Prof Hyman Levy (1889–1975) was a Scottish-Jewish philosopher,

Emeritus Professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

, mathematician, political activist and fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

.Staf
Hyman Levy

Gazetteer for Scotland The ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is a gazetteer covering the geography, history and people of Scotland. It was conceived in 1995 by Bruce Gittings of the University of Edinburgh and David Munro of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and cont ...

, Retrieved 10 February 2010

Life

The son of Minna Cohen and Marcus Levy, a picture-framer and occasional art dealer in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, Hyman was the third oldest of eight children. They lived at 70 Bristo Street in Edinburgh's South Side. He went to school at

George Heriot's School George Heriot's School is a Scottish independent primary and secondary day school on Lauriston Place in the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland. In the early 21st century, it has more than 1600 pupils, 155 teaching staff, and 80 non-teaching staff ...

Facsimile of th
Obituary of Levy Hyman
published in

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

reproduced by St Andrews University
/ref> a short distance from his family home and was the School Dux. He then Studied Mathematics at

Edinburgh University The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1582 ...

. With the aid of scholarships, he did further studies at

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 ...

and was able to go to Germany to study at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

. At the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he returned to Britain. In 1916 he joined the

Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...

. It is unclear if he saw active service but it inspired an interest in aerodynamics. Researching

aeronautics Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of air flight–capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. The British Royal Aeronautical Society identifies ...

at the National Physical Laboratory, Levy published papers and books on mathematical applications pertaining to aeronautics. He also wrote about

differential equations In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, an ...

and probability. After leaving the laboratory, he became a professor of mathematics at the Royal College of Science of

where he later served as the head of the department. At Imperial, he is believed to have greatly improved the department of mathematics, and in recognition to his contribution, he later became the dean of the Royal College of Science. In 1916 he was elected a Fellow of the

. His proposers were

Cargill Gilston Knott Cargill Gilston Knott FRS, FRSE LLD (30 June 1856 – 26 October 1922) was a Scottish physicist and mathematician who was a pioneer in seismological research. He spent his early career in Japan. He later became a Fellow of the Royal Society, ...

Edmund Taylor Whittaker Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker (24 October 1873 – 24 March 1956) was a British mathematician, physicist, and historian of science. Whittaker was a leading mathematical scholar of the early 20th-century who contributed widely to applied mathema ...

, James Robert Milne and George Alexander Carse. In 1918, he married Marion Aitken Fraser, despite the disapproval of his family. They had three children. Levy was in the Labour Party from 1920 to 1931, and then in 1931 he joined the

British Communist Party The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

. Despite his theoretical allegiance to the principles of communism, Levy became disappointed by the way the Russian communists treated Jews, and published on the topic, leading to his expulsion from the party in 1958. He died in

Wimbledon, London Wimbledon () is a district and town of Southwest London, England, southwest of the centre of London at Charing Cross; it is the main commercial centre of the London Borough of Merton. Wimbledon had a population of 68,187 in 2011 which includes ...

on 27 February 1975. Following Levy's paper "On Goldbach's Conjecture" from 1963, Lemoine's conjecture is incorrectly referred to by

MathWorld ''MathWorld'' is an online mathematics reference work, created and largely written by Eric W. Weisstein. It is sponsored by and licensed to Wolfram Research, Inc. and was partially funded by the National Science Foundation's National Science Dig ...

as "Levy's conjecture."

Publications

* ''Finite Difference Equations'', co-authored with F. Lessman; Pitman (Dec 1959), . * ''Aeronautics in Theory and Experiment'', co-authored with William Lewis Cowley; ASIN: B000WUT77A; republished by BiblioBazaar; . * ''Jews and the National Question'', Hillway Pub. Co., London; 1st Edition (1958); ASIN: B0007J87TA. * ''Aspects of Dialectical Materialism'', co-authored with Ralph Fox. John MacMurray et al.; Watts (1935), London; ASIN: B0037ZPVHC. * ''Literature for an age of science'', Methuen (1952); ASIN: B0000CIEER. * ''Social Thinking'', Cobbett (1945); ASIN: B0014KNTQW. * ''Elementary Statistics (Nelson's Aeroscience Manuals)'', Nelson (1945); ASIN: B001P8HX9C. * ''Elementary Statistics (Nelson's Aeroscience Manuals)'', Thomas Nelson (1945); ASIN: B00978213K. * ''Soviet Jews at war'', pamphlet, Russia Today Society (1943); ASIN: B00KBTLNDI. * ''Science: Curse Or Blessing?'', Watts & Co. (1940); ASIN: B0026OCT8O. * ''Elementary Mathematics'', Thomas Nelson & Sons (1942); ASIN: B0007DT7RC. * ''Modern Science – A Study of Physical Science in the World Today'', Hamish Hamilton (1939); ASIN: B00085G0RO. * ''Elementary Statistics'', Nelson (1959), London; ASIN: B000OUHSRO. * ''A Philosophy for a Modern Man''; Alfred A. Knopf (1938); ASIN: B0006DA3US. * ''Modern Engineering Theory & Practice'', co-authored with Bailey Levy; Odhams Press Ltd (1935); ASIN: B000R7AJPW. * ''Practical Mathematical Analysis ... With examples by the translator'', co-authored with Horst von Sanden; ASIN: B0017WK6S6. * ''The Universe of Science''; republished by Rupa and Co, New Delhi; .

Life

Publications

See also

References

Further reading