Kenneth Falconer (mathematician)

Kenneth John Falconer FRSE (born 25 January 1952) is a British mathematician working in mathematical analysis and in particular on fractal geometry.[1] He is Regius Professor of Mathematics in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of St Andrews.[2]

Kenneth Falconer
Born (1952-01-25) 25 January 1952
Richmond, London
NationalityBritish
Alma materKingston Grammar School, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Known for
AwardsFRSE (1998)
Shephard Prize (2020)
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of St Andrews, Bristol University
ThesisProperties of Convex Sets and Functions Determined by Sectional Integrals (1979)
Doctoral advisorHallard Croft

Research

Falconer is known for his work on the mathematics of fractals and in particular sets and measures arising from iterated function systems, especially self-similar and self-affine sets. Closely related is his research on Hausdorff and other fractal dimensions. He formulated Falconer's conjecture on the dimension of distance sets and conceived the notion of a digital sundial.[1] In combinatorial geometry he established a lower bound of 5 for the chromatic number of the plane in the Lebesgue measurable case.

Education and career

Falconer was educated at Kingston Grammar School, Kingston upon Thames and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1974 and completed his PhD in 1979 under the supervision of Hallard Croft.[3]

He was a research fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge from 1977 to 1980 before moving to Bristol University. He was appointed Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews in 1993 and was head of the School of Mathematics and Statistics from 2001 to 2004. He served on the council of the London Mathematical Society from 2000 to 2009 including as publications secretary from 2006 to 2009.[1]

Recognition

Falconer was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1998.

In 2020 he was awarded the Shephard Prize of the London Mathematical Society.[4]

Personal life

Falconer was born 25 January 1952 at Bearsted Memorial Maternity Hospital outside Hampton Court Palace.[1]

His recreational interests include long-distance walking and hill walking. He was chair of the Long Distance Walkers Association from 2000 to 2003 and editor of their journal Strider from 1987 to 1992 and 2007–12.[5] In 2021 he was appointed a Vice President of the LDWA.[1][6] He has twice climbed all the Munros as well as all the Corbetts.[7]

References
  1. "Kenneth Falconer's homepage at St Andrews University".
  2. "Warrants Under the Royal Sign Manual: Regius Chair of Mathematics". The Gazette. 22 December 2017.
  3. Kenneth Falconer at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  4. "LMS Prize Winners 2020". London Mathematical Society. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
  5. "40th Anniversary issue". Strider. Long Distance Walkers Association. September 2012.
  6. "The Long Distance Walkers Association on Twitter". Retrieved 2 April 2021 – via Twitter.
  7. "Scottish Mountaineering Club, Munro Compleatists".

Selected publications
  • Falconer, Kenneth (1985). The Geometry of Fractal Sets. Cambridge University Press.
  • Croft, Hallard; Falconer, Kenneth; Guy, Richard (1991). Unsolved Problems in Geometry. Springer.
  • Falconer, Kenneth (1997). Techniques in Fractal Geometry. John Wiley.
  • Falconer, Kenneth (2013). Fractals: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
  • Falconer, Kenneth (2014). Fractal Geometry: Mathematical Foundations and Applications (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
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