John H. Coates

John Henry Coates Template:Post-nominals<ref name="royal">Template:Cite web</ref> (26 January 1945 – 9 May 2022) was an Australian mathematician who was the Sadleirian Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom from 1986 to 2012.<ref name="mathgene">Template:MathGenealogy</ref><ref name="mactutor">Template:MacTutor Biography</ref><ref name="emma">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Macfarlane interview">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="scopus">Template:Scopus</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Early life and education

Coates was born the son of J. H. Coates and B. L. Lee on 26 January 1945<ref name="ww">Template:Cite webTemplate:Subscription required</ref> and grew up in Possum Brush (near Taree) in New South Wales, Australia.<ref name="Singh 2017 p. 215">Template:Cite book</ref> Coates Road in Possum Brush is named after the family farm on which he grew up.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Before university he spent a summer working for BHP in Newcastle, New South Wales, though he was not successful in gaining a university scholarship with the company. Coates attended Australian National University on scholarship as one of the first undergraduates, from which he gained a BSc degree. He then moved to France, doing further study at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, before moving again, this time to England.<ref name="death" /><ref name="Macfarlane interview" />

Career

In England he did postgraduate research at the University of Cambridge, his doctoral dissertation being on p-adic analogues of Baker's method. In 1969, Coates was appointed assistant professor of mathematics at Harvard University in the United States, before moving again in 1972 to Stanford University where he became an associate professor.<ref name="death" />

In 1975, he returned to England, where he was made a fellow of Emmanuel College,<ref name="KIT">Template:Cite web</ref> and took up a lectureship. Here he supervised the PhD of Andrew Wiles, and together they proved a partial case of the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture for elliptic curves with complex multiplication.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 1977, Coates moved back to Australia, becoming a professor at the Australian National University,<ref name="KIT" /> where he had been an undergraduate. The following year, he moved back to France, taking up a professorship at the University of Paris XI at Orsay. In 1985, he returned to the École Normale Supérieure, this time as professor and director of mathematics.<ref name="death" />

From 1986 until his death, Coates worked in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics (DPMMS) of the University of Cambridge.<ref name="death" /> He was head of DPMMS from 1991 to 1997.<ref name="DPMMS">Template:Cite web</ref>

His research interests included Iwasawa theory, number theory and arithmetical algebraic geometry.<ref name="death" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

He served on the Mathematical Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2009.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards and honours

Coates was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1985,<ref name="Royal Society 2019">Template:Cite web</ref> and was President of the London Mathematical Society from 1988 to 1990.<ref name="Maths History 1945">Template:Cite web</ref> The latter organisation awarded him the Senior Whitehead Prize in 1997,<ref name="death" /> for "his fundamental research in number theory and for his many contributions to mathematical life both in the UK and internationally".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> His nomination for the Royal Society reads:

Personal life

Coates married Julie Turner in 1966, with whom he had three sons.<ref name="ww" /> He collected Japanese pottery and porcelain.<ref name="Macfarlane interview" /> He died on 9 May 2022.<ref name="death">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="DPMMS" />

External links

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