Ian Stewart, FRS (b. 1945), is a professor of mathematics at University of Warwick, United Kingdom. The Fellowship of the Royal Society was founded in 1660. ... 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... Euclid, detail from The School of Athens by Raphael. ... The University of Warwick is one of the leading universities in the United Kingdom. ...

Biography

Ian Stewart was born in 1945 in England. His father's position as a messenger at a bank afforded a modest lifestyle for the family, but not one that would normally be expected to lead to the lofty heights Stewart has achieved. While in school, however, in sixth form, Stewart came to the attention of the mathematics teacher. The teacher had Stewart sit mock A-level examinations without any preparation along with the seventh-form students; Stewart placed first in the examination. This teacher arranged for Stewart to be admitted to Cambridge on a scholarship to Churchill College, where he obtained a BA in Mathematics. Stewart then went to the University of Warwick for his PhD, on completion of which he was offered an academic position. He is now Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick. 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location (dark green) within the United Kingdom (light green), with the Republic of Ireland (blue) to its west Languages None official English de facto Capital None official London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked... Full name Churchill College Motto Forward Named after Sir Winston Churchill Previous names - Established 1966 Sister College(s) Trinity College Master Sir John Boyd Location Storeys Way Undergraduates 440 Postgraduates 210 Homepage Boatclub Churchill College Main Entrance Churchill College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of... The University of Warwick is one of the leading universities in the United Kingdom. ... PhD usually refers to the academic title Doctor of Philosophy PhD can also refer to the manga Phantasy Degree This is a disambiguation page — a list of pages that otherwise might share the same title. ...

Stewart has held visiting academic positions in Germany (1974), New Zealand (1976), and the USA (University of Connecticut 1977–78, University of Houston 1983-84). University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut, commonly known as UConn, is the State of Connecticuts land-grant university. ... The University of Houston, formerly University of Houston–University Park, is a comprehensive doctoral degree-granting university[1] located in Houston, Texas. ...

In 1995 Stewart received the Michael Faraday Medal and in 1997 he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. He was elected to the Royal Society in 2001. Michael Faraday Michael Faraday, FRS (September 22, 1791 – August 25, 1867) was a British chemist and physicist (who considered himself a natural philosopher) who contributed significantly to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The British Royal Institution Christmas Lectures have been held annually since 1825. ... The premises of the Royal Society in London (first four properties only). ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...

He has collaborated with Dr Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett on three "Science of Discworld" books. In 1999 Terry Pratchett made both Jack Cohen and Professor Ian Stewart "Honorary Wizards of the Unseen University" at the same ceremony at which the University of Warwick gave Terry Pratchett an honorary degree. Jack Cohen is a reproductive biologist at the University of Warwick, England. ... Terence David John Pratchett OBE is an English fantasy author (born April 28, 1948, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England), best known for his Discworld series. ... Terence David John Pratchett OBE is an English fantasy author (born April 28, 1948, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England), best known for his Discworld series. ... Jack Cohen is a reproductive biologist at the University of Warwick, England. ...

Stewart has published over 140 scientific papers.

Stewart married Avril in 1970. They met at a party at a house Avril was renting while she trained as a nurse. They have two sons.

Bibliography

Ian Stewart has published in many journals including Scientific American, New Scientist, and Nature. He has also authored or co-authored many books. Scientific American is a popular-science magazine, published monthly since August 28, 1845, making it the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. ... New Scientist cover - 18 December 2004 New Scientist is a weekly international science magazine covering recent developments in science and technology for a general English-speaking audience. ... First title page, November 4, 1869 Nature is one of the oldest and most reputable scientific journals, first published on 4 November 1869. ...

Criticism

While text books he's authored and co-authored are, in general, well structured and make more than occasional attempt at humour, they are riddled with an inordinate amount of typographical errors. ("Algebraic Number Theory and Fermat's Last Theorem" 3rd Ed., "Galois Theory" 3rd Ed.)

Books authored or co-authored by Ian Stewart

• Another Fine Math You've Got Me Into
• Concepts of Modern Mathematics
• Does God Play Dice? The New Mathematics of Chaos
• Game, Set and Math
• Fearful Symmetry
• Figments of Reality, with Jack Cohen
• Flatterland, ISBN 0738204420, Perseus Books Group, April 2001. (See Flatland)
• From Here to Infinity, first published as The Problems of Mathematics
• Life's Other Secret
• Math Hysteria, ISBN 0198613369, Oxford University Press, June 2004
• Nature's Numbers
• The Collapse of Chaos, with Jack Cohen
• The Magical Maze
• The Problems of Mathematics
• The Science of Discworld, with Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett
• The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, with Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett
• The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch, with Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett
• What is Mathematics? – originally by Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins, second edition by Ian Stewart
• Wheelers, with Jack Cohen (fiction)
• Heaven, with Jack Cohen, ISBN 0446529834, Aspect, May 2004
• Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life, with Jack Cohen. Second edition published as What Does a Martian Look Like? The Science of Extraterrestrial Life
• Letters to a Young Mathematician, ISBN 0465082319, Basic Books, May 2006
• Algebraic number theory and Fermat's last theorem 3rd Edition, I. Stewart, D Tall. A. K. Peters (2002) ISBN 1-56881-119-5
• Galois Theory 3rd Edition, Chapman and Hall (2000) ISBN 1-58488-393-6

