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Percy John Heawood (8 September 1861 – 24 January 1955) 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 ...
, who concentrated on graph colouring.


Life

He was the son of the Rev. John Richard Heawood of
Newport, Shropshire Newport is a market town and Civil parishes in Shropshire, civil parish in the borough of Telford and Wrekin in Shropshire, England. It lies north-east of Telford, west of Stafford, and is near the Shropshire-Staffordshire border. The 2001 Ce ...
, and his wife Emily Heath, daughter of the Rev. Joseph Heath of
Wigmore, Herefordshire Wigmore is a village and civil parish in the northwest part of the county of Herefordshire, England. It is located on the A4110 road, about west of the town of Ludlow, in the Welsh Marches. In earlier times, it was also an administrative dis ...
; and a first cousin of
Oliver Lodge Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (12 June 1851 – 22 August 1940) was an English physicist whose investigations into electromagnetic radiation contributed to the development of Radio, radio communication. He identified electromagnetic radiation indepe ...
, whose mother Grace was also a daughter of Joseph Heath. He was educated at Queen Elizabeth's School,
Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...
, and matriculated at
Exeter College, Oxford Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and the fourth-oldest college of the university. The college was founde ...
in 1880, graduating B.A. in 1883 and M.A. in 1887. Heawood spent his academic career at
Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament (UK), Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by r ...
, where he was appointed Lecturer in 1885. He was, successively, Censor of
St Cuthbert's Society St Cuthbert's Society, colloquially known as Cuth's, is a colleges of Durham University, college of Durham University. It was founded in 1888 for students who were not attached to the existing colleges. St Cuthbert's Society is a Bailey college, ...
between 1897 and 1901 succeeding Frank Byron Jevons in the role, Senior Proctor of the university from 1901, Professor in 1910 and
Vice-Chancellor A vice-chancellor (commonly called a VC) serves as the chief executive of a university in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, other Commonwealth of Nati ...
between 1926 and 1928. He was awarded an
OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...
, as Honorary Secretary of the Preservation Fund, for his part in raising £120,000 to prevent
Durham Castle Durham Castle is a Norman castle in the city of Durham, England, which has been occupied since 1837 by University College, Durham after its previous role as the residence of the Bishops of Durham. Designated since 1986 as a cultural World Heri ...
from collapsing into the
River Wear The River Wear (, ) in Northern England rises in the Pennines and flows eastwards, mostly through County Durham, to the North Sea in the City of Sunderland. At long, it is one of the region's longest rivers. The Wear wends in a steep valley t ...
. Heawood was fond of country pursuits, and one of his interests was
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
. His nickname was "Pussy". Durham University awards an annual Heawood Prize to a student graduating in Mathematics whose performance is outstanding in the final year.


Works

Heawood devoted himself to the four colour theorem and related questions. In 1890 he exposed a flaw in
Alfred Kempe Sir Alfred Bray Kempe FRS (6 July 1849 – 21 April 1922) was a mathematician best known for his work on linkages and the four colour theorem. Biography Kempe was the son of the Rector of St James's Church, Piccadilly, the Rev. John Edwar ...
's proof, that had been considered as valid for 11 years. The four colour theorem being an open question again, he established the weaker five colour theorem. The four colour theorem itself was finally established by a computer-based proof in 1976. Heawood also studied colouring of maps on higher surfaces and established the upper bound on the chromatic number of such a graph in terms of the connectivity (genus, or number of handles) of the surface. This upper bound was proved only in 1968 to be the actual maximum. Writing in the Journal of the London Mathematical Society, G. A. Dirac wrote:


Family

Heawood married in 1890 Christiana Tristram, daughter of
Henry Baker Tristram Henry Baker Tristram FRS (11 May 1822 – 8 March 1906) was an English clergyman, Bible scholar, traveller and ornithologist. As a parson-naturalist he was an early, but short-lived, supporter of Darwinism, attempting to reconcile evolution an ...
; they had a son and a daughter.


See also

*
Heawood conjecture In graph theory, the Heawood conjecture or Ringel–Youngs theorem gives a lower bound In mathematics, particularly in order theory, an upper bound or majorant of a subset of some preordered set is an element of that is every element o ...
* Heawood number *
Heawood graph In the mathematical field of graph theory, the Heawood graph is an undirected graph with 14 vertices and 21 edges, named after Percy John Heawood. Combinatorial properties The graph is cubic, and all cycles in the graph have six or more edges. ...
*
Four color theorem In mathematics, the four color theorem, or the four color map theorem, states that no more than four colors are required to color the regions of any map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color. ''Adjacent'' means that two regions shar ...
*
Five color theorem The five color theorem is a result from graph theory that given a plane separated into regions, such as a political map of the countries of the world, the regions may be colored using no more than five colors in such a way that no two adjacent r ...


References


External links


MacTutor biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heawood, Percy John 1861 births 1955 deaths Newport, Shropshire 19th-century British mathematicians 20th-century British mathematicians People from Newport, Shropshire Combinatorialists Academics of Durham University Vice-chancellors and wardens of Durham University Officers of the Order of the British Empire Place of birth missing