Ian R. Porteous
| Ian R. Porteous | |
|---|---|
| Born | 9 October 1930 |
| Died | 30 January 2011 (aged 80) |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | University of Liverpool |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Doctoral advisor |
W. V. D. Hodge Michael Atiyah |
| Doctoral students |
Alex Flegmann James Montaldi |
Ian Robertson Porteous (9 October 1930 – 30 January 2011) was a Scottish mathematician at the University of Liverpool and an educator on Merseyside. He is best known for three books on geometry and modern algebra. In Liverpool he and Peter Giblin are known for their registered charity Mathematical Education on Merseyside which promotes enthusiasm for mathematics through sponsorship of an annual competition.
Porteous was born on 9 October 1930. He was one of six children of Reverend Norman Walker Porteous (later a theologian and Old Testament academic), from Crossgates, Fife and May Hadwen Robertson of Kirkcaldy, Fife. He attended George Watson's College in Edinburgh, and the University of Edinburgh, obtaining his first mathematical degree in 1952. After a time in national service, he took up study at Trinity College, Cambridge. Porteous wrote his thesis Algebraic Geometry under W.V.D. Hodge and Michael Atiyah at University of Cambridge in 1961.
Porteous began teaching at the University of Liverpool as a lecturer in 1959, becoming senior lecturer in 1972. During a year (1961–62) at Columbia University in New York, Porteous was influenced by Serge Lang. He continued to do research on manifolds in differential geometry. In 1971 his article "The normal singularities of a submanifold" was published in Journal of Differential Geometry 5:543–64. It was concerned with the smooth embeddings of an m-manifold in Rn.
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