, Levy published papers and books on mathematical applications pertaining to the subject. He also wrote about differential equations and probability. After leaving the Laboratory, he became a professor of mathematics at the

Royal College of Science The Royal College of Science was a higher education institution located in South Kensington; it was a constituent college of Imperial College London from 1907 until it was wholly absorbed by Imperial in 2002. Still to this day, graduates from t ...

, where he later served as head of the mathematics department. In recognition of his contribution he subsequently became dean of the Royal College itself. In 1916 he was elected a Fellow of the

. His proposers were

Cargill Gilston Knott Cargill Gilston Knott FRS, FRSE LLD (30 June 1856 – 26 October 1922) was a Scottish physicist and mathematician who was a pioneer in seismological research. He spent his early career in Japan. He later became a Fellow of the Royal Society, ...

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 Robert Milne James Robert Milne PRSSA FRSE ( 1880 – 3 February 1961) was a 20th-century Scottish physicist. He served as president of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts from 1923 to 1925. Life He graduated with a BSc from the University of Edinburgh in 189 ...

and George Alexander Carse. In 1918, he married Marion Aitken Fraser, despite the disapproval of his family. They had three children. Levy was in the Labour Party from 1920 to 1931, and then in 1931 he joined the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

. Despite his theoretical allegiance to the principles of communism, Levy became disappointed by the way the Russian communists treated Jews, and published on the topic, leading to his expulsion from the party in 1958. He died in

Wimbledon, London Wimbledon () is a suburb of southwest London, England, southwest of Charing Cross; it is the main commercial centre of the London Borough of Merton. Wimbledon had a population of 68,189 in 2011 which includes the electoral wards of Abbey, Wimb ...

on 27 February 1975. Following Levy's paper "On Goldbach's Conjecture" from 1963, Lemoine's conjecture is incorrectly referred to by

MathWorld ''MathWorld'' is an online mathematics reference work, created and largely written by Eric W. Weisstein. It is sponsored by and licensed to Wolfram Research, Inc. and was partially funded by the National Science Foundation's National Science ...

as "Levy's conjecture."

Publications

* ''Finite Difference Equations'', co-authored with F. Lessman; Pitman (Dec 1959), . * ''Aeronautics in Theory and Experiment'', co-authored with William Lewis Cowley; ASIN: B000WUT77A; republished by BiblioBazaar; . * ''Jews and the National Question'', Hillway Pub. Co., London; 1st Edition (1958); ASIN: B0007J87TA. * ''Aspects of Dialectical Materialism'', co-authored with Ralph Fox. John MacMurray et al.; Watts (1935), London; ASIN: B0037ZPVHC. * ''Literature for an age of science'', Methuen (1952); ASIN: B0000CIEER. * ''Social Thinking'', Cobbett (1945); ASIN: B0014KNTQW. * ''Elementary Statistics (Nelson's Aeroscience Manuals)'', Nelson (1945); ASIN: B001P8HX9C. * ''Elementary Statistics (Nelson's Aeroscience Manuals)'', Thomas Nelson (1945); ASIN: B00978213K. * ''Soviet Jews at war'', pamphlet, Russia Today Society (1943); ASIN: B00KBTLNDI. * ''Science: Curse Or Blessing?'', Watts & Co. (1940); ASIN: B0026OCT8O. * ''Elementary Mathematics'', Thomas Nelson & Sons (1942); ASIN: B0007DT7RC. * ''Modern Science – A Study of Physical Science in the World Today'', Hamish Hamilton (1939); ASIN: B00085G0RO. * ''Elementary Statistics'', Nelson (1959), London; ASIN: B000OUHSRO. * ''A Philosophy for a Modern Man''; Alfred A. Knopf (1938); ASIN: B0006DA3US. * ''Modern Engineering Theory & Practice'', co-authored with Bailey Levy; Odhams Press Ltd (1935); ASIN: B000R7AJPW. * ''Practical Mathematical Analysis ... With examples by the translator'', co-authored with Horst von Sanden; ASIN: B0017WK6S6. * ''The Universe of Science''; republished by Rupa and Co, New Delhi; .

Life

Publications

See also

Notes

References

Further reading