Allan Joseph Champneys Cunningham
Encyclopedia
The British mathematician
Allan Joseph Champneys Cunningham (Delhi
1842 – London
1928) started a military career with the East India Company
's Bengal (later Royal) Engineers. During 1871–1881, he was Instructor in Mathematics at the Thomason Civil Engineering College, Roorkee
. Upon returning to the United Kingdom
in 1881, he continued teaching at military institutes in Chatham, Dublin and Shorncliffe. He left the army in 1891.
He spent the rest of his life studying number theory
. He applied his expertise to finding factors
of large numbers of the form an ± bn, such as Mersenne numbers (
) and Fermat numbers (
) which have b = 1. His work is continued in the Cunningham project
.
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
Allan Joseph Champneys Cunningham (Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
1842 – London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
1928) started a military career with the East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
's Bengal (later Royal) Engineers. During 1871–1881, he was Instructor in Mathematics at the Thomason Civil Engineering College, Roorkee
Roorkee
Roorkee is a city and seat of a municipal council in Uttarakhand, in far northern India. It is located on the banks of the Ganges canal on the national highway between Delhi and Dehradun. Roorkee is known for Roorkee Cantonment, one of the country's oldest cantonments, and the headquarters of...
. Upon returning to the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1881, he continued teaching at military institutes in Chatham, Dublin and Shorncliffe. He left the army in 1891.
He spent the rest of his life studying number theory
Number theory
Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...
. He applied his expertise to finding factors
Divisor
In mathematics, a divisor of an integer n, also called a factor of n, is an integer which divides n without leaving a remainder.-Explanation:...
of large numbers of the form an ± bn, such as Mersenne numbers (
) and Fermat numbers () which have b = 1. His work is continued in the Cunningham projectCunningham project
The Cunningham project aims to find factors of large numbers of the formb^n \pm 1for b = 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12 and large exponents n. The project is named after Allan Joseph Champneys Cunningham, who published the first version of the table together with Herbert J. Woodall in 1925...
.
External links
- Number Theory Web, Allan Joseph Champneys Cunningham (based on the obituary by A.E. Western).