Talk:Max Newman

Jewish mathematician category

Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers, Jack Copeland ed, states that Newman's wife, Lyn, had children of "part-Jewish descent". This website adds that, "a longer (unpublished) version of this article describes the father of Max Newman as `a Jewish immigrant'", but I'm not sure we can use that as a reliable source.

I'm not convinced that it's particularly useful to use this category here. — Matt Crypto 14:00, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Structure

I've sketched out some info we'll likely want to cover based on William Newman's biography:

• Pre-war
  • Birth, parents etc
  • Schooling, Cambridge
  • WWI stuff
  • Research in topoogy, flawed proof of Poincare conjecture
  • Interactions with Turing
  • Marriage to Lyn
• Wartime
  • Family left for US (returned later)
  • Search for war work
  • Joined Tiltman's group on Tunny
  • Idea for Heath Robinson
  • Start of Newmanry
  • Colossus
  • Admin of Newmanry
• Post War
  • Move to Manchester, computing
  • Return to work on topology
  • Post retirement

— Matt Crypto 16:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

FRS bio

• J. F. Adams, "Newman, Maxwell Herman Alexander", volume 31, November 1985, pp. 436-452

First world war

I find the use of the term national service confusing (as it is usually associated with post 2nd World War in the UK). And the date for call-up (Feb 1918) - is that a typo? It seems to contradict this [1]. Can anybody clarify what Newman's status was when he was teaching at Archbishop Holgate's School? I can't somehow imagine it as somewhere the army would send someone. Southdevonian (talk) 10:43, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree that "national service" might be confusing. Could I suggest using the phrase "war service" piped to "Conscription in the United Kingdom" i.e. [[Conscription in the United Kingdom|war service]]" ?

As regards the date, Shaun Wylie and I. J. Good say in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography "He gained a first class in part one of the mathematical tripos in 1916, the year in which he changed his name to Newman by deed poll. Much of the next three years he spent in the army, returning to Cambridge in 1919." So it would seem "war service" is an entirely appropriate phrase. --TedColes (talk) 12:07, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. The date Feb 1918 is fine (it was wrong on the link I gave). The original letter can be seen here. [2] Normally, war service would be better than national service, but I can't find any evidence that he actually was on war service prior to 1918. The record of his employment at Archbishop Holgate's school (which can also be seen on the link above) doesn't say he was sent there by the military and says his reason for leaving is due to him joining the forces, which suggests he wasn't a member of the forces before. The first Conscription Act in 1916 [3] gave an exemption to people in certain classes of work, including teaching so I am wondering if that was why he left Cambridge and started teaching.Southdevonian (talk) 13:14, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

There was a Ministry of National Service in WW1: "The Department, later the Ministry, of National Service was set up during the First World War to deal with the problem of maintaining a sufficient labour force to operate vital industries"[4]. But I am still not convinced that Max Newman was sent to teach as war service so I have changed the wording to closer to what the source says - just that he took up a teaching post and nothing about why.Southdevonian (talk) 19:05, 2 July 2012 (UTC)