Margaret Eva Rayner (21 August 1929 – 31 May 2019) was a British mathematician who became vice principal of St Hilda's College, Oxford and president of the

Mathematical Association The Mathematical Association is a professional society concerned with mathematics education in the UK. History It was founded in 1871 as the Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching and renamed to the Mathematical Association in ...

. She was known for her research on isoperimetric inequalities, her work in

mathematics education In contemporary education, mathematics education, known in Europe as the didactics or pedagogy of mathematics – is the practice of teaching, learning and carrying out scholarly research into the transfer of mathematical knowledge. Although re ...

, and her publications on the history of mathematics and of St Hilda's College.

Early life and education

Rayner was born on 21 August 1929 in

Tamworth, Staffordshire Tamworth (, ) is a market town and borough in Staffordshire, England, north-east of Birmingham. The town borders North Warwickshire to the east and north, Lichfield to the north, south-west and west. The town takes its name from the River T ...

; her parents were dairy farmers and most of her relatives were also farmers, but an aunt who was a local school headmistress encouraged her in her studies. After study at

The King's High School for Girls The King's High School (also called simply ''King's High'' or KHS) is an independent day school for girls on the Banbury Road, Warwick, England. One of its main feeder schools is Warwick Preparatory School, which takes girls from the ages of 3 ...

(graduating as prefect in 1947) she read mathematics at

Westfield College Westfield College was a small college situated in Hampstead, London, from 1882 to 1989. It was the first college to aim to educate women for University of London degrees from its opening. The college originally admitted only women as students and ...

with the plan of becoming a mathematics teacher, earned a first, and completed a master's degree there. On the advice of tutor Kathleen Chesney, she applied to be a tutor at St Hilda's College, and was appointed to St Hilda's in 1953, with a joint appointment to St Anne's College, Oxford. In 1960, she completed a doctorate (D.Phil.) at Oxford; her dissertation was ''Some problems in unsteady heat flow''. At this time she was named a Fellow of St Hilda's.

Later life and career

In the late 1960s and early 1970s she worked on isoperimetric inequalities with American mathematician Lawrence E. Payne, beginning with a 1965 research visit to the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

and

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, where Payne worked. Their work resulted in the Payne–Rayner inequality, a type of Reverse Hölder inequality for the

eigenvalue In linear algebra, an eigenvector () or characteristic vector of a linear transformation is a nonzero vector that changes at most by a scalar factor when that linear transformation is applied to it. The corresponding eigenvalue, often denoted ...

s of the Laplace operator. In 1980 she was a speaker at the Fourth International Congress on Mathematical Education in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

; her talk was entitled ''Is calculus essential?''. Her work in

also included being chief examiner for the

International Baccalaureate The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB D ...

, participating in the Secondary Examinations Council and School Examinations and Assessment Council, and working through the

, which she served as president in 1987. She also chaired the board of governors of what is now Oxford Brookes University. She became vice-principal of St Hilda's in 1981, stepping down in 1988. She retired in 1989. After her retirement, her interests shifted to history, and her publications in this period included a chapter on Oxford mathematics in a book on the

history of mathematics The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments ...

, and the book ''Centenary History of St. Hilda's College'' (1993). She died on 31 May 2019 in Oxford.

Recognition

Rayner was named a

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

in the

1990 Birthday Honours The Birthday Honours 1990 for the Commonwealth realms were announced on 15 June 1990, to celebrate the Queen's Birthday of 1990. The recipients of honours are displayed here as they were styled before their new honour, and arranged firstly by the ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rayner, Margaret 1929 births 2019 deaths People from Tamworth (district) British mathematicians British women mathematicians Alumni of Westfield College Fellows of St Hilda's College, Oxford Commanders of the Order of the British Empire