Charles Edward Miller Pearce (29 March 1940 – 8 June 2012) was a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

/Australian mathematician. At the time of his death on 8 June 2012 he was the (Sir Thomas)

Elder Professor of Mathematics Sir Thomas Elder, (5 August 1818 – 6 March 1897), was a Scottish-Australian pastoralist, highly successful businessman, philanthropist, politician, race-horse owner and breeder, and public figure. Amongst many other things, he is notable fo ...

at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

Early life

Pearce was born in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

. His early schooling was in Wellington and he was

dux ''Dux'' (; plural: ''ducēs'') is Latin for "leader" (from the noun ''dux, ducis'', "leader, general") and later for duke and its variant forms (doge, duce, etc.). During the Roman Republic and for the first centuries of the Roman Empire, ''dux' ...

Hutt Valley High School Hutt Valley High School is a State school, state coeducational secondary school located in central Lower Hutt, New Zealand. A total of students from Years 9 to 13 (ages 12 to 18) attend the school as of making the school one of the largest i ...

in 1957. He earned his Bachelor of Science (a double major in Applied and Pure Mathematics and a further double major in Physics and Mathematical Physics) and in 1962 he earned a Masters of Science with first class honours in Mathematics, all from

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well know ...

. The bachelor's degree was from the

University of New Zealand The University of New Zealand was New Zealand's sole degree-granting university from 1874 to 1961. It was a collegiate university embracing several constituent institutions at various locations around New Zealand. After it was dissolved in 196 ...

, as the constituent colleges of UNZ, of which Victoria University College was one of four, had proliferated into four autonomous Universities by the time Pearce completed his master's degree.

New Zealand origins

Pearce always remained proud of his

origins. Being descended from Maori people, he claimed his New Zealand ancestry was longer than almost all his peers from New Zealand. Pearce is descended from Alexander Gray, one of just five Scots who settled in New Zealand as part of the original and largely strong interest in Maoritanga and claimed ancestral connection to three waka (canoes) in the heke (migration): Aotea, Kurahaupo and Takatimu. His principal tribal connection was with the

Ngati Ruanui ''Ngati'' is a 1987 New Zealand feature film directed by Barry Barclay, written by Tama Poata and produced by John O'Shea. Production ''Ngati'' is of historical and cultural significance in New Zealand as it is the first feature film written an ...

, based in the southern

Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth Dist ...

Life and career

In 1963 Pearce left New Zealand for doctoral study at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

(ANU) in

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

, under the supervision of

Pat Moran Patrick Joseph Moran (February 7, 1876 – March 7, 1924) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He was a catcher in Major League Baseball from 1901 to 1914. The year after his retirement, he became a manager, and he led two t ...

. Thereafter followed short stints (1 to 3 years) as lecturer at: ANU;

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

(visiting Professor); Université de Rennes 1, France; and

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

(1966–68). He was appointed to the

in 1968 and remained there for the ensuing years, having been promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1971, Reader in 1982 and Professor in 2003. He was a leading figure in the Department of Applied Mathematics there, being appointed in 2005 to the Elder Chair of Mathematics. While at ANU, he met and married Frances (née O'Connor), and they brought up their two daughters, Emma and Ann, in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

. Charles died in a motor vehicle accident near Fox Glacier on the NZ South Island on 8 June 2012.

Mathematical work

He is known for probabilistic and statistical modelling. Pearce published prolifically in the area of probabilistic and statistical modelling and analysis, with strong contributions being made in both theory and practice. His book with Dragomir addresses the fine points of the

Hermite–Hadamard inequality In mathematics, the Hermite–Hadamard inequality, named after Charles Hermite and Jacques Hadamard and sometimes also called Hadamard's inequality, states that if a function ƒ : 'a'', ''b''nbsp;→ R is convex function, c ...

and is published by Kluwer Academic Press. His applied interests included

queuing theory Queueing theory is the mathematical study of waiting lines, or queues. A queueing model is constructed so that queue lengths and waiting time can be predicted. Queueing theory is generally considered a branch of operations research because the ...

road traffic Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other Public conveyance, conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the roa ...

