Ralph Duncan James

Ralph Duncan James (1909, Liverpool, England – 19 May 1979, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada) was a Canadian mathematician working on number theory and mathematical analysis.

Born in Liverpool, Ralph moved with his parents to Vancouver, British Columbia when he was young. After graduating from high school, Ralph attended University of British Columbia. After graduating, he continued in mathematics, writing a master’s thesis on Tangential Coordinates. Proceeding to University of Chicago, he studied under L. E. Dickson. He gained a Ph.D. with a dissertation Analytical Investigations of Waring's Theorem in 1932. He continued post-graduate study, first with E. T. Bell at California Institute of Technology, then in 1934 with G. H. Hardy at Cambridge University.

Ralph James was a professor of mathematics at University of California, Berkeley from 1934 to 1939. He was then called to University of Saskatchewan where he became Head of the mathematics department. In 1943 he began his long tenure at University of British Columbia, becoming Head of the department in 1948. James made contributions to the theory of the Perron integral and to solution of Goldbach's conjecture.