Michael James David Powell (29 July 193619 April 2015) was a British mathematician, who worked in the

Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

(DAMTP) at the

University of Cambridge 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 ...

Education and early life

Born in London, Powell was educated at

Frensham Heights School Frensham Heights School is a private school with a sixth form college located near Farnham, Surrey, England, run by the registered charity, Frensham Heights Educational Trust Ltd. It was founded in 1925 and formed as part of the movement for pro ...

and

Eastbourne College Eastbourne College is a co-educational Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging school in the English Public school (United Kingdom), public school tradition, for boarding school, boarding and Day school, day pupils aged 13–18, in ...

. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree followed by a

Doctor of Science A Doctor of Science (; most commonly abbreviated DSc or ScD) is a science doctorate awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. Africa Algeria and Morocco In Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, all universities accredited by the s ...

(DSc) degree in 1979 at the

. see als
An Interview with M. J. D. Powell
by

Philip J. Davis Philip J. Davis (January 2, 1923 – March 14, 2018) was an American academic Applied mathematics, applied mathematician. Biography Davis was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was known for his work in numerical analysis and approximation theor ...

, 6 April 2005

Career and research

Powell was known for his extensive work in

numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of ...

, especially nonlinear optimisation and

approximation An approximation is anything that is intentionally similar but not exactly equal to something else. Etymology and usage The word ''approximation'' is derived from Latin ''approximatus'', from ''proximus'' meaning ''very near'' and the prefix ...

. He was a founding member of the

Institute of Mathematics and its Applications The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) is the UK's chartered professional body for mathematicians and one of the UK's learned societies for mathematics (another being the London Mathematical Society). The IMA aims to advance ...

and a founding editor-in-chief of ''IMA Journal of Numerical Analysis''. His mathematical contributions include

quasi-Newton method In numerical analysis, a quasi-Newton method is an iterative numerical method used either to find zeroes or to find local maxima and minima of functions via an iterative recurrence formula much like the one for Newton's method, except using ap ...

s, particularly the Davidon–Fletcher–Powell formula and the Powell's Symmetric Broyden formula, augmented Lagrangian function (also called Powell– Rockafellar penalty function),

sequential quadratic programming Sequential quadratic programming (SQP) is an iterative method for constrained nonlinear optimization, also known as Lagrange-Newton method. SQP methods are used on mathematical problems for which the objective function and the constraints are twi ...

method (also called as Wilson–Han–Powell method),

trust region In mathematical optimization, a trust region is the subset of the region of the objective function that is approximated using a model function (often a quadratic). If an adequate model of the objective function is found within the trust region, th ...

algorithms ( Powell's dog leg method), conjugate direction method (also called Powell's method), and

radial basis function In mathematics a radial basis function (RBF) is a real-valued function \varphi whose value depends only on the distance between the input and some fixed point, either the origin, so that \varphi(\mathbf) = \hat\varphi(\left\, \mathbf\right\, ), o ...

. He had been working on

derivative-free optimization Derivative-free optimization (sometimes referred to as blackbox optimization) is a discipline in mathematical optimization that does not use derivative information in the classical sense to find optimal solutions: Sometimes information about the de ...

algorithms in recent years, the resultant algorithms including COBYLA, UOBYQA, NEWUOA, BOBYQA, and LINCOA. He was the author of numerous scientific papers and of several books, most notably ''Approximation Theory and Methods''.

Awards and honours

Powell won several awards, including the George B. Dantzig Prize from the Mathematical Programming Society/

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific soci ...

(SIAM) and the Naylor Prize from 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 ...

. Powell was elected a

Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences Membership of the National Academy of Sciences is an award granted to scientists that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the United States judges to have made “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research”. Membership ...

of the United States in 2001 and as a corresponding fellow to the

Australian Academy of Science The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal Soci ...

in 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, Michael James David 1936 births 2015 deaths Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge Fellows of Pembroke College, Cambridge Mathematicians from London Academic journal editors Cambridge mathematicians Fellows of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science People educated at Frensham Heights School People educated at Eastbourne College John Humphrey Plummer Professors