James H. Wilkinson
| Jim Wilkinson | |
|---|---|
| Born | James Hardy Wilkinson 27 September 1919 Strood, England |
| Died | 5 October 1986 (aged 67) Teddington, England |
| Nationality | English |
| Fields | Numerical Analysis |
| Institutions | National Physical Laboratory |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Known for | |
| Notable awards |
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James Hardy Wilkinson FRS (27 September 1919 – 5 October 1986) was a prominent figure in the field of numerical analysis, a field at the boundary of applied mathematics and computer science particularly useful to physics and engineering.
Born in Strood, England, he attended the Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School in Rochester. He studied the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated as Senior Wrangler.
Taking up war work in 1940, he began working on ballistics but transferred to the National Physical Laboratory in 1946, where he worked with Alan Turing on the ACE computer project. Later, Wilkinson's interests took him into the numerical analysis field, where he discovered many significant algorithms.
Wilkinson received the Turing Award in 1970 "for his research in numerical analysis to facilitate the use of the high-speed digital computer, having received special recognition for his work in computations in linear algebra and 'backward' error analysis." In the same year, he also gave the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) John von Neumann Lecture.
Wilkinson also received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1973.
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