Talk:UK mathematician Nick Higham wins Fröhlich Prize

Sources

I was able to get a copy of the citation document that seems only to have been circulated so far to the School of maths. Also biographical details verified in Who's Who. I may be able to get a quote from HighamBilllion (talk) 14:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest?

Billion, you have stated that you are an agent of the School of Mathematics, University of Manchester. Do you have a conflict of interest with regards to Professor Higham? --SVTCobra 14:40, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Well possibly. I do work in the same department (but not group) which is how I came about the story. Maybe we should wait to see if anyone less connected can go over the article in case I have introduced any bias? Billlion (talk) 14:59, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I nixed the part that looked iffy, the irrelevant comment about the "vision directive". Nyarlathotep (talk) 00:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Remaining problems

There is a claim of Original Reporting for this article. This requires notes; please see WN:OR. Also, there is an extraordiarly lengthy quote which I have to guess comes from the off-line source that has been cited. Naturally, I cannot confirm this text, which is nearly half the article. Lastly, what is the point of listing the University of Manchester's 2015 goals as a source? --SVTCobra 01:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, notes to follow. I was not sure what to do with the offline source. How about I move the quote to here as part of the notes than paraphrase it. Partly the point was that this was the LMS saying positive things about him, which is slightly their POV eg "often surprising experts who thought the problem was already solved; proving theoretically that the new algorithm works; implementing it in software; and publishing a definitive paper on the subject that is a model of scholarship and clarity". The 2015 goals, the point here is that they are hiring lots of new people from outside who have one significant prizes as part of these goals, and so I felt it was interesting that they could "grow their own" as well. The link is to confirm that this is their plan! Billlion (talk) 08:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The long quote is the only issue I can see with this. I would suggest trimming it to just the first paragraph, moving the second paragraph to talk and summing it up in some reasonably non-technical way. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The template, {{Apasource}} may be used to cite a book or journal which is not available online. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:37, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I stripped the 2015 goals as unrelated. Nyarlathotep (talk) 15:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Original Reporting Notes

• Nick Higham's wife confirmed that he grew up and went to School and in Eccles, and was born in a hospital in Salford. Billlion (talk) 09:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
• I obtained the citation from the LMS, it has more detail than the press release. This is the section I quoted

Higham became well known in the numerical linear algebra community from the start of his career in the 1980s with his work on computing square roots of matrices and estimating matrix condition numbers. In these contributions he set a pattern which he has followed with great success and impact in subsequent years: identifying a fundamental computational problem; analysing the algorithms that have been proposed already for it; finding a key improvement that leads to a better algorithm, often surprising experts who thought the problem was already solved; proving theoretically that the new algorithm works; implementing it in software; and publishing a definitive paper on the subject that is a model of scholarship and clarity.

Other numerical linear algebra topics to which Higham has made major contributions include componentwise perturbation theory, computation of the polar decomposition and the matrix sign decomposition, the practical aspects of fast matrix multiplication, the solution of matrix nearness problems, the stability of Cholesky factorization, theory and algorithms for generalized and polynomial eigenvalue problems, and the solution of Vandermonde systems. In addition he has made major contributions to the subject of the theory and computation of functions of matrices, on which he has recently published a book that will define the field: Functions of Matrices: Theory and Computation.Billlion (talk) 09:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC)