Ronald Brown

Ronald Brown was born in 1935. He did undergraduate and postgraduate

work at Oxford, where he was a student of J.H.C. Whitehead, from

whom he acquired many attitudes to mathematics. His first position

as lecturer was at Liverpool University, 1959-64; then Hull

University as Senior Lecturer and Reader, 1964-1970; then Professor

at Bangor University, as it is now named.

The first edition of `Topology and Groupoids' was published in 1968

as `Elements of Modern Topology' by McGraw Hill. Writing this book

set a research line continuing till now, namely the investigation in

mathematics of groupoids as a generalisation of groups, allowing a

more flexible approach to symmetry and also new structures in higher

dimensions. More on this can be found on the author's web site

www.bangor.ac.uk/r.brown , which also has lots of comments on

teaching and popularisation.

Ronald Brown has been very fortunate in his many collaborators, and

also in a collaboration with the sculptor John Robinson. See

www.popmath.org.uk .