Concepts of Modern Mathematics is a 1975 book by mathematician and science popularizer Ian Stewart about recent developments in mathematics. ... Jack Cohen is a reproductive biologist at the University of Warwick, England. ... Flatterland is a 2001 book by mathematician and science popularizer Ian Stewart about non-Euclidean geometry. ... The cover to Flatland, 6th Edition. ... Jack Cohen is a reproductive biologist at the University of Warwick, England. ... The Magical Maze by Ian Stewart is an intriguing read in which the reader is lead through a cleverly constructed series of events enthralled around mathematics in its many forms. ... The Science of Discworld is a 1999 book written by novelist Terry Pratchett and popular science writers Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. ... Jack Cohen is a reproductive biologist at the University of Warwick, England. ... Terence David John Pratchett OBE is an English fantasy author (born April 28, 1948, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England), best known for his Discworld series. ... The Science of Discworld II: The Globe (ISBN 0091888050) is a 2002 book written by novelist Terry Pratchett and popular science writers Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. ... Jack Cohen is a reproductive biologist at the University of Warwick, England. ... Terence David John Pratchett OBE is an English fantasy author (born April 28, 1948, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England), best known for his Discworld series. ... Jack Cohen is a reproductive biologist at the University of Warwick, England. ... Terence David John Pratchett OBE is an English fantasy author (born April 28, 1948, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England), best known for his Discworld series. ... Richard Courant (born January 8, 1888 at Lublinitz, today Poland, died January 27, 1972 at New York/USA) was a German and American mathematician. ... Herbert Ellis Robbins (1922 - 2001) was a mathematician and statistician who did research in topology, measure theory, statistics, and a variety of other fields. ... Jack Cohen is a reproductive biologist at the University of Warwick, England. ... Heaven is a science fiction novel written by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. ... Jack Cohen is a reproductive biologist at the University of Warwick, England. ... Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life (second edition publised as What Does a Martian Look Like? The Science of Extraterrestrial Life) is a book about xenobiology by biologist Jack Cohen and mathematician Ian Stewart. ... Jack Cohen is a reproductive biologist at the University of Warwick, England. ...

Select quotations

• From What Does a Martian Look Like? The Science of Extraterrestrial Life

"[S]cience is the best defence against believing what we want to."

• From Does God Play Dice? The New Mathematics of Chaos on the concept of fungibility and how it applies to science:

"Lawyers have a concept known as 'Fungibility'. Things are fungible if substituting one for another has no legal implications. For example, cans of baked beans with the same manufacturer and the same nominal weight are fungible: you have no legal complaint if the shop substitutes a different can when the assistant notices that the one you've just bought is dented. The fact that the new can contains 1,346 beans, whereas the old one contained 1,347, is legally irrelevant.

That's what `take as given' means, too. Explanations that climb the reductionist hierarchy are cascades of fungibilities. Such explanations are comprehensible, and thus convincing, only because each stage in the story relies only upon particular simple features of the previous stage. The complicated details a level or two down do not need to be carried upwards indefinitely. Such features are intellectual resting-points in the chain of logic. Examples include the observation that atoms can be assembled into many complex structures, making molecules possible, and the complicated but elegant geometry of the DNA double helix that permits the `encoding' of complex `instructions' for making organisms. The story can then continue with the computational abilities of DNA coding, onward and upward to goats, without getting enmeshed in the quantum wave functions of amino acids.

What we tend to forget, when told a story with this structure, is that it could have had many different beginnings. Anything that lets us start from the molecular level would have done just as well. A totally different subatomic theory would be an equally valid starting-point for the story, provided it led to the same general feature of a replicable molecule. Subatomic particle theory is fungible when viewed from the level of goats. It has to be, or else we would never be able to keep a goat without first doing a Ph.D. in subatomic physics."

The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. ... Reductionism in philosophy describes a number of related, contentious theories that hold, very roughly, that the nature of complex things can always be reduced to (explained by) simpler or more fundamental things. ... The general structure of a section of DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid —usually in the form of a double helix— that contains the genetic instructions specifying the biological development of all cellular forms of life, and most viruses. ... This article discusses the concept of a wavefunction as it relates to quantum mechanics. ... In chemistry, an amino acid is any molecule that contains both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. ... Helium atom (not to scale) Showing two protons (red), two neutrons (green) and a probability cloud (gray) of two electrons (yellow). ... Physics is the Science of Nature The word Physics comes from the Greek, φύσις (physis) which means nature (or from its adjective form φυσικός (physikos) meaning natural) The deepest visible-light image of the universe, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. ...

External links

• Ian Stewart's personal home page
• Professor Ian Stewart, FRS
• Michael Faraday prize winners 2004–1986
• Directory of Fellows of the Royal Society: Ian Stewart
• Ian Stewart Profile
• What does a Martian look like? Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart set out to find the answers
• Ian Stewart on space exploration by NASA
• Ian Stewart on Minesweeper one of the Millennium mathematics problems
• Press release about Terry Pratchett "Wizard Making" of Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart at the University of Warwick
• Direct link to Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart "Wizard Making" picture
• Interview with Ian Stewart on the Science of Discworld series
• Galois Theory Corrections