Percy Alexander MacMahon
Percy A. MacMahon | |
---|---|
British Malta | |
Died | 25 December 1929 Bognor Regis, England | (aged 75)
Known for | MacMahon's master theorem |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Mathematics |
Signature | |
Percy Alexander MacMahon (26 September 1854 – 25 December 1929) was an English mathematician, especially noted in connection with the partitions of numbers and enumerative combinatorics.
Early life
Percy MacMahon was born in Malta to a British military family. His father was a colonel at the time, retired in the rank of the brigadier.[1] MacMahon attended the Proprietary School in Cheltenham. At the age of 14 he won a Junior Scholarship to Cheltenham College, which he attended as a day boy from 10 February 1868 until December 1870. At the age of 16 MacMahon was admitted to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and passed out after two years.
Military career
On 12 March 1873, MacMahon was posted to
This period of sick leave was one of the most significant occurrences in MacMahon's life. Had he remained in India he would undoubtedly have been caught up in
In January 1879 MacMahon was posted to the 9th Brigade in Dover, moving to Sheerness in 1880. In the same year he enrolled in the Advanced Class for Artillery Officers at Woolwich. This was a two-year course covering technical subjects and a foreign language. Successful completion of the course resulted in the award of the letters "p.a.c" (passed advanced class) after MacMahon's name in the Army List.
After he passed the Advanced Course and had been promoted to the rank of captain on 29 October 1881, MacMahon took up a post as instructor at the Royal Military Academy on 23 March 1882. Here he met Alfred George Greenhill, professor of mathematics at the Royal Artillery College. Joseph Larmor, in a letter to The Times published after MacMahon's death, wrote, 'The young Captain threw himself with indomitable zeal and insight into the great problems of the rising edifice of algebraic forms, as was being developed by Cayley, Sylvester and Salmon.’
In 1891 MacMahon took up a new post as military instructor in electricity at the Royal Artillery College, Woolwich. Some sources (e.g. his three obituarists) have said that this post was 'professor of physics', but this is not correct, as Greenhill held that post until his own retirement.
MacMahon retired from the military in 1898.
Mathematical career
MacMahon was elected a fellow of the
MacMahon is best known for his study of
MacMahon also did pioneering work in recreational mathematics and developed several successful
Tribute
A reviewer in "Science Progress in the Twentieth Century", writes:
- It is, I believe, a loss to England and to mathematics that Major MacMahon has not directed a great school of research; the gain to the youthful mathematicians of such a leader is obvious; they would have received an impetus which the printed page will only give to a few. Is it not possible also that the quality of work done in such circumstances may not, like mercy, be doubly blest? [..] it is impossible to resist the feeling that there are countries in which mathematical teaching is better organised than it is in England.[7]
Richard P. Stanley considers MacMahon as the most influential mathematician in enumerative combinatorics pre-1960.[8]
Portrayal in film
In the movie It would have been fascinating to be present at one of the battles of arithmetical wits at Trinity College, when MacMahon would regularly trounce Ramanujan by the display of superior ability for fast mental calculation (as reported by D. C. Spencer, who heard it from G. H. Hardy). The written accounts of the lives of these characters, however, omit any mention of this episode, since it clashes against our prejudices.[9]
See also
- Cairo pentagonal tiling, a tiling of the plane by pentagons also called "MacMahon's net"
Notes
- .
- .
- ^ MacMahon, Percy Alexander (1921). New mathematical pastimes. Gerstein - University of Toronto. Cambridge, University Press.
- ISBN 0-394-40822-5. Retrieved 2 January 2024.
- ^ Steckles, Katie (29 March 2012). "MacMahon Squares". The Aperiodical. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
- LCCN 66-26153. Retrieved 2 January 2024.
- ^ Review of Combinatory Analysis, in J. Murray, Science Progress in the Twentieth Century: A Quarterly Journal of Scientific Work & Thought, Vol. 10, No. 40 (April 1916), pp. 601–606.
- ^ Enumerative and Algebraic Combinatorics in the 1960’s and 1970’s, (17 June 2021)
- ^ a b Andrews, George E. (February 2016). "The Man Who Knew Infinity : A Report on the Movie". Notices of the AMS. 63 (2). American Mathematical Society.
References
As of 21 June 2010, this article is derived in whole or in part from freespace.virgin.net/p.garcia/. The copyright holder has licensed the content in a manner that permits reuse under
- Garcia, Paul (2006). Life and Work of Major Percy Alexander MacMahon (PhD thesis). Bibcode:2016arXiv160701321G.
External links
- PhD thesis by Dr Paul Garcia,"[1]"
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Percy Alexander MacMahon", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- P.A. MacMahon, Combinatory analysis, 2 vols, Cambridge University Press, 1915–16.
- Obituary Notices – Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 90, 373–378.
- MacMahon's Coloured Cubes – a puzzle with coloured cubes