S. Barry Cooper
S. Barry Cooper | |
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Born | Bognor Regis, West Sussex, England | 9 October 1943
Died | 26 October 2015 | (aged 72)
Nationality | United Kingdom |
Alma mater | Oxford University (Jesus College) |
Known for | Association CiE, Alan Turing Year |
Awards | Doctor honoris causa (Sofia University, 2011) |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | University of Leeds |
Thesis | Degrees of Unsolvability (1970) |
Doctoral advisor | Reuben Goodstein, C.E.M. Yates |
1st President of Association CiE | |
In office 2008–2015 | |
Succeeded by | Dag Normann |
S. Barry Cooper (9 October 1943 – 26 October 2015) was an English mathematician and computability theorist. He was a professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Leeds.
Biography
Cooper grew up in Bognor Regis and attended Chichester High School for Boys, during which time he played scrum-half for the under-15s England rugby team.[1]
Cooper graduated from Jesus College, Oxford in 1966, and in 1970 received his PhD from University of Leicester under the supervision of Reuben Goodstein and C.E.M. Yates, with a thesis entitled Degrees of Unsolvability. In the 1970s, he was also a leading figure in the Chile Solidarity Campaign, welcoming Chilean refugees to Leeds.
Cooper was appointed Lecturer in the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds in 1969, where he remained for the rest of his career. He was promoted to Reader in Mathematical Logic in 1991 and to Professor of Pure Mathematics in 1996. In 2011, he was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Sofia "St. Kliment Ohridski".
His book Computability Theory made the technical research area accessible to a new generation of students. He was a leading mover of the return to basic questions of the kind considered by Alan Turing, and of interdisciplinary developments related to computability. He was President of the Association Computability in Europe, and Chair of the Turing Centenary Advisory Committee (TCAC) which co-ordinated the Alan Turing Year. The book Alan Turing: His Work and Impact, edited by Cooper and Jan van Leeuwen, won the Association of American Publishers' R. R. Hawkins Award.
He was a keen long-distance runner, and was also interested in jazz and improvised music, founding Leeds Jazz and being involved in the Termite Club. Cooper died on 26 October 2015 after a short illness.[2]
Cooper was a member of the editorial board for The Rutherford Journal.[3]
Some books and papers
- S. B. Cooper, 2004. Computability Theory, Chapman & Hall/CRC. ISBN 1-58488-237-9
- S. B. Cooper; J. van Leeuwen (eds.), 2013. Alan Turing – His Work and Impact, New York: Elsevier, ISBN 978-0-123-86980-7
- S. B. Cooper, B. Löwe, A. Sorbi (eds.), 2008. New Computational Paradigms – Changing Conceptions of What is Computable, Springer. ISBN 978-1-58488-237-4
- Cooper, S. B.; Harrington, L.; Lachlan, A. H.; Lempp, S.; Soare, R. I. (1991). "The d.r.e. degrees are not dense". Annals of Pure and Applied Logic. 55 (2): 125–151. doi:10.1016/0168-0072(91)90005-7.
- Cooper, S. B. (2006). "Definability as hypercomputational effect" (PDF). Applied Mathematics and Computation. 178: 72–82. arXiv:0904.2874. doi:10.1016/j.amc.2005.09.072.
- Cooper, S. B. (2004). "The incomputable Alan Turing". Alan Mathison Turing 2004: A celebration of his life and achievements, Manchester University, 5 June 2004. ScienceOpen. doi:10.14236/ewic/TUR2004.2.
- Cooper, S. B.; Odifreddi, P. (2003). "Incomputability in Nature". In S. B. Cooper; S. S. Goncharov (eds.). Computability and Models: Perspectives East and West (PDF). Plenum Publishers, New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow. pp. 137–160.
- Cooper, S. B. (1999). "Clockwork or Turing U/universe?". In S. B. Cooper; J. K. Truss (eds.). Models and Computability (PDF). London Mathematical Society Lecture Notes Series 259, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne. pp. 63–116.
References
External links
- S. Barry Cooper homepage
- S. Barry Cooper's Mathematics Genealogy Page
- Computability in Europe homepage
- The Alan Turing Centenary homepage
- 1943 births
- 2015 deaths
- British logicians
- English logicians
- 20th-century British mathematicians
- 20th-century English mathematicians
- 21st-century British mathematicians
- 21st-century English mathematicians
- Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford
- Alumni of the University of Leicester
- Academics of the University of Leeds
- British philosophers
- English philosophers