Robin Wilson (mathematician)
{{Short description|British mathematician (born 1943)}}
{{about|the mathematician|the musician|Robin Wilson (musician)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}}
{{EngvarB|date=February 2020}}
{{Infobox scientist
| honorific_prefix = The Honourable
| name = Robin Wilson
| image = Robin_Wilson_outside_Gresham_College_-_23jun11.JPG
| image_size =
| caption = Robin Wilson in 2011
| birth_name = Robin James Wilson
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=y|1943|12|5}}
| birth_place = London, England
| spouse = {{marriage|Joy Crispin|1968}}
| children = 2
|parents = Harold Wilson
Mary Baldwin
| field = Graph theory
| work_institutions = Open University
University of Oxford
Gresham College
| alma_mater = Balliol College, Oxford (BA)
University of Pennsylvania (MA, PhD)
| doctoral_advisor = Nesmith Ankeny
| doctoral_students = Amanda Chetwynd
| known_for =
| author_abbrev_bot =
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}}
Robin James Wilson (born 5 December 1943) is an English mathematician. He is an emeritus professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Open University, having previously been Head of the Pure Mathematics Department and Dean of the Faculty.{{cite web |url=http://www.mathematics.open.ac.uk/People/r.j.wilson |title=Prof Robin Wilson |publisher=Open University, Department of Mathematics And Statistics | location=UK | access-date=8 December 2013}} He was a stipendiary lecturer at Pembroke College, Oxford[http://www.pmb.ox.ac.uk/Fellows_Staff/Fellow_and_Staff_Profiles.php?profile=259 Pembroke College website] and, from 2004 to 2008, Gresham Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London.{{cite web |url=http://www.gresham.ac.uk/professors-and-speakers/professor-robin-wilson |title=Professor Robin Wilson |publisher=Gresham College |access-date=8 December 2013}} On occasion, he teaches at Colorado College in the United States.{{cite journal|url=https://www.coloradocollege.edu/dotAsset/2a480cfb-31ec-4511-a641-1ab48d054075.pdf|title=Block Visitors|journal=Countable Bits|volume=8|issue=1|date=May 2015|publisher=The Colorado College Department of Mathematics and Computer Science|access-date=23 June 2017}} He is also a long standing fellow of Keble College, Oxford.
Professor Wilson is a son of former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his wife, Mary.
Early life and education
Wilson was born in 1943 to the politician Harold Wilson, who later became Prime Minister, and his wife the poet Mary Wilson (née Baldwin). He has a younger brother, Giles, who in his 50s gave up a career as a teacher to be a train driver.{{cite news|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/son-of-former-pm-harold-wilson-swaps-teaching-for-a-career-as-train-driver-7210307.html|title=Son of former PM Harold Wilson swaps teaching for a career as train driver|work=London Evening Standard|date=20 November 2006|access-date=11 December 2019}} Wilson attended University College School in Hampstead, North London. He achieved a BA First Class Honours in Mathematics from Balliol College, Oxford, an MA from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania (1965–1968). In a Guardian interview in 2008, Wilson spoke of the fact he grew up known to everyone primarily as a son of the Labour Party leader and Prime Minister Harold Wilson: "I hated the attention and I still dislike being introduced as Harold Wilson's son. I feel uncomfortable talking about it to strangers even now."{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/oct/07/academicexperts.maths|title=Interview: Robin Wilson, mathematics professor, on his passions and father|last=Crace|first=John|date=6 October 2008|work=The Guardian|access-date=16 February 2019|issn=0261-3077}}
Mathematics career
Wilson's academic interests lie in graph theory, particularly in colouring problems, e.g. the four colour problem, and algebraic properties of graphs. He also researches the history of mathematics, particularly British mathematics and mathematics in the 17th century and the period 1860 to 1940, and the history of graph theory and combinatorics.
In 1974, he won the Lester R. Ford Award from the Mathematical Association of America for his expository article An introduction to matroid theory.[http://www.maa.org/programs/maa-awards/writing-awards/paul-halmos-lester-ford-awards Paul R. Halmos – Lester R. Ford Awards, Mathematical Association of America]{{cite journal|author=Wilson, R. J.|title=An introduction to matroid theory|journal=Amer. Math. Monthly|volume=80|issue=5|year=1973|pages=500–525|url=http://www.maa.org/programs/maa-awards/writing-awards/an-introduction-to-matroid-theory|doi=10.2307/2319608|jstor=2319608|citeseerx=10.1.1.599.5103}} Due to his collaboration on a 1977 paper{{cite journal | doi = 10.1016/0095-8956(77)90039-9 | volume=23 | issue=2–3 | title=On the chromatic index of almost all graphs | journal=Journal of Combinatorial Theory | series=Series B | pages=255–257| year=1977 | last1=Erdős | first1=P. | authorlink1=Paul Erdős | last2=Wilson | first2=Robin J. | doi-access= }} with the Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős, Wilson has an Erdős number of 1.
