Turnbull

Herbert Westren Turnbull

Born: 31 Aug 1885 in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, England
Died: 4 May 1961 in Grasmere, Westmoreland, England

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Turnbull taught at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge (1909), the University of Liverpool (1910), and the University of Hong Kong (1912). He then became master at St. Stephen's College in Hong Kong (1911-15) and warden of the University Hostel (1913-15). From 1919 to 1926 he was a fellow at St John's College, Oxford.

Turnbull was the Regius Professor of Mathematics in the United College of St Salvator and St Leonard at the University of St Andrews from 1921.

He was interested in algebra, particularly invariant theory building on work of Gordan and Clebsch.

He was also interested in the history of mathematics. His major works include The Theory of Determinants, Matrices, and Invariants (1928), The Great Mathematicians (1929), Theory of Equations (1939), The Mathematical Discoveries of Newton (1945), and An Introduction to the Theory of Canonical Matrices (1945), which was cowritten with Aitken.

References elsewhere in this archive:

Tell me about Turnbull's work on matrices and determinants

References:

  1. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica 
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JOC/EFR February 1996