Tristan Needham
{{short description|American mathematician}}
Tristan Needham is a British mathematician and professor of mathematics at the University of San Francisco, best known to the public for his books Visual Complex Analysis, and Visual Differential Geometry and Forms.
Education, career and publications
Tristan is the son of social anthropologist Rodney Needham of Oxford, England. He attended the Dragon School. Later Needham attended the University of Oxford and studied physics at Merton College, and then transferred to the Mathematical Institute where he studied under Roger Penrose. He obtained his D.Phil. in 1987 and in 1989 took up his post at University of San Francisco.[http://www.usfca.edu/facultydetails.aspx?id=4294969533 Faculty profile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120607222327/http://www.usfca.edu/facultydetails.aspx?id=4294969533 |date=2012-06-07 }} from University of San Francisco[https://web.archive.org/web/20150102045544/https://www.usfca.edu/about/history/changing-course/ University of San Francisco website – History of the Sciences: Changing Course.]
In 1993 he published A Visual Explanation of Jensen's inequality.{{Cite journal |last=Needham |first=Tristan |date=1993 |title=A Visual Explanation of Jensen's Inequality |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2324783 |journal=The American Mathematical Monthly |volume=100 |issue=8 |pages=768–771 |doi=10.2307/2324783|jstor=2324783 }} The following year he published The Geometry of Harmonic Functions, which won the Carl B. Allendoerfer Award for 1995.{{Cite journal |last=Needham |first=Tristan |date=1994 |title=The Geometry of Harmonic Functions |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0025570X.1994.11996195 |journal=Mathematics Magazine |language=en |volume=67 |issue=2 |pages=92–108 |doi=10.1080/0025570X.1994.11996195 |issn=0025-570X}}[http://www.maa.org/allendoerfer-award Allendoerfer Award] from Mathematics Association of America
Needham wrote the book Visual Complex Analysis, which has received positive reviews.
Frank A. Farris (1998) American Mathematical Monthly, 105(6):570: "Visual Complex Analysis will show you the field of complex analysis in a way you almost certainly have not seen it before". Though it is described as a "radical first course in complex analysis aimed at undergraduates", writing in Mathematical Reviews D.H. Armitage said that "the book will be appreciated most by those who already know some complex analysis."[http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/pdf/1446490.pdf Review of Visual Complex Analysis] from Mathematical Reviews In fact Douglas Hofstadter wrote "Needham's work of art with its hundreds and hundreds of beautiful figures á la Latta, brings complex analysis alive in an unprecedented manner".Preface page xvi of Chris Pritchard (2003) Changing Shape of Geometry, Cambridge University Press {{ISBN|0521531624}} Hofstadter had studied complex analysis at Stanford with Gordon Latta, and he recalled "Latta's amazingly precise and elegant blackboard diagrams". In 2001 a German language version, translated by Norbert Herrmann and Ina Paschen, was published by R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich.
In 2021, Needham published Visual Differential Geometry and Forms: A Mathematical Drama in Five Acts (Princeton University Press){{Cite book|last=Needham|first=Tristan|url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691203690/visual-differential-geometry-and-forms|title=Visual Differential Geometry and Forms: A Mathematical Drama in Five Acts|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2021|isbn=9780691203690 }}. (The original title was Visual Differential Geometry.) Much of this material was already developed in the writing of Visual Complex Analysis.
See also
Bibliography
- Needham, Tristan. Visual Complex Analysis. The Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, New York, 1997 {{ISBN|0-19-853447-7}}.{{Cite journal|last=Farris|first=Frank A.|date=1998-01-01|title=Review of Visual Complex Analysis|jstor=2589427|journal=The American Mathematical Monthly|volume=105|issue=6|pages=570–576|doi=10.2307/2589427}}{{Cite journal|last=Shiu|first=P.|date=1999-01-01|title=Review of Visual Complex Analysis|jstor=3618747|journal=The Mathematical Gazette|volume=83|issue=496|pages=182–183|doi=10.2307/3618747}}
- Needham, Tristan. Visual Differential Geometry and Forms: A Mathematical Drama in Five Acts. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2021 {{ISBN|9780691203706}}.{{cite web |url=https://old.maa.org/press/maa-reviews/visual-differential-geometry-and-forms |title=Book Review: Visual Differential Geometry and Forms (T. Needham) |last=Bultheel |first=Adhemar |date=2021-01-10 |website=MAA Publications |publisher=Mathematical Association of America (MAA) |access-date=2022-09-03}}https://www.math.colostate.edu/~clayton/research/papers/VDGF.pdf review by Clayton Shonkwilerhttps://euromathsoc.org/magazine/articles/110 review by Frank Morgan
Notes
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External links
- {{MathGenealogy|id=14164}}
- [http://usf.usfca.edu/vca/ Author website for the book Visual Complex Analysis]
- [https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691203706/visual-differential-geometry-and-forms Princeton University Press website for the book Visual Differential Geometry and Forms: A Mathematical Drama in Five Acts]
- [https://www.VDGF.space/ Author website (including Errata) for the book Visual Differential Geometry and Forms: A Mathematical Drama in Five Acts]
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Category:20th-century American mathematicians
Category:21st-century American mathematicians
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:Alumni of Merton College, Oxford
Category:People educated at The Dragon School