Category Archives: Uncategorized

West Virginia University

Posted on 03/04/2024 by Peter Cameron

Anthony Hilton, my former colleague at Queen Mary, spent some time as an Eberly Professor at West Virginia University. Now he has passed on to me the news that the University has decided to close down Pure Mathematics research and … Continue reading →

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Anatoly Vershik

Posted on 16/02/2024 by Peter Cameron

Anatoly Vershik died the day before yesterday. As I have told here, he was the person who told me about the Urysohn space. I had given a talk at the ECM in Barcelona on the countable random graph, and after … Continue reading →

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Richard Parker

Posted on 10/02/2024 by Peter Cameron

Richard Parker died last month. Now only two of the authors of the ATLAS of finite groups remain, the two Robs. I knew Richard, but perhaps not well enough to write anything appropriate as a tribute. But I recommend you … Continue reading →

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New Year

Posted on 01/01/2024 by Peter Cameron

The youth could not help breaking a rule of courtesy towards this heavily burdened and yet, as he felt, noble man by asking: “But tell me, I beseech you, why do you carry on such wars on your star? Who … Continue reading →

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Dominic Welsh

Posted on 04/12/2023 by Peter Cameron

Dominic Welsh died late last week. Dominic and I were tutors at Merton College, Oxford for nearly eleven years. I was the pure maths tutor and he was the applied maths tutor. But there was no other Oxford college where … Continue reading →

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A cautionary tale

Posted on 23/09/2023 by Peter Cameron

This was just reported to me by a group theorist. He asked ChatGPT whether Aut(G) wr Sym(n) is a subgroup of Aut(G^n). It was honest enough to say that it didn’t know (though it said it in a rather roundabout … Continue reading →

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Donald Keedwell

Posted on 12/09/2023 by Peter Cameron

News came yesterday that Donald Keedwell has died. Donald Keedwell was the author (with J. Dénes) of a classic, Latin Squares and their Applications, first published in 1974 with a foreword by Paul Erdős, and still the best source of … Continue reading →

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Ian Macdonald

Posted on 16/08/2023 by Peter Cameron

More sad news: Ian Macdonald has died. (To avoid confusion, this is the Ian Macdonald who introduced the Macdonald polynomials, not the one who taught me group theory.) My first exposure to the ideas of algebraic geometry came at Oxford, … Continue reading →

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Robbie Robertson

Posted on 10/08/2023 by Peter Cameron

News this morning that Robbie Robertson has died. One of the great guitarists and songwriters of his era, he backed Bob Dylan, who described him as “the only mathematical guitar genius I’ve ever run into who doesn’t offend my intestinal … Continue reading →

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David Wales

Posted on 26/07/2023 by Peter Cameron

We have lost another group theorist, David Wales. An email from Rebecca Waldecker gave a link, but WordPress is playing up and I can’t share it. The link gives an account of his many contributions to group theory and algebraic … Continue reading →

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