Robert McLachlan (mathematician)
{{short description|New Zealand mathematician}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}}
{{en-NZ|date=April 2020}}
{{Infobox academic
| name = Robert McLachlan
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| image = Robert McLachlan • Jane Ussher • Rangahau2018 (cropped).tif
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| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1964}}
| birth_place = Christchurch, New Zealand
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| workplaces = Massey University
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| alma_mater = Caltech
| thesis1_title = Separated Viscous Flows via Multigrid
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| thesis1_year = 1990
| doctoral_advisor = Herbert Keller
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| known_for = Geometric integration
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Robert Iain McLachlan {{post-nominals | country = NZL | FNZMS | FRSNZ | size = 85%}} (born 1964) is a New Zealand mathematician and Distinguished Professor in the School of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University, New Zealand. His research in geometric integration encompasses both pure and applied mathematics, modelling the structure of systems such as liquids, climate cycles, and quantum mechanics. He also writes for the public on the subject of climate change policy.
Academic career
McLachlan was born in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1964,{{Cite web|url=http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2003108628.html|title=McLachlan, Robert I. (Robert Iain), 1964–|website=LOC|access-date=20 April 2020}} and studied mathematics at the University of Canterbury, graduating with a BSc (Hons) First Class in 1984.{{Cite journal|last=van Brunt|first=Bruce|date=2013|title=Robert McLachlan|url=https://nzmathsoc.org.nz/downloads/profiles/NZMSprofile118_Robert_McLachlan.pdf?t=1378287401|journal=New Zealand Mathematical Society Newsletter|volume=118|pages=18–19}} One formative experience was in his last year of high school, where he had free rein to experiment with assembly language programming on the school PDP-11/10.
McLachlan went on to graduate work in numerical analysis in 1986. He received a PhD from Caltech (the California Institute of Technology) in 1990, supervised by Herbert Keller in computational fluid dynamics, with a thesis titled "Separated Viscous Flows via Multigrid". He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder in what was then the new field of symplectic geometry. After meeting Jürgen Moser, who was visiting Boulder at the time, McLachlan spent six months on a postdoctoral fellowship in Switzerland, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
McLachlan joined Massey University in Palmerston North in 1994, and began a collaboration with Reinout Quispel at La Trobe University that resulted in over 26 publications on geometric integration. In 2002 he became Professor of Applied Mathematics at Massey, and spent a year's sabbatical at the University of Geneva, working with Gerhard Wanner and Ernst Hairer, and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences in Oslo.{{Cite journal|last=Vlieg-Hulstman|first=Marijcke|date=April 2002|title=Massey University|journal=Newsletter of the New Zealand Mathematical Society|volume=84|pages=10}} In 2007 he won the prestigious Germund Dahlquist Prize, the first mathematician from the southern hemisphere to do so.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nzedge.com/news/maths-prize-for-massey-prof/|title=Maths Prize for Massey Prof|date=13 August 2007|website=NZEDGE|language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-16}} From 2008 to 2012, along with Stephen Marsland and Matt Perlmutter, he worked on a Marsden grant project "Geodesics in diffeomorphism groups: geometry and applications", designing efficient numerical integrators that preserved the geometric properties of systems.{{Cite journal|last=Tuffley|first=Christopher|date=December 2009|title=Massey University|journal=Newsletter of the New Zealand Mathematical Society|volume=107|pages=17}} In 2013, McLachlan was the LMS-NZMS Aitken Lecturer, delivering talks on geometric numerical integration to six UK universities.{{Cite web|url=https://www.lms.ac.uk/events/lectures/forder-and-aitken-lectureship#Aitken|title=LMS-NZMS Forder and Aitken Lectureships|last=Fisher|first=Elizabeth|date=25 July 2019|website=London Mathematical Society}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.lms.ac.uk/sites/lms.ac.uk/files/Events/Aitken%20Lecturer%202013%20poster.pdf|title=LMS – NZMS Aitken UK Lecture Tour 2013|date=2013|website=London Mathematical Society}}
McLachlan is a Fellow of the New Zealand Mathematical Society (NZMS), and in 1998 organised the first of the annual Manawatu-Wellington Applied Mathematics Conferences. He was president of the NZMS in 2008–2009 and vice president in 2010, and edited the New Zealand Journal of Mathematics for six years. Since 2016 he has been a Distinguished Professor in Massey's School of Fundamental Sciences.{{Cite web|url=https://sites.massey.ac.nz/rangahau2018/masseys-eminent-researchers/|title=Massey's eminent researchers|date=2018|website=Rangahau {{!}} Research at Massey University|language=en|access-date=2020-04-16}}
Research
McLachlan is a world leader in the field of geometric integration, a technique for the reliable simulation of large-scale complex systems, and in particular the use of symplectic techniques in the numerical analysis of differential equations.{{Cite web|url=https://scientists.org.nz/Hill-Tinsley-Medal|title=New Zealand Association of Scientists – Hill Tinsley Medal|website=scientists.org.nz|access-date=2020-04-16}} This field, which McLachlan helped found in the 1990s, builds into its approach the underlying geometric structure of data sets. Because it allows the simulation of large systems, it has the potential for solving practical problems in fields as disparate as the structure of liquids, climate cycles, the motion of the solar system, particles in circular accelerators, chaos in dynamical systems, and weather forecasting.{{Cite web|url=https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/sfia-ma081307.php|title=Robert McLachlan awarded Germund Dahlquist Prize|last=Stephenson|first=Jessica|date=13 August 2007|website=EurekAlert!|publisher=AAAS|access-date=16 April 2020}} For example, during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, using geometric integration models, correctly predicted the hurricane would suddenly turn 90 degrees towards New York six days in advance. McLachlan's methods have been used in computational science to examine a possible celestial origin of the ice ages, biological models, and the dynamics of flexible structures. His research contributed to a solar system simulation that revised the dates of geophysical epochs by millions of years. Although his work in geometric numerical integration has a wide range of real-world applications, he considers himself a pure mathematician.
