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J E Littlewood
Times obituary
Pioneer Pure Mathematician
Professor J. E. Littlewood, FRS, FRAS, Ro Rouse, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge from 1928 to 1950, died on September 6, 1885, at the age of 92. John Edensor Littlewood was born at Rochester on June 9, 1885, the son of Edward Thornton Littlewood, who had taken his degree from Peterhouse as 9th wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos in 1882. From 1892 to 1900, J.E.L. lived in South Africa, where his father was a schoolmaster In 1900 he returned to England to go to St Paul's School, where the scholarship class was taught by F. Macaulay, a creative mathematician who later became a Fellow of the Royal Society.
In 1903 he went to Cambridge as a scholar of Trinity, having already learned from M. Macaulay to distinguish between the vital ideas of mathematics and examination tricks. Success in Part I of the Mathematics Tripos depended on acquiring from a coach a facility in rapid problem solving. Littlewood resolved not to let his contemporaries beat him at that game, and in 1905 he was senior wrangler, bracketed with J. Mercer of Christ's. In 1906 he was placed in Class I, Division 1, of Part II of the Tripos. He then started research on problems in integral functions proposed by his tutor, E. W. Barnes (later Bishop of Birmingham). He recalls that he "rather luckily struck oil at once." He won a Smith's Prize in 1908 and was elected a Fellow of Trinity in the same year. After three years lecturing at Manchester, he returned to Trinity as a College Lecturer in 1910. He was Cayley lecturer at the University of Cambridge from 1920 to 1928. Elected in 1928 to the newly founded Rouse Ball chair of mathematics, he held it until he retired in 1950. He was a Life Fellow of Trinity.
In 1910, Littlewood had broken new ground in the theory of series by proving the Abel-Tauber theorem. This led to a collaboration with G. H. Hardy, lasting 35 years, the most powerful combination ever known in pure mathematics. The subjects covered by their joint work included the theory of series (particularly Fourier series), the distribution of primes, the Riemann zetafunction, Diophantine approximation, inequalities, and the theory of functions. But most spectacular of all is perhaps the famous series of papers on "Partitio Numerorum" dating from 1920, in which they applied the new and powerful Hardy-Ramanujan Littlewood analytical method (one of the leading mathematical discoveries of the present century) to some famous problems in the "additive" theory of numbers.
Littlewood also kept up independent lines of research, and later he had periods of large-scale collaboration with A. C. Paley, A. C. Offord, and Dame Mary Cartwright. One of his early discoveries has an appeal outside the ranks of specialists and carries a salutary warning against a too-slight habit of generalizing from particular cases. This is his proof that a certain statement about the distribution of primes, though supported by all available numerical evidence (based on complete tables of primes up to 10,000,000 and on isolated calculations up to 1,000,000,000), is never the less not true generally.
He distilled the essence of years of lectures into two highly individual books, Elements of the Theory of Real Functions (1926) and Lectures on the Theory of Functions (1944). After retirement, he published A Mathematician's Miscellany, giving glimpses (tantalizingly few) into his way of life and mode of work.
Elected to the Royal Society at the age of 30, Littlewood received its Royal (1929), Sylvester (1943), and Copley (1958) medals. In awarding the Sylvester medal, the President said: "He is the man most likely to storm and smash a truly deep and formidable problem; there is no one else who can command such a combination of insight, technique, and power." He was an Honorary Doctor of Liverpool, St. Andrews, and received the distinguished compliment of the Honorary ScD from his own university. He was a Corresponding Member of the French Academy and a Foreign Member of the Dutch, Danish, and Swedish Academies.
Littlewood was short, strongly built, and agile. His muscular strength and quickness of reaction made for success in rock climbing and skiing, and he spent many holidays in Cornwall, Scotland, and Switzerland. Like Hardy, he was a keen fan of ball games and (unlike Hardy) he enjoyed music, having taught himself as an adult to play the piano. In a large society of men at the forefront of knowledge in many fields, and of any age from the 20s to the 80s, Littlewood's conversation held the interest of all.
After his retirement, he yielded at last to pressing invitations to visit the United States. His first visit (to Chicago) was an outstanding success, and was followed by others, no less happy for him and for those who met him. During those years of retirement, he maintained a steady output of important mathematical papers, including one (1970) in which he solved a problem which "raised difficulties which defeated me for some time. I have now overcome them." Well into his 80s, he was still one of the strongest classical analysts in the world.
