Albert Joseph McConnell (1903 – 1993) was an Irish mathematician and mathematical physicist whose career was entirely spent at

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

(TCD), where he also served as Provost. He was born in

Ballymena Ballymena ( ; from ga, an Baile Meánach , meaning 'the middle townland') is a town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is part of the Borough of Mid and East Antrim. The town is built on land given to the Adair family by King Charles I i ...

County Antrim County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population o ...

, and studied Mathematics and Philosophy at TCD, graduating BA in 1926. He carried out his postgraduate studies in the

Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome ( it, Sapienza – Università di Roma), also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, and formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a Public university, public research university l ...

under the direction of

Tullio Levi-Civita Tullio Levi-Civita, (, ; 29 March 1873 – 29 December 1941) was an Italian mathematician, most famous for his work on absolute differential calculus (tensor calculus) and its applications to the theory of relativity, but who also made significa ...

and was awarded his doctorate there in 1928. That same year, he was the official Irish delegate to the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

, where he gave an invited address on "The Torsion of Riemannian Space" Returning to Trinity, he was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy (Physics) and was elected Fellow in 1930. He specialized in

tensor calculus In mathematics, tensor calculus, tensor analysis, or Ricci calculus is an extension of vector calculus to tensor fields (tensors that may vary over a manifold, e.g. in spacetime). Developed by Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro and his student Tullio Levi ...

, and published the book ''Applications of the Absolute Differential Calculus'' in 1931. He later co-edited ''The Mathematical Papers of Sir William Rowan Hamilton: Volume 2, Dynamics'' (1940). He was appointed Provost in 1952 and served for 22 years until his retirement in 1974. During his tenure he reformed the structures of Trinity, allowing more junior academics hold offices such as Bursar, Senior Lecturer and Registrar. He also oversaw the reform allowing women to be elected as Fellows and Scholars of Trinity and to be entitled to reside on campus. Finally, he was the last Provost to be elected for life, his retirement was therefore voluntary and opened the way to the first election of a Provost to serve for a limited term of ten years, as is the case for all subsequent Provosts. On his retirement he was appointed to the

Council of State A Council of State is a governmental body in a country, or a subdivision of a country, with a function that varies by jurisdiction. It may be the formal name for the cabinet or it may refer to a non-executive advisory body associated with a head o ...

Books

* 1940 ''The Mathematical Papers of Sir William Rowan Hamilton: Volume 2, Dynamics'', Cambridge, (co-edited with A. W. Conway) * 1931 ''Applications of the Absolute Differential Calculus'', Blackie & Son, reprinted by Dover in 1947 ''as Applications of Tensor Analysis''

References

External links

*
Biography from Trinity College, DublinBiography from Dictionary of Irish Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:McConnell, Albert Joseph 1903 births 1993 deaths Academics of Trinity College Dublin Alumni of Trinity College Dublin 20th-century Irish mathematicians People from Ballymena Presidential appointees to the Council of State (Ireland) Provosts of Trinity College Dublin Sapienza University of Rome alumni