Robin Gandy
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Robin Oliver Gandy (22 September 1919 - 20 November 1995) was a British mathematician and logician.
He was a friend, student, and associate of Alan Turing, having been supervised by Turing during his PhD at Cambridge University (graduated 1953), where they worked together.
Educated at Abbotsholme, Robin took two years of the Mathematical Tripos, at King’s College, Cambridge, before enlisting for military service in 1940. During World War II he became involved in work with Alan Turing, on a speech encipherment project at Hanslope Park, and became one of Turing's lifelong friends and associates. In 1946, he completed Part 3 of the Mathematical Tripos, then began studying for a PhD under Turing's supervision. He completed his thesis, On axiomatic systems in mathematics and theories in Physics, in 1952. He was a member of the Apostles.
Gandy held positions at the Universities of Leicester, Leeds, and Manchester. Gandy was a visiting associate professor at Stanford from 1966 to 1967, and held a similar position at UCLA in 1968. In 1969 he moved to Wolfson College, Oxford, where he became Reader in Mathematical Logic. One of the residential buildings of the college is now named in his honour.
He is best-known for his work in recursion theory. His contributions include the Spector-Gandy theorem, the Gandy Stage Comparison theorem, and the Gandy Selection Theorem.
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[edit] References
- Andrew Hodges (1983). Alan Turing: The Enigma. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-49207-1.
- (March 1996) "Notices". The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 2 (1): 121.
- Yiannis Moschovakis; Mike Yates (September 1996). "In Memoriam: Robin Oliver Gandy, 1919-1995". The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 2 (3): 367-370.
