Professor Ernest Oliver (Ernie) Tuck was an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Au ...

applied mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History One ...

, notable for his sustained work in

ship A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...

hydrodynamics In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) and ...

, and for Tuck's incompressibility function.M.V. Berry and P. Shukla, "Tuck's incompressibility function: statistics for zeta zeros and eigenvalues", Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 41 (2008) 385202

Early life and education

Tuck was born on 1 June 1939 in Adelaide, South Australia. He studied Applied Mathematics for his undergraduate degree at the University of Adelaide, where his principal mentor was Professor R. B. Potts. In 1960, he studied with

Fritz Ursell Fritz Joseph Ursell FRS (28 April 1923 – 11 May 2012) was a British mathematician noted for his contributions to fluid mechanics, especially in the area of wave-structure interactions. He held the Beyer Chair of Applied Mathematics at the Univ ...

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

for his PhD. His PhD thesis was on the application of

slender-body theory In fluid dynamics and electrostatics, slender-body theory is a methodology that can be used to take advantage of the slenderness of a body to obtain an approximation to a field surrounding it and/or the net effect of the field on the body. Principal ...

to ships. In it, he made a revolutionary approach of using matched asymptotic expansions in order to predict the wave resistance of a slender ship.

Career

In 1963 Tuck went to the United States to work with Francis Ogilvie and

John Nicholas Newman John Nicholas "Nick" Newman (born 10 March 1935) is an American naval architect noted for his contributions to marine hydrodynamics. Together with David Evans, he initiated the ''International Workshop on Water Waves and Floating Bodies''. He is ...

at the

David Taylor Model Basin The David Taylor Model Basin (DTMB) is one of the largest ship model basins—test facilities for the development of ship design—in the world. DTMB is a field activity of the Carderock Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Hist ...

, and subsequently with Ted Wu at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

. He worked on topics related to ship hydrodynamics,

acoustics Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...

, bio-fluid mechanics, and

numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of ...

. Tuck returned to Adelaide University in 1968 as a

Reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

in Applied Mathematics, and was subsequently appointed 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 ...

. From 1984 to 1992 he served as Editor of Series B (Applied Mathematics) of the Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society. In 1992 he established TeXAdel, an organization responsible for automating the production of the AMS journals. He served as president of the IUTAM Congress in 2008. He has been a

visiting professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

at Caltech,

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

the University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, and

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

. Apart from applied mathematics, in his later years he also worked on problems in

pure mathematics Pure mathematics is the study of mathematical concepts independently of any application outside mathematics. These concepts may originate in real-world concerns, and the results obtained may later turn out to be useful for practical applications, ...

related to

Riemann hypothesis In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis is the conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part . Many consider it to be the most important unsolved problem in ...

and properties of the

zeta function In mathematics, a zeta function is (usually) a function analogous to the original example, the Riemann zeta function : \zeta(s) = \sum_^\infty \frac 1 . Zeta functions include: * Airy zeta function, related to the zeros of the Airy function * A ...

Summary

*1939 Born: 1 June 1939 Adelaide, South Australia, Australia *1960

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 ...

Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours in Mathematics *1963 D Phil (Cambridge) Dissertation: "The steady motion of a slender ship" *1959 Awarded the Sir John Gellibrand Scholarship *1988 Elected as

Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science The Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science is made up of about 500 Australian scientists. Scientists judged by their peers to have made an exceptional contribution to knowledge in their field may be elected to Fellowship of the Academy. ...

*1990 Awarded the George Weinblum Lectureship *1995 Elected as Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering *1999 Awarded the

Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal The Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal is awarded at most every two years by the Australian Academy of Science to a mathematician or physicist for his or her outstanding research accomplishments.

Publications

He published over 180 papers covering a wide range of topics in: *

, *

aerodynamics Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dyn ...

, *

hydraulics Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counter ...

, * bio-fluid dynamics, * and games theory.

Personal

Survived by wife Helen (née Wood), two sons Warren and Geoff, and their grandchildren. He and his wife shared a strong interest in

backgammon Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...

, and other games of chance.

References

External links

Home Page at University of Adelaide
at the School of Mathematical Sciences of the University of Adelaide
"Ernest Oliver Tuck"
Biography at the IWWWFB website {{DEFAULTSORT:Tuck, Ernest Oliver 20th-century Australian mathematicians Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Fluid dynamicists University of Adelaide alumni University of Adelaide faculty 1939 births 2009 deaths