In July 2008, he published a study of the mathematical work of Lewis Carroll, the creator of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass — Lewis Carroll in Numberland: His Fantastical Mathematical Logical Life (Allen Lane, 2008. {{isbn|978-0-7139-9757-6}}). From January 1999 to September 2003, Wilson was editor-in-chief of the European Mathematical Society Newsletter and in 2003–2008 an Associate Editor.European Mathematical Society Newsletter, No 49, September 2003, {{ISSN|1027-488X}} He is past President of the British Society for the History of Mathematics.{{cite web |url=http://users.mct.open.ac.uk/rjw22/ |title=Professor Robin Wilson |publisher=Open University |access-date=8 December 2013}}
Since 1985, Robin Wilson has edited the mathematics on stamps "Stamp Corner" column for the Mathematical Intelligencer.{{Cite journal |last=Wilson |first=Robin |title=My Favorite Mathematical Stamps: 40 Years of Intelligencer Stamp Corners |url=https://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00283-023-10305-2 |journal=The Mathematical Intelligencer |language=en |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=70–77 |doi=10.1007/s00283-023-10305-2 |issn=0343-6993|url-access=subscription }}
Other interests
He has strong interests in music, including the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, and is the co-author (with Frederic Lloyd) of Gilbert and Sullivan: The Official D'Oyly Carte Picture History.Knopf, 1984. {{isbn|978-0-394-54113-6}} In 2007, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3.{{Cite web |title=BBC Radio 3 - Private Passions |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnv3 |access-date=2024-09-25 |website=BBC |language=en-GB}}
Personal life
Publications
Wilson has written or edited about thirty books, including popular books on sudoku and the Four Color Theorem:
- Oxford's Savilian Professors of Geometry: The First 400 Years (editor), Oxford University Press, 2022: {{ISBN|978-0-19-886903-0}}
- Number Theory: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2020: {{ISBN|978-0-19-879809-5}}
- The Turing Guide (with Jack Copeland, Jonathan Bowen, Mark Sprevak, et al.), Oxford University Press, 2017: {{isbn|978-0198747826}} (hardcover), {{isbn|978-0198747833}} (paperback){{cite journal| author-link=W. Andrew Robinson | last=Robinson | first=Andrew | url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23331072-700-the-turing-guide-last-words-on-an-enigmatic-codebreaker/ | title=The Turing Guide: Last words on an enigmatic codebreaker? | journal=New Scientist | date=4 January 2017 }}
- Combinatorics: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2016: {{ISBN|978-0-19-872349-3}}
- Combinatorics: Ancient & Modern (with John Watkins), Oxford University Press, 2013: {{isbn|0-19-965659-2}}
- The Great Mathematicians (with Raymond Flood), Arcturus Publishing Ltd, 2011: {{isbn|1-84837-902-1}}
- Lewis Carroll in Numberland: His Fantastical Mathematical Logical Life, Allen Lane, 2008: {{isbn|978-0-7139-9757-6}}
- Hidden Word Sudoku, Infinite Ideas Limited 2005: {{isbn|1-904902-74-X}}
- How to Solve Sudoku, Infinite Ideas Limited 2005: {{isbn|1-904902-62-6}}
- Sherlock Holmes in Babylon and Other Tales of Mathematical History (co-edited with Marlow Anderson and Victor J. Katz), The Mathematical Association of America, 2004: {{isbn|0-88385-546-1}}
- Mathematics and Music: From Pythagoras to Fractals (co-edited with John Fauvel & Raymond Flood), Oxford University Press, 2003: {{isbn|0-19-851187-6}}
- Four Colours Suffice: How the Map Problem Was Solved, Allen Lane (Penguin), 2002: {{isbn|0-7139-9670-6}}
- Stamping through Mathematics, Springer, 2001: {{isbn|0-387-98949-8}}
- Oxford Figures: 800 Years of the Mathematical Sciences (with John Fauvel & Raymond Flood), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000: {{isbn|0-19-852309-2}}
- Graphs and Applications: An Introductory Approach (with Joan Aldous), Springer, 2000: {{isbn|1-85233-259-X}}
- Mathematical Conversations: Selections from the Mathematical Intelligencer (with J. Gray), Springer, 2000: {{isbn|0-387-98686-3}}
- An Atlas of Graphs (with Ronald Read), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998: {{isbn|0-19-853289-X}} (paperback edition, 2002: {{isbn|0-19-852650-4}})
- Graph Theory, 1736–1936 (with Norman L. Biggs and Keith Lloyd), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976: {{isbn|0-19-853901-0}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://users.mct.open.ac.uk/rjw22/ Robin Wilson's Page at the Open University]
- [http://www.mathematics.open.ac.uk/People/r.j.wilson Robin Wilson's entry in the Faculty of Mathematics and Computing at the Open University]
- [http://www.gresham.ac.uk/audio_video.asp?pageid=108&frmProfessor=10 Lectures by Robin Wilson] at Gresham College
- [http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/html/id.phtml?id=36152 Robin Wilson's entry at the Mathematics Genealogy Project]
- {{IMDb name|5983237|Robin Wilson}}
{{Harold Wilson}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Robin}}
Category:Place of birth missing (living people)
Category:British people of English descent
Category:People educated at University College School
Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Category:Alumni of the Open University
Category:University of Pennsylvania alumni
Category:Fellows of Keble College, Oxford
Category:Academics of Gresham College
Category:British historians of mathematics
Category:20th-century British mathematicians
Category:21st-century British mathematicians