Awards and fellowships
- Fellow of the New Zealand Mathematical Society (2001){{Cite web|url=https://www.massey.ac.nz/~rmclachl/SciRevMcL.html|title=The emerging science of geometric integration|last=McLachlan|first=Robert|website=www.massey.ac.nz|access-date=2020-04-16}}
- Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (2002){{Cite web|url=https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/who-we-are/our-people/our-fellows/all-fellows/m-o/|title=All Fellows: M-O|website=Royal Society Te Apārangi|access-date=2020-04-16}}
- NZ Association of Scientists Research Medal (2003)
- NZMS Research Award (2005)
- NZIMA Maclaurin Fellowship (2005)
- SIAM Germund Dahlquist Prize (2007)
- James Cook Research Fellow (2012){{Cite web|url=https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/what-we-do/funds-and-opportunities/james-cook-research-fellowship/james-cook-research-fellowships-recipients/list-of-recipients/|title=List of Recipients of James Cook Research Fellowships|website=Royal Society Te Apāirangi|access-date=16 April 2020}}
- Research fellow at the Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge, UK
- Research fellow at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, USA
- Research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Oslo
- Visiting fellow, Mathematical Research Institute of Oberwolfach, Germany{{Cite book|last=Dickson|first=Anna|title=Rangahau: Research at Massey University|publisher=Massey University Press|year=2018|volume=2|location=Auckland, New Zealand|pages=45–47|chapter=Mathematics in a geometric universe|chapter-url=http://masseyblogs.ac.nz/rangahau2018/mathematics-in-a-geometric-universe/}}
Science communication
As an advocate for action on climate change McLachlan writes frequently for the public, in media like Scientific American
Selected research
- {{Cite journal|last1=McLachlan|first1=Robert I.|last2=Offen|first2=Christian|date=2019|title=Symplectic integration of boundary value problems|journal=Numerical Algorithms|language=en|volume=81|issue=4|pages=1219–1233|doi=10.1007/s11075-018-0599-7|arxiv=1804.09042|s2cid=52297714}}
- {{Cite journal|last1=McLachlan|first1=Robert I.|last2=Modin|first2=Klas|last3=Verdier|first3=Olivier|date=2014|title=Symplectic integrators for spin systems|journal=Physical Review E|volume=89|issue=6|pages=061301|doi=10.1103/PhysRevE.89.061301|pmid=25019718|arxiv=1402.4114|bibcode=2014PhRvE..89f1301M|s2cid=16838116|url=https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/200384}}
- {{Cite journal|last1=McLachlan|first1=Robert I.|last2=Quispel|first2=G. Reinout W.|date=2006|title=Geometric integrators for ODEs|journal=Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General|volume=39|issue=19|pages=5251–5285|doi=10.1088/0305-4470/39/19/S01|bibcode=2006JPhA...39.5251M}}
- {{Cite journal|last1=McLachlan|first1=Robert I.|last2=Quispel|first2=G. Reinout W.|date=2002|title=Splitting methods|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/acta-numerica/article/splitting-methods/122F5736DAF3D88598989E68FE4D2EF2|journal=Acta Numerica|language=en|volume=11|pages=341–434|doi=10.1017/S0962492902000053|s2cid=229168188}}
- {{Cite journal|last=McLachlan|first=Robert I.|date=1995|title=On the Numerical Integration of Ordinary Differential Equations by Symmetric Composition Methods|journal=SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing|volume=16|issue=1|pages=151–168|doi=10.1137/0916010|bibcode=1995SJSC...16..151M }}
- {{Cite journal|last1=Braunstein|first1=Samuel L.|last2=McLachlan|first2=Robert I.|date=1987|title=Generalized squeezing|journal=Physical Review A|language=en|volume=35|issue=4|pages=1659–1667|doi=10.1103/PhysRevA.35.1659|pmid=9898327|bibcode=1987PhRvA..35.1659B|s2cid=42118827 }}
References
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External links
- [https://blog.planetaryecology.org/ Planetary Ecology] blog
- [https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/expertise/profile.cfm?stref=677230 Massey University staff web page]
- [https://scholar.google.co.nz/citations?user=O6FaL14AAAAJ Google Scholar profile]
- [https://sciblogs.co.nz/author/rmclachlan/ Robert McLachlan on SciBlogs]
- [https://www.massey.ac.nz/~rmclachl/gi.html McLachlan's web page of geometric integration images]
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Category:Academic staff of Massey University
Category:California Institute of Technology alumni
Category:People from Christchurch
Category:University of Canterbury alumni
Category:New Zealand mathematicians