- Robert Alexander Rankin
Robert Alexander Rankin (
27 October 1915 inGarlieston ,Wigtownshire ,Scotland –27 January 2001 inGlasgow , Scotland)was a mathematician who worked inanalytic number theory .Rankin's father, the Revd Oliver Shaw Rankin, was a minister who later became Professor of Old Testament Language, Literature and Theology in the
University of Edinburgh .Rankin attendedFettes College and graduated fromClare College, Cambridge in 1937. In
Cambridge he was particularly influenced by J.E. Littlewood and A.E. Ingham.He was elected a fellow of Clare College in 1939 but his career was interrupted by the
Second World War during which he worked onrocketry research atFort Halstead . In 1945 he returned to Cambridge and then moved to theUniversity of Birmingham in 1951 as Mason professor of mathematics. In 1954 he becameProfessor of Mathematics, Glasgow University, retiring in 1982.In 1987 Rankin received the
Senior Whitehead Prize from theLondon Mathematical Society . [cite web
url = http://www.lms.ac.uk/activities/prizes_com/pastwinners.html#swhitehead
title = List of Prizewinners
author = London Mathematical Society
accessdate = 2007-07-08]He had a continuing interest in
Srinivasa Ramanujan , working initially withG.H. Hardy on Ramanujan's unpublished notes. His research interests lay in the distribution ofprime numbers and inmodular form s; he developed what is now known as theRankin-Selberg method in 1939.References
External links
*MathGenealogy |id=18539
*MacTutor Biography|id=Rankin
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