Year of Award: 1980

Publication Information: The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 86, 1979, pp. 809-817

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About the Author: (from The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 86, (1979)) Desmond Fearnley-Sander’s M.Sc. thesis at the Australian National University was supervised, by R.E. Edwards. After two years postgraduate study at the University of Washington he left, undoctored, to take up an assistant-professorship at the California State College at San Bernardino. He lectured at the University of Western Australia for six years and took up his present post at the University of Tasmania in 1975. He has spent periods of sabbatical leave at Trinity College, Dublin, and at Edinburgh University. His main mathematical interests are linear algebra and its history, and the history of analysis, 1870-1930, and he is at present writing a history of linear algebra.