David William Boyd (born 17 September 1941) is a Canadian mathematician who does research on harmonic and classical analysis, inequalities related to geometry, number theory, and polynomial factorization,

sphere packing In geometry, a sphere packing is an arrangement of non-overlapping spheres within a containing space. The spheres considered are usually all of identical size, and the space is usually three-dimensional Euclidean space. However, sphere packing p ...

, number theory involving Diophantine approximation and Mahler's measure, and computer computations. Boyd received in 1963 his B.Sc. with Honours from

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning World ...

, then in 1964 his M.A. and in 1966 his Ph.D. from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

under Paul George Rooney with thesis ''The Hilbert transformation on rearrangement invariant Banach spaces''. Boyd became in 1966–67 an assistant professor at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...

, in 1967–70 an assistant professor and in 1970–71 an associate professor at the California Institute of Technology, and in 1971–74 an associate professor, in 1974–2007 a professor, and since 2007 a professor emeritus at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

. Boyd has done research on classical and harmonic analysis, including interpolation spaces, integral transforms, and potential theory, and research on inequalities involving geometry, number theory, polynomials, and applications to polynomial factorization. He has also worked, especially in the 1970s, on sphere packing, in particular, Apollonian packing and limit sets of Kleinian groups. Boyd has studied number theory, such as diophantine approximation, the Pisot and Salem numbers, Pisot sequences, Mahler’s measure, applications to symbolic dynamics, and special values of

L-function In mathematics, an ''L''-function is a meromorphic function on the complex plane, associated to one out of several categories of mathematical objects. An ''L''-series is a Dirichlet series, usually convergent on a half-plane, that may give ris ...

s and

polylogarithm In mathematics, the polylogarithm (also known as Jonquière's function, for Alfred Jonquière) is a special function of order and argument . Only for special values of does the polylogarithm reduce to an elementary function such as the natur ...

s. He is also interested in mathematical computation, including numerical analysis, symbolic computation, and computational number theory, and also geometric topology, including hyperbolic manifolds and computation of invariants. His doctoral students include

Peter Borwein Peter Benjamin Borwein (born St. Andrews, Scotland, May 10, 1953 – 23 August 2020) was a Canadian mathematician and a professor at Simon Fraser University. He is known as a co-author of the paper which presented the Bailey–Borwein–Plo ...

Awards and honours

*Killam Senior Research Fellowship, 1976–77 and 1981–82 *

Steacie Prize The Steacie Prize is a scientific prize awarded to a person of 40 years or younger who has made notable contributions to research in Canada. It was first awarded in 1964, to Jan Van Kranendonk, and it has since been given annually. The award is nam ...

, 1978 *

Coxeter–James Prize The Coxeter-James Prize is a mathematics award given by the Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) to recognize outstanding contributions to mathematics by young mathematicians in Canada. First presented in 1978, the prize is named after two renown ...

Canadian Mathematical Society The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) (french: Société mathématique du Canada) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research, outreach, scholarship and education in Canada. It serves the ...

, 1979 *Elected to Fellowship of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...

, 1980 * Jeffery–Williams Prize, Canadian Mathematical Society, 2001 *CRM–Fields Prize, Centre de Recherches Mathématiques & Fields Institute, 2005 *Elected to Fellowship of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

, 2013 *Inaugural fellow of the

, 2018

Editorships

*Associate editor, ''Canadian Journal of Mathematics'', 1981–1991 *Associate editor, ''Mathematics of Computation'', 1998 – 2007 *Associate editor, ''Contributions to Discrete Mathematics'', 2006–present

Selected works

*Mahler's measure and special values of L-functions, Experimental Mathematics, vol. 37, 1998, pp. 37–82 *Mahler's measure and invariants of hyperbolic manifolds, in M. A. Bennett (ed.) ''Number theory for the Millennium'', A. K. Peters 2000, pp. 127–143 *Mahler's measure, hyperbolic manifolds and the dilogarithm, Canadian Mathematical Society Notes, vol. 34, no. 2, 2002, 3–4, 26–28 (Jeffery Williams Lecture) *with F. Rodriguez Villegas: ''Mahler's measure and the dilogarithm'', part 1, Canadian J. Math., vol, 54, 2002, pp. 468–492

References

External links

HomepageLaudatio at the Fields Institute/CRM/PIMS Prize 2005 by Andrew Granville
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boyd, David William 1941 births Canadian mathematicians Carleton University alumni University of Toronto alumni University of British Columbia faculty Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the Canadian Mathematical Society Living people