Peter Michael Neumann OBE (28 December 1940 – 18 December 2020) was a British mathematician. His fields of interest included the

history of mathematics The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the History of mathematical notation, mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples ...

and

Galois theory In mathematics, Galois theory, originally introduced by Évariste Galois, provides a connection between field (mathematics), field theory and group theory. This connection, the fundamental theorem of Galois theory, allows reducing certain problems ...

Biography

Born in December 1940, Neumann was a son of the German-born mathematicians Bernhard Neumann and Hanna Neumann. He gained a BA degree from

The Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault, queen of England. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassi ...

in 1963, and a

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

degree from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

in 1966. On completing his doctrate, Neumann was named a Tutorial Fellow at the Queen's College, Oxford, and in 1967 he became a lecturer at the

. His research work was in the field of

group theory In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as group (mathematics), groups. The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as ring (mathematics), rings, field ( ...

. In 1987, Neumann won the Lester R. Ford Award of the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

for his review of Harold Edwards' book ''Galois Theory''. He was the first Chairman of the

United Kingdom Mathematics Trust The United Kingdom Mathematics Trust (UKMT) is a charity founded in 1996 to help with the education of children in mathematics within the UK. History The national mathematics competitions had existed prior to the formation of the trust, bu ...

, from October 1996 to April 2004, succeeded by Bernard Silverman. Neumann showed in 1997 that

Alhazen's problem Alhazen's problem is a mathematical problem in optics concerning reflection in a spherical mirror. It asks for the point in the mirror where one given point reflects to another. The special case of a concave spherical mirror is also known as ...

(reflecting a light ray off a spherical mirror to hit a target) cannot be solved with a

straightedge and compass construction In geometry, straightedge-and-compass construction – also known as ruler-and-compass construction, Euclidean construction, or classical construction – is the construction of lengths, angles, and other geometric figures using only an ideali ...

. Although the solution is a straightforward application of

it settles the constructibility of one of the last remaining geometric construction problems posed in antiquity. In 2003, 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 ...

awarded him the

Senior Whitehead Prize The Senior Whitehead Prize of the London Mathematical Society (LMS) is now awarded in odd numbered years in memory of John Henry Constantine Whitehead, president of the LMS between 1953 and 1955. The Prize is awarded to mathematicians normally r ...

. He was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire 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 ...

(OBE) in the

2008 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2008 for the Commonwealth realms were announced on 29 December 2007, to celebrate the year passed and mark the beginning of 2008. The recipients of honours are displayed here as they were styled before their new honour, and ...

. After retiring in 2008, he became an Emeritus Fellow at the Queen's College. Neumann's work in the

includes his 2011 publication ''The Mathematical Writings of Évariste Galois'', an English language book on the work of French mathematician

Évariste Galois Évariste Galois (; ; 25 October 1811 – 31 May 1832) was a French mathematician and political activist. While still in his teens, he was able to determine a necessary and sufficient condition for a polynomial to be solvable by Nth root, ...

(1811–1832). Neumann was a long-standing supporter of the

British Society for the History of Mathematics The British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM) was founded in 1971 to promote research into the history of mathematics at all levels and to further the use of the history of mathematics in education. The BSHM is concerned with all per ...

, whose Neumann Prize is named in his honour. Neumann was the president of the

Mathematical Association The Mathematical Association is a professional society concerned with mathematics education in the UK. History It was founded in 1871 as the Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching and renamed to the Mathematical Association in ...

from 2015 to 2016. Neumann died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

on 18 December 2020, ten days before his 80th birthday, during the

COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom The COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the United Kingdom, it has resulted in confirm ...

Personal life

Neumann married Sylvia Bull in 1962. She was a fellow mathematics undergraduate at Oxford, where they met.

References

External links

Home page
at the Mathematical Institute, Oxford
Home page
at

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Neumann, Peter M. 1940 births 2020 deaths Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England Alumni of the Queen's College, Oxford 20th-century English mathematicians 21st-century English mathematicians Group theorists British historians of mathematics Fellows of the Queen's College, Oxford Officers of the Order of the British Empire David Crighton medalists English male writers English people of German descent English people of German-Jewish descent People educated at Hymers College