Ioan James

Ioan Mackenzie James FRS (23 May 1928 – 21 February 2025) was an English mathematician, known for his research in topology, and historian of mathematics, science, and engineering. He was elected in 1968 a Fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded in 1978 the Senior Whitehead Prize. He served as President of the London Mathematical Society for a two-year term from 1984 to 1986.

Quotes

• Although the theory of Lie groups (topological groups where the underlying space is a manifold and the group operations are smooth) goes back to around 1870 the theory of topological groups in a more general sense seem not to have been considered until 1925 when Leja and Schreier, independently, made the basic definitions, rather in the spirit of Fréchet, and since then this too has developed into a major branch of modern mathematics.
  It was Weil (1937) who wrote the first definitive study of uniform spaces and applied the theory to both metric spaces and topological groups. However the basic idea was already emerging early in the century, indeed the concepts of uniform continuity and uniform convergence were well understood by Weierstrass and by Cauchy before him.
  • "Historical Note". Topologies and Uniformities. Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series (illustrated ed.). Springer Science & Business Media. 2013. pp. xiii–xv. ISBN 9781447139942.  (230 pages; quote from p. xv; 1st edition 1999; earlier version of book published in 1987 with title Topological and Uniform Spaces)

• Although the main field of Laplace's research was celestial mechanics, he also made important contributions to the theory of probability and statistical inference. In his Théorie analytique des probabilités (Analytical theory of probability) of 1812 he summarized, in a masterly introduction, all that was then known in the area of probability and its applications. This work introduces the technique known later as the Laplace transform, a simple and elegant method of solving integral equations.
  • Remarkable Mathematicians: From Euler to Von Neumann. MAA spectrum. Spectrum series of the Mathematical Association of America. Cambridge University Press. 2002. p. 32. ISBN 9780521520942.  (433 pages)

• Despite poor eyesight, Kepler was one of the pioneers of research into optics. He found a good approximation to the law of refraction. Descartes, the discoverer of the precise law, said that Kepler was his true teacher in optics, who knew more about this subject than did any of those who preceded him. This research was published in his Dioptrice of 1611, which also contained an account of a new astronomical telescope with two convex lenses. Towards the end of his life he wrote a small work on the gauging of wine casks, which is regarded as one of the significant works in the prehistory of the integral calculus.
  • Remarkable Physicists: From Galileo to Yukawa. Cambridge University Press. 2004. p. 12. ISBN 9780521017060.  (389 pages)

• Asperger's syndrome is much more common than classical autism. It is estimated to affect about one in every three or four hundred of the general population. More than half a million people in the United Kingdom have some kind of disorder on the autistic spectrum, with over 200,000 of them having Asperger's syndrome. Disorders of the autistic spectrum are found much more often in men than in women, although this may be because women are better at compensating for some of their more noticeable features, being better at social relationships and less likely to exhibit narrow interest patterns.
  • Asperger's Syndrome and High Achievement: Some Very Remarkable People. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 2006. p. 10. ISBN 9781843103882.  (224 pages)

External links

• Prof Ioan James (1928 – 2025). The Queens College, University of Oxford.
• Ioan M. James. Institute for Advanced Study (ias.edu).