MacTutor
Frank Ramsey
Times obituary
MATHEMATICAL LOGIC
Mr. F. P. Ramsey, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, died in London yesterday after an operation. Although he was only 26, he was already accepted as an authority on mathematical logic.
The elder son of Mr. Arthur Stanley Ramsey, President of Magdalene College, Cambridge, Frank Plumpton Ramsey was born in 1903, was a scholar at Winchester College, and went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, with a scholarship. He passed both parts of the Mathematical Tripos with distinction and was placed among the Wranglers in Part 2 in 1923. He was an Allen University scholar in 1924 and was elected to a Fellowship at King's College in the same year and was appointed University mathematical lecturer.
Ramsey's interests were on the border line between mathematics and logic. In his most important published paper, he developed the foundations of mathematics on the general lines of Whitehead and Russell, using the work of Wittgenstein to uphold this system against Continental criticism. He had also written on universals in mind, and on the theory of taxation and the theory of saving in the Economic Journal. He was accepted as an authority on mathematical logic, and at the time of his last illness was occupied with a general treatise on logic, which was eagerly awaited by those who knew him and his work.
From his earliest school days in Cambridge, through his time at Winchester and at Trinity, Ramsey was always intellectually provocative beyond his years and had invariably taken his place on equal terms with those who were several years his senior. But with his preoccupation, he combined great simplicity of mind, manner, and character. He was also physically built on a large scale. His contemporaries recognized in him a mind of extraordinary capacity and promise in the territory between mathematics, philosophical, and moral science. There was no one in Cambridge among the younger men who would be considered his equal for power and quality of mind, not to mention boldness and originality of conception in one of the most difficult subjects of study. His early death means a grievous loss to science as well as to his friends and his college.
He married Miss Lettice Cautley Baker in 1925 and leaves two daughters
MATHEMATICAL LOGIC
Mr. F. P. Ramsey, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, died in London yesterday after an operation. Although he was only 26, he was already accepted as an authority on mathematical logic.
The elder son of Mr. Arthur Stanley Ramsey, President of Magdalene College, Cambridge, Frank Plumpton Ramsey was born in 1903, was a scholar at Winchester College, and went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, with a scholarship. He passed both parts of the Mathematical Tripos with distinction and was placed among the Wranglers in Part 2 in 1923. He was an Allen University scholar in 1924 and was elected to a Fellowship at King's College in the same year and was appointed University mathematical lecturer.
Ramsey's interests were on the border line between mathematics and logic. In his most important published paper, he developed the foundations of mathematics on the general lines of Whitehead and Russell, using the work of Wittgenstein to uphold this system against Continental criticism. He had also written on universals in mind, and on the theory of taxation and the theory of saving in the Economic Journal. He was accepted as an authority on mathematical logic, and at the time of his last illness was occupied with a general treatise on logic, which was eagerly awaited by those who knew him and his work.
From his earliest school days in Cambridge, through his time at Winchester and at Trinity, Ramsey was always intellectually provocative beyond his years and had invariably taken his place on equal terms with those who were several years his senior. But with his preoccupation, he combined great simplicity of mind, manner, and character. He was also physically built on a large scale. His contemporaries recognized in him a mind of extraordinary capacity and promise in the territory between mathematics, philosophical, and moral science. There was no one in Cambridge among the younger men who would be considered his equal for power and quality of mind, not to mention boldness and originality of conception in one of the most difficult subjects of study. His early death means a grievous loss to science as well as to his friends and his college.
He married Miss Lettice Cautley Baker in 1925 and leaves two daughters
You can see the original newsprint at THIS LINK