Pioneer Pure Mathematician
Professor J. E. Littlewood, FRS, FRAS, Ro Rouse, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge from 1928 to 1950, died on September 6, 1885, at the age of 92. John Edensor Littlewood was born at Rochester on June 9, 1885, the son of Edward Thornton Littlewood, who had taken his degree from Peterhouse as 9th wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos in 1882. From 1892 to 1900, J.E.L. lived in South Africa, where his father was a schoolmaster In 1900 he returned to England to go to St Paul's School, where the scholarship class was taught by F. Macaulay, a creative mathematician who later became a Fellow of the Royal Society.
In 1903 he went to Cambridge as a scholar of Trinity, having already learned from M. Macaulay to distinguish between the vital ideas of mathematics and examination tricks. Success in Part I of the Mathematics Tripos depended on acquiring from a coach a facility in rapid problem solving. Littlewood resolved not to let his contemporaries beat him at that game, and in 1905 he was senior wrangler, bracketed with J. Mercer of Christ's. In 1906 he was placed in Class I, Division 1, of Part II of the Tripos. He then started research on problems in integral functions proposed by his tutor, E. W. Barnes (later Bishop of Birmingham). He recalls that he "rather luckily struck oil at once." He won a Smith's Prize in 1908 and was elected a Fellow of Trinity in the same year. After three years lecturing at Manchester, he returned to Trinity as a College Lecturer in 1910. He was Cayley lecturer at the University of Cambridge from 1920 to 1928. Elected in 1928 to the newly founded Rouse Ball chair of mathematics, he held it until he retired in 1950. He was a Life Fellow of Trinity.
In 1910, Littlewood had broken new ground in the theory of series by proving the Abel-Tauber theorem. This led to a collaboration with G. H. Hardy, lasting 35 years, the most powerful combination ever known in pure mathematics. The subjects covered by their joint work included the theory of series (particularly Fourier series), the distribution of primes, the Riemann zetafunction, Diophantine approximation, inequalities, and the theory of functions. But most spectacular of all is perhaps the famous series of papers on "Partitio Numerorum" dating from 1920, in which they applied the new and powerful Hardy-Ramanujan Littlewood analytical method (one of the leading mathematical discoveries of the present century) to some famous problems in the "additive" theory of numbers.
Littlewood also kept up independent lines of research, and later he had periods of large-scale collaboration with A. C. Paley, A. C. Offord, and Dame Mary Cartwright. One of his early discoveries has an appeal outside the ranks of specialists and carries a salutary warning against a too-slight habit of generalizing from particular cases. This is his proof that a certain statement about the distribution of primes, though supported by all available numerical evidence (based on complete tables of primes up to 10,000,000 and on isolated calculations up to 1,000,000,000), is never the less not true generally.
He distilled the essence of years of lectures into two highly individual books, Elements of the Theory of Real Functions (1926) and Lectures on the Theory of Functions (1944). After retirement, he published A Mathematician's Miscellany, giving glimpses (tantalizingly few) into his way of life and mode of work.
Elected to the Royal Society at the age of 30, Littlewood received its Royal (1929), Sylvester (1943), and Copley (1958) medals. In awarding the Sylvester medal, the President said: "He is the man most likely to storm and smash a truly deep and formidable problem; there is no one else who can command such a combination of insight, technique, and power." He was an Honorary Doctor of Liverpool, St. Andrews, and received the distinguished compliment of the Honorary ScD from his own university. He was a Corresponding Member of the French Academy and a Foreign Member of the Dutch, Danish, and Swedish Academies.
Littlewood was short, strongly built, and agile. His muscular strength and quickness of reaction made for success in rock climbing and skiing, and he spent many holidays in Cornwall, Scotland, and Switzerland. Like Hardy, he was a keen fan of ball games and (unlike Hardy) he enjoyed music, having taught himself as an adult to play the piano. In a large society of men at the forefront of knowledge in many fields, and of any age from the 20s to the 80s, Littlewood's conversation held the interest of all.
After his retirement, he yielded at last to pressing invitations to visit the United States. His first visit (to Chicago) was an outstanding success, and was followed by others, no less happy for him and for those who met him. During those years of retirement, he maintained a steady output of important mathematical papers, including one (1970) in which he solved a problem which "raised difficulties which defeated me for some time. I have now overcome them." Well into his 80s, he was still one of the strongest classical analysts in the world.
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