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

, and

urban planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...

. With former student Bill Henderson, who followed him from Sheffield to Adelaide, he helped establish the successful Teletraffic Centre in the

. Publications are numerous and include three books, 23 book chapters, and over 300 research articles. With the formation of the Division of Applied Mathematics of the Australian Mathematical society, Pearce soon emerged as a key figure. The most enduring significant role was as Chief Editor of their Applied Mathematics Journal, now called The ANZIAM Journal of Applied Mathematics. The formation of

ANZIAM The Australian Mathematical Society (AustMS) was founded in 1956 and is the national society of the mathematics profession in Australia. One of the Society's listed purposes is to promote the cause of mathematics in the community by representing t ...

in 1993 was close to Pearce's heart, as it encapsulated the union he espoused of joint activity in Applied Mathematics involving both Australia and New Zealand. He was a strong worker for ANZIAM and it was fitting that this, along with his outstanding research work, was recognised by the award of the

ANZIAM Medal The Australian Mathematical Society (AustMS) was founded in 1956 and is the national society of the mathematics profession in Australia. One of the Society's listed purposes is to promote the cause of mathematics in the community by representing t ...

in 2001. Pearce was elected as a Fellow of the

New Zealand Mathematical Society The New Zealand Mathematical Society is a New Zealand based learned society of mathematicians. It is listed by the Royal Society of New Zealand as the affiliate organisation responsible for mathematics research, and by the International Mathematical ...

in 2003 and was awarded the

ASOR The asor ( he, עָשׂוֹר ''ʿasor''; from עשר ''eśer'', meaning "ten") was a musical instrument "of ten strings" mentioned in the Bible. There is little agreement on what sort of instrument it was or to what instruments it had similaritie ...

Ren Potts Award in 2007.ASOR Ren Potts Award
December 2007, Australian Society for Operations Research

Books by Pearce

* Charles E. M. Pearce and F. M. Pearce,
Oceanic Migration: Paths, Sequence, Timing and Range of Prehistoric Migration in the Pacific and Indian Oceans
''

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

, 2010, . * Charles E. M. Pearce and Emma Hunt (Eds),
Optimization: Structure and Applications
''

, 2009. * Mark D. McDonnell,

Nigel G. Stocks Nigel Geoffrey Stocks (born 6 September 1964) is an engineer and physicist, notable for discovering suprathreshold stochastic resonance (SSR) and its application to cochlear implant technology.Mark D. McDonnell, Nigel G. Stocks, Charles E. M. Pe ...

, Charles E. M. Pearce, and

Derek Abbott Derek Abbott (born 3 May 1960) is a British-Australian physicist and electronic engineer. He was born in South Kensington, London, UK. From 1969 to 1971, he was a boarder at Copthorne Preparatory School, Sussex. From 1971 to 1978, he attended ...

, ''

Stochastic Resonance Stochastic resonance (SR) is a phenomenon in which a signal that is normally too weak to be detected by a sensor, can be boosted by adding white noise to the signal, which contains a wide spectrum of frequencies. The frequencies in the white no ...

,''

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

, 2008, . * Sever S. Dragomir and Charles E. M. Pearce,
Selected Topics on Hermite-Hadamard Inequalities and Applications
'' RGMIA Monographs, Victoria University, 2000.

References

External links

Charles Pearce's Scholar Google profile

Pearce's LinkedIn profile

MP3 recording of Pearce's Galileo lecture

Pearce's Trove profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pearce, Charles E.M. 1940 births 2012 deaths 20th-century New Zealand mathematicians People from Wellington City Victoria University of Wellington alumni Australian National University alumni Academic staff of the University of Adelaide Probability theorists University of New Zealand alumni New Zealand emigrants to Australia 20th-century Australian mathematicians 21st-century Australian mathematicians