It’s not my thing to repeat posts, and I don’t do InstaTicker, or whatever is the current social medium sinkhole. But it is seemingly a good time to humbly remind readers of this post, on the mathematician Michael Deakin. I had promised then to write about Mike in the “future”, but the future came quicker than I anticipated. I still plan to write more on Mike soon (for some value of “soon”).
My post from last year, a republishing of a 2014 Maths Masters column, begins
Younger readers may not previously have heard of Michael Deakin, but they should know of him. Mike lectured for many years at Monash University and many (older) maths teachers would have been taught by him. More widely, Mike’s decades of tireless work on the magazine Function has had a profound influence on thousands of Australian teachers and students, including a young Maths Master.
Mike Deakin is worth remembering for the great man he was, and the great he did. I encourage readers to do so.
Function is a brilliant source of ideas and I can heartily also recommend Parabola from UNSW: https://www.parabola.unsw.edu.au/
The number of articles Deakin wrote or co-wrote is really quite impressive.
Yes, Function was great, and Deakin was great.
I recall Mike coming to Bendigo to give a nice talk on his book “Hypatia Of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr” – which is still in print.
“Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr”. Good addition to your school library.
Thanks very much, Terry. An earlier Function article by Deakin on Hypatia is here.
“The name of the number” by Michael Deakin. Another good addition to your school library.
This just showed up when I was looking to see if I could buy someone a copy of my Dad’s book. (The Name of the Number). I still remember overhearing him talking to Mum about his graduate students, about Function– his rather mysterious, personal Mathematics world. It’s so nice to know he was appreciated, I’ve only appreciated him more as I’ve got older– I find myself wondering at times what he would make of some of the excesses of our world 10 years after his death– he always identified with the phrase “I don’t suffer fools gladly” and whatever I’ve inherited from him sees a job lot of fools around. But you are all clearly his kind of people–so I just thought I’d say hello over the ether, and nice you still remember him 🙂
Gabrielle, it is a pleasure and an honour to have you stop by to say hello. I’m not sure I can convey how much respect I had for your father. Yeah, Burkard and I are Mike’s kind of people, except inasmuch as we are clowns and Mike was a gentleman and a scholar.
I only knew Mike in his last decade or so, when Monash maths was a basket case and Mike was one of the few glimmers of sanity. I don’t think you’re quite right: I think Mike had to suffer many fools. And, at least in my experience, he was always a gentleman in doing so. But certainly Mike didn’t pretend that fools were anything other. And if he didn’t go out of his way to annoy people, I don’t think he was ever fussed if he did. I believe Mike’s book on Hypatia annoyed a lot of people, and his 2010 paper on “Aboriginal mathematics” is still annoying the hell out of people. I can imagine Mike looking down, smiling quietly.
The Name of the Number is a remarkable book, and impossible to find. (It exists as a PDF on Russian sites, if that helps …). Mike gave a great talk on this stuff in the LunchMaths undergrad series that I organised. I remember, I corrected an obvious typo in Mike’s title for the talk, which, of course, turned out to not be a typo. He gently chided me and I learned my lesson.
I don’t miss much about Monash, but I really miss Mike Deakin.