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Max Newman
Maxwell Herman Alexander Newman (7 February 1897 – 22 February 1984), generally known as Max Newman, was a British mathematician and codebreaker. His work in World War II led to the construction of Colossus, the world's first operational, programmable electronic computer, and he established the Royal Society Computing Machine Laboratory at the University of Manchester, which produced the world's first working, stored-program electronic computer in 1948, the Manchester Baby.
Newman was born Maxwell Herman Alexander Neumann in Chelsea, London, England, to a Jewish family, on 7 February 1897. His father was Herman Alexander Neumann, originally from the German city of Bromberg (now in Poland), who had emigrated with his family to London at the age of 15. Herman worked as a secretary in a company, and married Sarah Ann Pike, an Irish schoolteacher, in 1896.
The family moved to Dulwich in 1903, and Newman attended Goodrich Road school, then City of London School from 1908. At school, he excelled in classics and in mathematics. He played chess and the piano well.
Newman won a scholarship to study mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge in 1915, and in 1916 gained a First in Part I of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos.
Newman's studies were interrupted by World War I. His father was interned as an enemy alien after the start of the war in 1914, and upon his release he returned to Germany. In 1916, Herman changed his name by deed poll to the anglicised "Newman" and Sarah did likewise in 1920. In January 1917, Newman took up a teaching post at Archbishop Holgate's Grammar School in York, leaving in April 1918. He spent some months in the Royal Army Pay Corps, and then taught at Chigwell School for six months in 1919 before returning to Cambridge. He was called up for military service in February 1918, but claimed conscientious objection due to his beliefs and his father's country of origin, and thereby avoided any direct role in the fighting.
Newman resumed his interrupted studies in October 1919, and graduated in 1921 as a Wrangler (equivalent to a First) in Part II of the Mathematical Tripos, and gained distinction in Schedule B (the equivalent of Part III). His dissertation considered the use of "symbolic machines" in physics, foreshadowing his later interest in computing machines.
On 5 November 1923, Newman was elected a Fellow of St John's. He worked on the foundations of combinatorial topology, and proposed that a notion of equivalence be defined using only three elementary "moves". Newman's definition avoided difficulties that had arisen from previous definitions of the concept. Publishing over twenty papers established his reputation as an "expert in modern topology". Newman wrote Elements of the topology of plane sets of points, a work on general topology and undergraduate text. He also published papers on mathematical logic, and solved a special case of Hilbert's fifth problem.
He was appointed a lecturer in mathematics at Cambridge in 1927. His 1935 lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics and Gödel's theorem inspired Alan Turing to embark on his work on the Entscheidungsproblem (decision problem) that had been posed by Hilbert and Ackermann in 1928. Turing's solution involved proposing a hypothetical programmable computing machine. In spring 1936, Newman was presented by Turing with a draft of "On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem". He realised the paper's importance and helped ensure swift publication. Newman subsequently arranged for Turing to visit Princeton where Alonzo Church was working on the same problem but using his Lambda calculus. During this period, Newman started to share Turing's dream of building a stored-program computing machine.
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Max Newman
Maxwell Herman Alexander Newman (7 February 1897 – 22 February 1984), generally known as Max Newman, was a British mathematician and codebreaker. His work in World War II led to the construction of Colossus, the world's first operational, programmable electronic computer, and he established the Royal Society Computing Machine Laboratory at the University of Manchester, which produced the world's first working, stored-program electronic computer in 1948, the Manchester Baby.
Newman was born Maxwell Herman Alexander Neumann in Chelsea, London, England, to a Jewish family, on 7 February 1897. His father was Herman Alexander Neumann, originally from the German city of Bromberg (now in Poland), who had emigrated with his family to London at the age of 15. Herman worked as a secretary in a company, and married Sarah Ann Pike, an Irish schoolteacher, in 1896.
The family moved to Dulwich in 1903, and Newman attended Goodrich Road school, then City of London School from 1908. At school, he excelled in classics and in mathematics. He played chess and the piano well.
Newman won a scholarship to study mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge in 1915, and in 1916 gained a First in Part I of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos.
Newman's studies were interrupted by World War I. His father was interned as an enemy alien after the start of the war in 1914, and upon his release he returned to Germany. In 1916, Herman changed his name by deed poll to the anglicised "Newman" and Sarah did likewise in 1920. In January 1917, Newman took up a teaching post at Archbishop Holgate's Grammar School in York, leaving in April 1918. He spent some months in the Royal Army Pay Corps, and then taught at Chigwell School for six months in 1919 before returning to Cambridge. He was called up for military service in February 1918, but claimed conscientious objection due to his beliefs and his father's country of origin, and thereby avoided any direct role in the fighting.
Newman resumed his interrupted studies in October 1919, and graduated in 1921 as a Wrangler (equivalent to a First) in Part II of the Mathematical Tripos, and gained distinction in Schedule B (the equivalent of Part III). His dissertation considered the use of "symbolic machines" in physics, foreshadowing his later interest in computing machines.
On 5 November 1923, Newman was elected a Fellow of St John's. He worked on the foundations of combinatorial topology, and proposed that a notion of equivalence be defined using only three elementary "moves". Newman's definition avoided difficulties that had arisen from previous definitions of the concept. Publishing over twenty papers established his reputation as an "expert in modern topology". Newman wrote Elements of the topology of plane sets of points, a work on general topology and undergraduate text. He also published papers on mathematical logic, and solved a special case of Hilbert's fifth problem.
He was appointed a lecturer in mathematics at Cambridge in 1927. His 1935 lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics and Gödel's theorem inspired Alan Turing to embark on his work on the Entscheidungsproblem (decision problem) that had been posed by Hilbert and Ackermann in 1928. Turing's solution involved proposing a hypothetical programmable computing machine. In spring 1936, Newman was presented by Turing with a draft of "On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem". He realised the paper's importance and helped ensure swift publication. Newman subsequently arranged for Turing to visit Princeton where Alonzo Church was working on the same problem but using his Lambda calculus. During this period, Newman started to share Turing's dream of building a stored-program computing machine.
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