A. Mary Tropper

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Agnes Mary Tropper (née Barnett, 1917–2009) was a British mathematician, textbook author, and translator.

Early life and education[edit]

Agnes Mary Barnett was born in Sheffield in 1917, and grew up in London. She was educated at Christ's Hospital, a boarding school in Hertford, supported by a scholarship from the county of London. She read mathematics at Bedford College, London,[1] a school for the higher education of women in the University of London that later became part of Royal Holloway, University of London,[2] and earned first-class honours in 1939.[1] She also earned an education diploma from the London Institute of Education,[1] another school of the University of London that later merged into University College London as the UCL Institute of Education.[3]

In the early 1940s she studied part-time for a master's degree at Birkbeck College, while working as a teacher.[1] She completed a Ph.D. in 1953, through the University of London. Her doctoral dissertation, Infinite Matrices: A Study of Sequence Transformations and Reciprocals, was supervised by Richard G. Cooke.[4]

Teaching career and later life[edit]

Barnett taught at the Godolphin School in Salisbury from 1940 to 1942, and then in Harrow. In 1946, she became a lecturer at Queen Mary College. Soon after, she married another academic at the college, Austrian electrical engineer Hans Tropper, changed her name to his, and began raising a family (two daughters) with him.[1] One daughter, Anne Tropper (born 1954), later became a notable physicist.[5]

Despite being told that "to continue her career, her main priority must be the College",[1] she continued at Queen Mary, focusing primarily in teaching, administration, and textbook authorship rather than mathematics research.[1]

She died on 6 February 2009.[1]

Books[edit]

Tropper was the author of:

  • Linear Algebra / An Introduction to Linear Algebra (London: Nelson, 1969, 1981; New York: Elsevier, 1969)[6]
  • Matrix Theory for Electrical Engineers / Matrix Theory for Electrical Engineering Students (London: Harrap, 1962, 1966; Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1962; German translation, Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1964, 1975; French translation, Paris: Masson, 1965; Spanish translation, Madrid: Paraninfo, 1967)[7]

Her translations from German into English include:

  • Integral Equations (Guido Hoheisel; London: Nelson, 1967)[8]
  • Introduction to Modern Mathematics (Herbert Meschkowski; London: Harrap, 1968)[9]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Agnes Mary Trotter" (PDF), Newsletter of the London Mathematical Society, no. 382, p. 13, June 2009, retrieved 2024-05-11
  2. ^ "Bedford College Opens", Social work at Edinburgh University: Timeline, University of Edinburgh, retrieved 2024-05-11
  3. ^ The story of IOE, UCL Institute of Education, retrieved 2024-05-11
  4. ^ A. Mary Tropper at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  5. ^ Her daughter's names, Margaret and Anne, are listed in the LMS obituary. Anne's birth year is from her author biography in Pask, H.M.; Carman, R.J.; Hanna, D.C.; Tropper, A.C.; Mackechnie, C.J.; Barber, P.R.; Dawes, J.M. (April 1995), "Ytterbium-doped silica fiber lasers: versatile sources for the 1-1.2 μm region" (PDF), IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 1 (1): 2–13, doi:10.1109/2944.468377
  6. ^ Review of Linear Algebra: E. A. Maxwell, The Mathematical Gazette, doi:10.2307/3613811, JSTOR 3613811
  7. ^ Reviews of Matrix Theory for Electrical Engineers:
  8. ^ Review of Integral Equations: F. Smithies, The Mathematical Gazette, doi:10.2307/3614610, JSTOR 3614610
  9. ^ Review of Introduction to Modern Mathematics: R. H. Cobb, The Mathematical Gazette, doi:10.2307/3614982, JSTOR 3614982
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