Robert Alexander Rankin

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Robert Rankin
Born(1915-10-27)27 October 1915
Garlieston, Scotland
Died27 January 2001(2001-01-27) (aged 85)
Glasgow, Scotland
Alma materClare College, Cambridge
AwardsSenior Whitehead Prize (1987)
De Morgan Medal (1998)
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge
University of Birmingham
University of Glasgow
Doctoral advisorG. H. Hardy and Albert Ingham
Doctoral studentsMichael P. Drazin

Robert Alexander Rankin

FRSE FRSAMD (27 October 1915 – 27 January 2001) was a Scottish mathematician who worked in analytic number theory
.

Life

Rankin was born in Garlieston in Wigtownshire the son of Rev Oliver Rankin (1885–1954), minister of Sorbie[1] and his wife, Olivia Theresa Shaw. His father took the name Oliver Shaw Rankin on marriage and became Professor of Old Testament Language, Literature and Theology in the University of Edinburgh.[2]

Rankin was educated at Fettes College then studied mathematics at Clare College, Cambridge, graduating in 1937. At Cambridge he was particularly influenced by J.E. Littlewood and A.E. Ingham.[1]

Rankin was elected a Fellow of Clare College in 1939, but his career was interrupted by the

Professor of Mathematics, Glasgow University, retiring in 1982.[1]

In 1954 he was elected a Fellow of the

James Norman Davidson and Robert Pollock Gillespie. He served as Vice President 1960 to 1963 and won the Society's Keith Prize for the period 1961–63.[2]

Rankin had a continuing interest in

prime numbers and in modular forms. In 1939 he developed what is now known as the Rankin–Selberg method. In 1977 Cambridge University Press published Rankin's Modular Forms and Functions. In his review, Marvin Knopp
wrote:

For, as much as any recent exposition of
modular functions, this book succeeds in getting near the research frontier, and in some instances even reaches it – no small feat in this theory. Only someone of Rankin's stature as a research mathematician and experience in the classroom could aspire to such an accomplishment in a self-contained work – beginning with first principles.[3]

In 1987 Rankin received the Senior Whitehead Prize from the London Mathematical Society.[4]

Rankin died in Glasgow on 27 January 2001.[1]

Family

In 1942 he married Mary Ferrier Llewellyn.[1]

See also

Books

  • An introduction to mathematical analysis, Pergamon Press 1963; Dover 2007.
  • The modular group and its subgroups, Madras, Ramanujan Institute, 1969.
  • Modular forms and functions, Cambridge University Press 1977

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Robert Rankin - Biography".
  2. ^
    ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  3. doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-1979-14696-2
    .
  4. ^ List of Prizewinners from the London Mathematical Society

External links

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