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Daniel Pedoe
Dan Pedoe (29 October 1910 – 27 October 1998)) was an English-born mathematician and geometer with a career spanning more than six decades.
Over his career, he authored approximately 50 research and expository papers in geometry. He also authored several books on mathematics and geometry, a few of which remained in print for decades and were translated into several languages, including the three-volume Methods of Algebraic Geometry, which he co-authored with W. V. D. Hodge, The Gentle Art of Mathematics, Circles: A Mathematical View, Geometry and the Visual Arts, and Japanese Temple Geometry Problems: San Gaku, which he co-authored with Hidetoshi Fukagawa).
Pedoe was born in London, on 29 October 1910, the youngest of thirteen children of Szmul Abramski, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who found himself in London in the 1890s: he had boarded a cattle boat not knowing whether it was bound for New York or London, so his final destination was one of blind chance. Pedoe's mother, Ryfka Raszka Pedowicz, was the only child of Wolf Pedowicz, a corn merchant and his wife, Sarah Haimnovna Pecheska from Łomża then in Congress Poland (that part of Poland then under Russian control). The family name requires some explanation. The father, Abramski, was one of the Kohanim, a priestly group, and once in Britain, he changed his surname to Cohen. At first, all thirteen children took the surname Cohen, but later, to avoid any potential antisemitism, some of the Cohen children changed their surname to Pedoe, a contraction of their mother's maiden name; this happened while Daniel was at school, aged 12.
He was the youngest child in a family of thirteen children and his childhood was spent in relative poverty in the East End of London, despite their father being a skilled cabinetmaker. He attended the Central Foundation Boys' School where he was first influenced in his love of geometry by the headmaster Norman M. Gibbins and a textbook by Godfrey and Siddons. While still at school, Pedoe published his first paper, The geometric interpretation of Cagnoli's equation: sin b sin c + cos b cos c cos A = sin B sin C – cos B cos C cos a; it appeared in the Mathematical Gazette in 1929. He was successful at the "ten plus" examination and subsequently won a Scholarship to study mathematics at University of Cambridge.
During his first three years at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a scholar, Pedoe was tutored in mathematics by Arthur Stanley Ramsey, the father of Frank P. Ramsey. He attended lectures by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell, although he was unimpressed by the teaching style of either great man. Geometry became his main interest and, advised by Henry Baker, he started work on his doctorate and published several papers.
In 1935, he attended the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he worked with Solomon Lefschetz.
After returning to England in 1936, Pedoe was appointed as an assistant lecturer of the mathematics department at the University College, Southampton. More of his papers were published and after(?) 1937, he was awarded his PhD on the strength of his thesis, The Exceptional Curves on an Algebraic Surface, which was based on Henry Baker's work on the Italian theory of algebraic surfaces; he was examined by W. V. D. Hodge and Baker at Cambridge.
In the late 1930s, Pedoe married Mary Tunstall, an English geographer and the couple had a daughter, Naomi, and identical twin sons, Dan and Hugh, born in December 1939.
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Daniel Pedoe
Dan Pedoe (29 October 1910 – 27 October 1998)) was an English-born mathematician and geometer with a career spanning more than six decades.
Over his career, he authored approximately 50 research and expository papers in geometry. He also authored several books on mathematics and geometry, a few of which remained in print for decades and were translated into several languages, including the three-volume Methods of Algebraic Geometry, which he co-authored with W. V. D. Hodge, The Gentle Art of Mathematics, Circles: A Mathematical View, Geometry and the Visual Arts, and Japanese Temple Geometry Problems: San Gaku, which he co-authored with Hidetoshi Fukagawa).
Pedoe was born in London, on 29 October 1910, the youngest of thirteen children of Szmul Abramski, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who found himself in London in the 1890s: he had boarded a cattle boat not knowing whether it was bound for New York or London, so his final destination was one of blind chance. Pedoe's mother, Ryfka Raszka Pedowicz, was the only child of Wolf Pedowicz, a corn merchant and his wife, Sarah Haimnovna Pecheska from Łomża then in Congress Poland (that part of Poland then under Russian control). The family name requires some explanation. The father, Abramski, was one of the Kohanim, a priestly group, and once in Britain, he changed his surname to Cohen. At first, all thirteen children took the surname Cohen, but later, to avoid any potential antisemitism, some of the Cohen children changed their surname to Pedoe, a contraction of their mother's maiden name; this happened while Daniel was at school, aged 12.
He was the youngest child in a family of thirteen children and his childhood was spent in relative poverty in the East End of London, despite their father being a skilled cabinetmaker. He attended the Central Foundation Boys' School where he was first influenced in his love of geometry by the headmaster Norman M. Gibbins and a textbook by Godfrey and Siddons. While still at school, Pedoe published his first paper, The geometric interpretation of Cagnoli's equation: sin b sin c + cos b cos c cos A = sin B sin C – cos B cos C cos a; it appeared in the Mathematical Gazette in 1929. He was successful at the "ten plus" examination and subsequently won a Scholarship to study mathematics at University of Cambridge.
During his first three years at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a scholar, Pedoe was tutored in mathematics by Arthur Stanley Ramsey, the father of Frank P. Ramsey. He attended lectures by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell, although he was unimpressed by the teaching style of either great man. Geometry became his main interest and, advised by Henry Baker, he started work on his doctorate and published several papers.
In 1935, he attended the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he worked with Solomon Lefschetz.
After returning to England in 1936, Pedoe was appointed as an assistant lecturer of the mathematics department at the University College, Southampton. More of his papers were published and after(?) 1937, he was awarded his PhD on the strength of his thesis, The Exceptional Curves on an Algebraic Surface, which was based on Henry Baker's work on the Italian theory of algebraic surfaces; he was examined by W. V. D. Hodge and Baker at Cambridge.
In the late 1930s, Pedoe married Mary Tunstall, an English geographer and the couple had a daughter, Naomi, and identical twin sons, Dan and Hugh, born in December 1939.
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